Completed research

+ Last updated November, 2025 +

Travis' interdisciplinary scholarship is focused on strategic communication via digital media. His research

draws on insights from communication and media studies, linking these to contributions from other fields, notably psychology and sociology.

His PhD situated the (i) micro-level strategies of online content production by high school visual arts learners within social influences at meso- and macro levels. Likewise for (ii) media studies students who informally followed a connected learning approach. While lecturing, Travis contributed to (iii) a framework for teaching argument via data visualisation.

His postdoctoral research fellowship explored the negotiations of dissident insulin resistance health experts in negotiating (iv) online academic bullying. As an adjunct scholar he has contributed to a (v) critique of the infodemic research agenda, also flagging when (vi) "health communication" might rather be considered propaganda. In researching health experts use of Twitter/X, he has made methodological contributions in (vii) contrasting QDAS tools' support of live data import and its analysis, and (viii) proposing a rationale for the qualitative analysis of online science conversations.

In response to the digital crime epidemic, Travis contributed to novel research regarding (ix) South African celebrities' brandjacking for fake celebrity endorsements, and (x) their situated nature in resisting a culture of fakes from the Global South.

i) Capital and capabilities framework (2009/18)

Travis’ PhD in Media Studies explored how visual arts learners’ contrasting circumstances in Cape Town shaped the different repertoires they curated in showcase electronic learning portfolios (e-portfolios). His thesis focused on answering two research questions:

RQ1 What digital self-presentation and organisation choices do visual arts students make in their e-portfolios?
RQ2 How do visual arts e-portfolios and visual culture repertoires relate to individual habitus and spaces of production?

The study made a valuable contribution in documenting the practices by students from a broader range of economic backgrounds than those typically described in e-portfolio (Owen, 2009), multimodal (Jewitt, 2008) or new media research studies (Buckingham, 2009. Ito et al. 2010). For answering RQ1, Travis developed a new method of content analysis for exploring young people’s changes to their self-presentations and portfolio curations over time. It also supported the identification of different patterns in students’ e-portfolio achievements at two sites. His longitudinal research explored teens’ creative personas and the social semiotic spaces they drew on revealing how the extent of teens’ self-presentation and portfolios were tied to the cultural repertoires that their school and home supported.

A ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework (2018) was proposed for linking young people’s e-portfolio curations to the opportunities in their different social contexts, or obstacles that they might be able to workaround, or might serve as gatekeepers. Combining Sen’s capability approach with Bourdieusian cultural sociology supported the development of twelve rich case studies that linked young people’s practices to social influences.

ii) Online content creation (OCC) by African students as connected learning (2011/16)

Little too has been shared concerning OCC in the everyday lives of African university students. As a research assistant (2011-13) for the Student ICT Access and Use project, Travis identified three students who were unusual in being heavily involved in OCC. He suggested Connected Learning (CL) as an appropriate heuristic (2013). Together with Professors Lara Czerniewicz and Cheryl Brown they worked to answer the question:

RQ4 Do the heuristics of CL apply for OCC in the everyday lives of African university students?

CL has largely been applied in US high schools for exploring students’ work as OCC in diverse roles. We showed that this framework also suited developing case studies for African students leveraging well-resourced university environments. This pedagogical framework proved apt for describing students’ interest-driven and academically- oriented OCC practices, as well as their peer-supported and extracurricular/informal ones (2016).

Thematic coding for Student ICT Access and Use project 2012

iii) A framework for teaching argument in data visualisation (2017/22)

Travis’ lecturing and research at UCT also contributed to a novel framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation (2020). This framework was developed in response to the question:

RQ5 What are the semiotic and rhetorical strategies for realising argument in data visualisations produced by second year journalism students?

They found that students as novice designers faced many challenges in preparing academic arguments as poster designers. In response, the authors proposed a framework that students and scholars might use for making sounder academic arguments via data visualisations. This framework was taught to journalism students in 2018.

Archer and Noakes’ follow-up chapter focussed on answering the question:

RQ6 How might the framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation contribute to informing the teaching of a data visualisation design course?

