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Australian Ad Observatory: Key Insights and Future Plans
July 11 @ 11:00 am - 1:00 pm AEST
Free
The Australian Ad Observatory has pioneered new ways to observe the targeting of social media advertising across populations of users. This webinar will highlight findings, outline research methods and discuss next steps.
Advertising is at the heart of automated media and culture. Online advertisers are at the forefront of experimenting with automated digital media across recommendation, targeting, synthetic and augmented content, logistics and retail. These promotional practices profoundly shape our everyday lived culture and experience of the world, but how does this media landscape actually work? How is our own data used within this promotional ecosystem? And what role do different stakeholders (influencers, audiences, platforms) play in developing these promotional practices?
Launched in 2021, The Australian Ad Observatory project at the ADM+S has pioneered a way to observe the targeting of social media advertising across populations of users. The Ad Observatory has generated the largest known collection of targeted ads that people encounter on Facebook in Australia – 328,107 unique ads from 1909 participants – and built world-first research infrastructure that involved citizens in doing so.
The project led to significant findings and impact across advertising in harmful industries including gambling, alcohol, unhealthy foods and consumer finance and misleading advertising practices seen in scam ads, political advertising and environmental claims.
Responding to significant recent and ongoing developments in automated advertising (including Generative AI), Phase 2 of the Australian Ad Observatory will develop approaches for studying contemporary media and information environments, where there are no longer either shared flows of content, nor stable texts. In the second phase of the project we will focus on particular groups of Australians who we will work with to donate ads and participate in co-analysis of their experience of automated advertising.
As automated advertising evolves, Phase 2 of the project will examine the integration of generative AI into ad creation and targeting. It will also explore new ways of approaching the study of automated advertising, not only in terms of individually targeted, discrete ads, but as ongoing sequences of ads that are ‘tuned’ to work in tandem with people’s identities and daily rhythms.
In this webinar, researchers and partner organisations involved in the Australian Ad Observatory discuss findings from Phase 1 and introduce Phase 2 as the project expands on data collection to include the full range of platforms accessed by mobile devices.
This webinar will be hosted on Zoom.
Speakers
Prof Christine Parker is a Chief Investigator at the University of Melbourne node of ADM+S. Professor Parker’s current research focuses on the politics, ethics and regulation of food. Her recent research has critically examined whether ethical labelling can make food systems healthy, sustainable and just with a particular focus on animal welfare labelling and superfood health claims.
Jean Burgess is Associate Director of ADM+S. Jean’s research focuses on the social implications of digital media technologies, platforms, and cultures, as well as new and innovative digital methods for studying them.
Prof Daniel Angus is a Chief Investigator at the Queensland University of Technology node of ADM+S. Daniel’s research focuses on the development of computational analysis methods for communication data, with a specific focus on interaction data. His novel computational methods have improved our understanding of the nature of communication in medical consultations, conversations in aged care settings, television broadcast, social media, and newspaper reporting.
Prof Mark Andrejevic is a Chief Investigator at the Monash University node of ADM+S. Mark’s research covers the social, political, and cultural impact of digital media, with a focus on surveillance and popular culture.
Assoc Prof Nicholas Carah is an Associate Investigator at The University of Queensland node of the ADM+S. Nicholas’ research examines the algorithmic, promotional and participatory cultures of digital media platforms.
Dr Abdul Obeid is a Data Engineer at the Queensland University of Technology node of ADM+S. Abdul is well-versed in machine learning, topic modelling, sentiment analysis, statistical analysis, and the use of probabilistic programming languages among other topics.
Dr César Albarrán-Torres is an Affiliate of ADM+S from Swinburne University. César’s current research focuses on the intersections among digital media, finance, and gambling. He also researches issues of postcolonial identities and narratives in film and television, as well as the negotiations between social media and politics in Mexico, particularly concerning the drug cartels.
Dr Kate Bower
Consumer Data Advocate, CHOICE
The Consumer Data Team works towards Australians enjoying the same rights and safeties as they expect from traditional markets.
Casey Briggs
Data journalist and presenter with ABC News
Dr Aimee Brownbill
Aimee is an ARC Early Career Industry Fellow with the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education. Aimee has a PhD in Medicine (Public Health) and has contributed to collaborative applied research informing public health policy for several years. A key focus of her work to-date has been on the commercial determinants of health, particularly the influence of marketing practices on health and wellbeing.
Chandni Gupta
Deputy CEO and Digital Policy Director, Consumer Policy Research Centre (CPRC)
Chandni leads CPRC’s research and policy program, while also leading CPRC’s research stream on protecting consumers in a digital world. Her work to date includes exploring the consumer shift from the analogue towards the digital economy, the impact of deceptive and manipulative online design on Australian consumers and the key gaps that currently exist in Australia’s consumer protections.
Lauren’s (she/her) PhD considers how platform consumer cultures are structured by digital advertising, through an examination of alcohol promotion and online expression of drinking culture.
Dr Amanda Lawrence an Affiliate of the ADM+S from RMIT University and is leading the development of the Australian Internet Observatory project (2024 to 2028). Amanda’s interests include library and information management, open knowledge systems, research communication and public policy, Wikimedia, and public interest research infrastructure for the humanities and social sciences.
Dr Kelly Lewis is a Research Fellow at the Monash University node of ADM+S. Kelly’s research builds on other ADM+S research programs that investigate common themes of data collection, use, storage, and application of data with concern for achieving greater transparency, accountability, and fairness.
Tanita Northcott is an Affiliate at the University of Melbourne node of ADM+S. Tanita is a PhD Candidate at Deakin University. Her PhD focuses on understanding how law and regulation can be conceptualised and used to respond to the rise and harms of ultra-processed foods in the context of complex food systems and socio-ecological challenges.
