The Critical Digital Infrastructures and Interfaces (CDII) research group scrutinises the underlying and unseen technologies and beliefs that drive digital experiences into our world. Our work investigates how these systems are designed, governed and impact society.
Underlying digital technologies we depend on increasingly mediate human interactions and our research interrogates the ethical, legal and societal implications. We address equitable design of data flows, sovereignty of personal information in markets and geopolitics, and the back-end ecological impact of emergent practices like generative AI. Why is it easier to believe that data is truth than data is oil?
Our nationally recognised experts explore the power dynamics implicit in technology development, aiming to empower users and promote equitable systems. Our work is focused through a twofold approach:
This work analyses the realities of ‘being digital’. It questions how our digital norms come to be, what puts them in motion and why.
This work generates new ways of seeing, thinking and knowing in digital life. It reconfigures what is normal in life amidst digital systems, making more equitable worlds.
When you study a PhD on digital infrastructures and interfaces at Deakin, you'll be supported by renowned researchers.
Hear CDII’s lead researchers on how digital technologies change our lives, and how we can shape the future of digital tech.
Our researchers deliver pioneering projects across the varied landscapes of digital infrastructures and interfaces and are led by:
Associate Professor Toija Cinque is Associate Professor in Communication (Digital Media). Her research focuses on problems and affordances of digital life, particularly on media developments of digitisation, datafication and platformisation (i.e. data-driven and algorithmically steered platforms) and their cultural, social and political implications.
Dr Luke Heemsbergen is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and Creative Arts. Luke's research seeks to understand how what mediates society shapes our potential and how we might reshape the things that mediate society to unlock new potential.
We create socially impactful technology research that supports industry professionals striving to build more secure, ethical and user-centric digital technologies.
We curated art from nationally renowned artists into Melbourne Design Week as a way to translate research on our possible futures into provocative public artwork that explored how digital infrastructures impact the ecology we are part of.
Chinese-speaking Australians consume news on WeChat. How this space is governed and who influences political communication there is being considered from the perspective of Chinese Australians and in line with concerns of the Australian Electoral Commission.
CDII brings together individuals and groups with similar research interests both inside and outside Deakin through annual workshops and symposia, bi-annual research events and monthly programs. Our approach ensures cross-pollination of diverse perspectives on digital infrastructures and interfaces, allowing us to build a collaborative and robust research culture.
Get in touch to learn more about how to work or study with CDII and keep up to date with our research. Email our group convenors:
Email Toija Cinque
+61 3 9251 7470
Email Luke Heemsbergen
+61 3 9246 8786