They described how teaching the framework and other curricular changes supported two students with developing meta-languages of critique and argument in their design of infographic posters (2022).

iv) Distinguishing online academic bullying (2019+)

Travis' PostDoc (2019-2020) researched how the shift of academic discourse to an online space without guardians has given motivated academic cyberbullies an opportunity to harass susceptible recipients. This research was inspired by a dissident scientist's example in experiencing academic mobbing (Noakes and Sboros, 2017, 2019) and cyber harassment from academic colleagues. In doing a literature review of academic cyberbullying, Professor Tim Noakes and Travis were surprised to find that research into digital forms of intellectual harassment by academic cyberbullies was non-existent (2020). In response, they developed the research question:

RQ7 What is a theoretically grounded conceptualisation of OAB?

As a pathfinder project, the authors used the Emeritus Professor’s extreme case as a convenience sample. The key online communication episodes that he was involved in between 2010 to 2020 were researched for identifying different forms of cyber harassment. Simultaneously, an in-depth literature review of academic bullying and cyber harassment informed the development of an unambiguous OAB definition and a Routine Activities Theory (RAT) framework that supports a reporting instrument:

To provide an definition of OAB for researchers, the authors proposed that it is ‘a drawn-out situation in which its recipient experiences critique online by employees in HE that is excessive, one-sided and located outside of typical scholarly debate and accepted standards for its field’. This definition was based on extant conceptualisations of academic bullying that have focused on aggression and incivility among faculty members (Keashly & Neuman, 2010).

The OABRAT conceptual framework proved useful for describing the cyber harassment from academics using the example of an Emeritus Professor’s experiences. The authors discussed how this example might also prove useful to those facing online harassment from employees in Higher Education. Noakes and Noakes made the OABRAT questionnaire available online as a reporting instrument for recipients to use. Through answering its questions affirmatively and describing their experiences of OAB characteristics, victims can generate a report that flags how their OAB experiences are separate from pro-social debate and critique.

v) A critique of the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s infodemic research agenda (2022)

Dr David Bell, Professor Tim Noakes and Travis wrote an opinion piece that raised several constructive criticisms of the World Health Organisation (WHO) infodemic research agenda.

The global health crisis of COVID-19 presents a fertile ground for exploring the complex division of knowledge labour in a ‘post-truth’ era. Scholars have already described the example of #COVID-19 knowledge production at university. The authors' opinion piece added divisions of knowledge labour for (1) the ‘infodemic/disinfodemic research agenda’, (2) ‘mRNA vaccine research’ and (3) ‘personal health responsibility’. By focusing on the relationships between health communication, public health policy and recommended medical interventions, the opinion piece spotlights many inter- and intra-group contradictions. As an example from (1), the WHO positions itself and its partners (such as Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and public health agencies) as scientific authorities that arbitrate what constitutes medical truth or, alternatively, disinformation. In the infodemic research agenda, the WHO adopts the status of the ultimate truth provider, an organisation whose verdicts can be accepted without question. We flag that any international health organisation that wishes to be an evaluator must have the scientific expertise for managing this ongoing ‘paradox’, or irresolvable contradiction. Organisations such as the WHO may theoretically be able to convene such knowledge, but their dependency on funding from conflicted parties would normally render them ineligible to perform such a task.

A major criticism is the infodemic research agenda's lack of earnest discussion on how health authorities’ own guidelines contribute to mis-/mal-/disinformation. The article flags that if health authorities’ choices are not up for review and debate in the infodemic research agenda, there is a danger that a hidden goal of the @WHO #infodemic (or related #disinfodemic funders’ research) could be to direct attention away from the multiple failures of authorities in fighting pandemics with inappropriate measures. Further, rushed guidance based on weak evidence from international health organisations can perpetuate negative health and other societal outcomes, not ameliorate them.

vi) COVID-19 "health communication" as propaganda (2023/25)

‘Promoting Vaccines in South Africa: Health Science Communication or Pharmaceutical Propaganda?’ was published as a pre-print in 2024. The authors submitted it to 9 academic journals over the last two years, but most desk-rejected it. Although some provided explanations, all seemed weak. Our pre-print is controversial in tackles the issue of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines and their promotion. We explored the ways in which non-consensual persuasion tactics were employed in South Africa to promote uptake of the mRNA vaccinations. In particular, we focused on deceptive messaging regarding the safety of the Pfizer BioNTech Comirnaty® vaccine for pregnant women.

