Young Victorians to help shape safer social media environments in new VicHealth-funded research
Author ADM+S Centre
Date 17 June 2026
Young Victorians will help shape safer social media environments through new research funded by a 2026 VicHealth Impact Research Grant.
The project Digital Capabilities for Youth to Counter Harmful Industry Social Media Ads will generate new knowledge about how young Victorians understand the capabilities needed to safely navigate online environments where harmful advertising might be present, as well as their proposals for developing safer collective digital environments via regulation and platform design.
The research led by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S) at Swinburne University, the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland, will co-design and trial educational modules and advocacy materials on safer digital environments, in collaboration with the Alannah & Madeline Foundation.
To do this, the project will draw on large-scale social media data and participatory research with young people.
The project will use the Australian Ad Observatory’s collection of more than 175,000 advertisements donated directly from the social media feeds of Australians aged 15 and over.
Researchers will use this dataset to develop illustrative social media feeds to show how young people experience repeated exposure to harmful industry marketing online.
Findings will inform the co-design of educational modules and advocacy materials with young people which will be piloted through the Alannah & Madeline Foundation’s eSmart program, an initiative dedicated to keeping children and young people free from violence and trauma wherever they live, learn and play.
This project is led by Swinburne ADM+S researcher Associate Professor César Albarrán-Torres alongside Professor Kath Albury, Professor Christine Parker, Professor Nicholas Carah, Dr Giselle Newton.
ADM+S thanks project partners Alannah & Madeline Foundation and VicHealth and everyone involved in bringing this work together.
