Research
I am interested in the socio-historical dimensions of automation as part of my work at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making & Society. Currently, I'm working on projects that look at three related strains of research: (1) the escalated adoption (and legitimisation) of automated technologies through the COVID-19 pandemic across the developing world, (2) the moral economy of informal automated work and precarious labour in the Global South, and (3) the politics of health data. If you are interested in any of these topics, please feel free to get in touch.
My PhD project investigated the performance of non-biomedical knowledge as situated knowledge on the internet. By tracing the social and network lives of non-biomedical knowledge, the project examined how digital technologies influence the propagation of knowledge that exists in the margin of scientific knowledge, as well as the impact of this digitally enabled propagation on non-biomedical cultures as living practices. Findings of this project have been published in a range of refereed journals, including Social Science & Medicine, Media, Culture & Society, Health & Place, Journal of Digital Social Research, and Howard Journal of Communications. The full thesis is available here.
For my Master’s thesis, I investigated the political functions of internet-based humour in authoritarian contexts. The findings of this project have been presented at the International Association of Media & Communication Research in Montreal (2015), the Internet in Southeast Asia Symposium in Kuala Lumpur (2015), and the Digital Research in Southeast Asia Workshop in Sydney (2017).
Publications
Refereed Journal Articles
Nguyen, D. (2022). 'Convenient efficiency: a media genealogy of QR code'. New media & Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448221141086.
Nguyen, D. (2022). 'Wear your digital mask, fight this virus like it’s the enemy: pandemic user-citizenship as platform-infrastructure entanglements'. Information, Communication & Society. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2022.2131364
Nguyen, D. (2021). ‘The network life of non-biomedical knowledge: mapping Vietnamese traditional medicine discourses on Facebook’. Journal of Digital Social Research. 3(2), 10-43. https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v3i2.82.
Nguyen, D., Arnold, M, & Chenhall, R. (2021). 'The internet as non-biomedical milieu: production of alternative health techno-social spaces and the persistence of marginalised medical practices'. Health & Place. 70, 1 - 7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2021.102583
Nguyen, D. (2021). ‘Can’t wait to feel better: Facebook Live and the recalibration of downtime in tending to the body’, Media, Culture & Society. 43(6), 984 - 999. https://doi.org/10.1177/01634437211003458.
Nguyen, D. (2021). 'Dropping in, helping out: Social support and weak ties on traditional medicine social networking sites'. Howard Journal of Communications. 32(3), 235 - 252. https://doi.org/10.1080/10646175.2021.1878478.
Nguyen, D. (2019). 'Mapping knowledge domains of non-biomedical modalities: A large-scale co-word analysis of literature 1987–2017'. Social Science & Medicine. 233, 1 - 12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.05.044.
Nguyen, D. (2018). 'The university in a world of digital technologies: tensions and challenges'. Australiasian Marketing Journal. 26(2). pp 79-82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ausmj.2018.05.012.
Books
Nguyen, D. (2025). Internet cures: the social lives of non-biomedical knowledge. Bristol University Press. (Under contract)
Nguyen, D. (2024). Digital research methods and the diaspora: Assembling transnational networks with and beyond digital data. Routledge (Under contract).
Book Chapters
Nguyen, D. (2024). Small automation: thinking through the textures of automated systems. In V. Fors, M. Berg and M. Brodersen (Eds.) The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures. De Gruyter.
Book reviews
Nguyen, D. (2021). [Review of The Republic of Vietnam, 1955-1975: Vietnamese Perspectives on Nation Building, by T. Vu & S. Fear]. Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, 36(3), 561–563. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27095982
Nguyen, D. (2015). ‘Young citizens and political participation in a digital society: Addressing the democratic disconnect [Book Review]’. Communications, Politics & Culture. 48(1). pp. 85-86.
Conference Papers
Nguyen, D. (2022). ‘Like moths to flames’: clickbait farming, crypto mining, and other gambles. Association of Internet Researchers Conference. Technological University Dublin. Dublin, Ireland.
Nguyen, D. (2015), ‘Internet humour in authoritarian regimes: social change implications’, Internet in Southeast Asia Symposium, Monash University Malaysia, 3-4 December, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Nguyen, D. (2015), ‘Internet-based humour as civil resistance in authoritarian regimes’, International Association for Media & Communication Research Conference, 12-16 July, Montreal, Canada.