The field of health communication has a solutionist emphasis that is driven by powerful external groupings’ motives, such as national government departments, multinational pharmaceutical companies and their investors. The former can be incentivised to manipulate messaging for reasons including a concern to protect people and the greater good in the context of a perceived crisis or emergency. Given potential conflicts of interest, and health authoritarians' ability to suppress and censor dissenting experts, there was a danger that the promotion of poorly researched genetic vaccines could actually serve as pharmaceutical propaganda from the Global Public Private Partnership (GPPP) vaccine cartel. A need for hyper-reflexivity on this concern seemed to have been completely ignored by health communication scholars. In stark contrast, Travis and his co-authors believed it was timely to address the danger of “successful” communications for dangerous pharmaceutical interventions. What might medical or pharmaceutical propaganda be defined as?

The pre-print drews on the Organised Persuasive Communication (OPC) Framework for contrasting consensual vs. non-consensual official communications. Propaganda differs from Health Communication in three distinctive aspects: 1) Incentivisations, 2) Coercion, and 3) Deception. The SA case study explored these aspects for the general SA population, and deceptive communications to pregnant women in a flyer and in reporting vaccine injuries. In contrast to health communication through persuasion allowing free and informed consent, the SA case study identified important instances of incentivization, coercion and deceptive messaging that approximated to a non-consensual approach.

vii) A qualitative data software comparison for live Twitter data’s use in the organisational phase of qualitative research

Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) packages are a recent innovation. Little has been written concerning the research implications of differences in such QDAS packages’ functionalities, and how such disparities might contribute to contrasting analytical opportunities. Consequently, early-stage researchers may experience difficulties in choosing an apt QDAS for Twitter analysis. In response to both methodological gaps, Travis, Dr Pat Harpur and Dr Corrie Uys wrote Noteworthy disparities with four CAQDAS tools: explorations in organising live Twitter data. It answers:

RQ8 How do QDAS packages differ in what they offer for live Twitter data research during the
organisational stage of qualitative analysis?

It features a software comparison across the four QDAS tools that support live Twitter data imports, namely, ATLAS.ti™, NVivo™, MAXQDA™ and QDA Miner™. The authors’ resultant QDAS experiences were compared during the first activity of a broad qualitative analysis process, ‘organising data’: Notwithstanding large difference in QDAS pricing, it was surprising how much the tools varied for aspects of qualitative research organisation with live Twitter data. Notably, the quantum of data extracted for the same query differed, largely due to contrasts in the types and amount of data that the four QDAS could extract. Variations in how each supported visual organisation also shaped researchers’ opportunities for becoming familiar with Twitter users and their tweet content. Such disparities suggest that choosing a suitable QDAS for organising live Twitter data must dovetail with a researcher’s focus- ATLAS.ti accommodates scholars focused on wrangling unstructured data for personal meaning-making, while MAXQDA suits the mixed-methods researcher. QDA Miner’s easy-to-learn user interface suits a highly efficient implementation of methods, whilst NVivo supports relatively rapid analysis of tweet content.The article's findings may help guide Twitter social science researchers and others in QDAS tool selection.

Although the study focuses on the qualitative research organisation of live Twitter data, it has academic value for qualitative researchers using QDAS tools to organise data imported from other social media platforms. Scholars ranging from the purely qualitative to those favouring strongly mixed methods are likely to face similar enablers and constraints when organising say, Reddit forum discussions or YouTube video commentary.

viii) A rationale for the qualitative analysis of online science conversations

While quantitative researchers have called for qualitative research into microblogging science conversations, no such methodological rationale could be found. In response, (vii)'s authors and a a transdisciplinary expert collated what the literature suggested could be contributions from a qualitative research approach.

RQ9 What role do qualitative methods play in researching Twitter data for a popular science article’s sharing?

This was further explored via a practical example for the Twitter sharing of a popular, Health Sciences research paper between 2019 and 2021. The authors compared results from a semantic network- and multimodal discourse analysis that applied the same codebook. Twitter users’ content choices and practices in sharing links related to an article, and how such sharing related to users’ self-presentation choices.

A holistic picture of microblogging practices around a science article’s sharing was achieved through by comparing meta-inferences from the analysts’ claims. The application of a multimodal discourse analytical lens to the above-mentioned article’s Twitter shares revealed a great diversity in their pro-social deliberations. These spanned twenty diverse sharing styles, ranging from affirming the results of non-conventional medical guidance, to language localisation in translating a title from English to Spanish. The novel identification of such variation suggests a qualitative, descriptive approach’s value. This focus supported the uncovering of elusive practices surrounding social media posts.

At the same time, another contribution of this method was to foreground how the article’s popularity relates to its position. It is a communication event within a longstanding debate within the Health Sciences. Such context motivated dissident health professionals to contest orthodox opinion, thereby contributing to emergent state-of-the-art paradigms.

The paper’s rationale and conclusions suggest how qualitative research can provide greater transparency by better contextualising communications, thereby perhaps providing a more credible and holistic picture of users and their microblogging exchanges. The article also highlights the importance of exploring online conversations related to long-running scientific disagreements.

ix) South African celebrities' brandjacking for fake celebrity endorsements

The paper, Brandjacked for Social Media Advert Fraud: Microcelebrities’ Lived Experiences of a Relentless Digital Crime in South Africa, answers three questions:

RQ10 What are South African microcelebrities’ lived experiences of cyber-victimisation through identity and brand fraud?

RQ10.1 How do their positions as public figures shape their lived experiences as victims of complex webs of digital crime?

RQ10.2 In what ways do public figures recount their shared experiences of cyber-victimisation with the scam victims?

Answering each question contributed to developing a nascent body of scholarship: there seem to be no scholarly accounts of South African celebrity influencers’ lived experiences of cyber-victimisation, brandjacking, and impersonation. The paper's literature review unpacks the development of Northern scholarship on cybervictimology, plus the growing literature on this topic from the global South. Importantly, the gap in knowledge around the subjective experiences of digital victims, and more specifically, microcelebrities, is highlighted. Travis and his co-authors propose that the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of victim identity within global Southern cybercriminological scholarship can be reimagined. They further suggest what is required to develop a body of scholarship that yields insights into cybervictims needs, and routes to recourse.

Brandjacking is the allegedly illegal use of trademarked brand names on social network sites (Ramsey, 2010, p. 851). Outside of this legal definition, no international or SA scholarship exists on 1) the meanings victims attach to brandjacking and fake celebrity endorsements, and 2) microcelebrities’ experiences of digital victimisation. The authors describe how the brandjacking of SA celebrities for fake product endorsements in social media ads is an ever-growing phenomenon. As this digital crime can take many varied forms, it proved a germane source for exploring celebrities’ complex cybervictimization experiences; fake celebrity endorsements can be considered a subset of brand theft, in which scammers brandjack celebrities' personas to ostensibly promote fake products. It is rare for these counterfeit products to be delivered, but typical for the promoted product to not exist. Its sale merely serves as a pretext for scammers to phish financial victims’ details for fraudulent transactions.

Illuminating the brandjacked victims’ subjective experiences, required a research collaboration that spanned psychological, technical and digital knowledge bases. The manuscript is a product of an interdisciplinary collaboration between health communication, psychological and digital forensic scholars that began in 2023. Travis and his colleagures employed qualitative and psychological approaches to explore the three public figures’ cybervictimisation experiences, and the meanings these microcelebrities attached to their positions as victims. This paper further engages with the meanings that the celebrity influencers attached to the victimisation of their followers, who were defrauded by these scams.

x) The situated nature of Global South celebrities resisting a culture of fakes on Global North platforms

Little is known about how South African celebrity influencers respond to, and resist, deepfake social media endorsements. This negative phenomenon is a growing concern at the intersection of cybercrime, media economies, and digital cultural practices. Travis' co-authored work applied a critical interpretative phenomenological approach and in-depth interviews to explore the meanings public figures attach to fake endorsements, plus the social media industry. The paper engages with platform governance and social media economies from the perspective of a global Southern context. It interrogates experiences of responding to fake content from South Africa, where authenticity and credibility are dominant cultural resources in its digital context.

The paper answers the questions:

RQ11. How do SA celebrity influencers experience responses to fake celebrity endorsements involving identity fraud and brandjacking?

RQ11.1 How do social media networks respond to celebrities victimised by fake endorsements?

RQ11.2 How do these social and institutional responses shape these public figures’ meanings of their victimisation, and opportunities to resist it?

Answering them supported the following contributions: It expands current cybercrime debates to focus on digital deception, cybervictimology and online fraud, such as fake content and endorsements. It draws attention to the vulnerabilities in influencer economies, with a critical view of how geopolitical positioning further shapes these cultural economies. It explores how celebrities in the global South resist and reassert credibility against a culture of fakes. Through contributing to the current debates on cybercrime and media harms, the article also positions these phenomena within a broader context of digital media platforms as politically and culturally charged institutions.