Research profile

+ Last updated September, 2025 +

Dr Travis Noakes' interdisciplinary scholarship draws on insights from communication and media studies, linking them to contributions from other fields, such as sociology. An overarching focus of his qualitative research is tying the micro-level practices in online content creation (OCC) to social influences from meso & macro levels. His PhD research projects made contributions in this regard for high school visual arts learners' OCC, plus media studies university students. Engaging with key issues at the intersection of digital media, culture, and education, he also worked with Prof Arlene Archer to develop a framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation, which informed the subsequent improvement of an infographic poster design course to better support students as critical designers and engaged citizens.

During his PostDoc, Travis' focus shifted to address the intellectual cyber harassment of his father after he changed his view on what constitutes a healthy diet. This inspired the Noakes' novel contribution on how online academic bullying is an emergent tool for scientific suppression. Such harassment can span a myriad of platforms, and Travis' research as an Adjunct Scholar then focused on microblogging via Scientific Twitter. This has emerged as a popular genre for science communication and popular engagement, but is also popular amongst influential dissidents seeking to work-around their formal suppression in Higher Education. Travis led research into the implications of difference in qualitative research software for live Twitter (now X) data analysis. This was followed by a rationale for the use of qualitative approaches to provide new insights regarding digital discourse related to science article sharing.

During COVID-19, a myriad of eminent scholars’ accounts in the Medical Sciences and Biology flagged the resistance these experts faced for querying the scientific soundness of official COVID-19 policies. Travis, Prof Noakes and Dr David Bell spotlighted how rushed guidance based on weak evidence from international health organisations could well perpetuate negative health and other societal outcomes rather than ameliorate them. This danger was elucidated via spotlighting the intergroup contradictions between the interests of agencies and their contrasting goals and across different types of knowledge division, and via intergroup contradictions.

Travis' innovative research has enriched our understanding of OCC and the broader implications of digital voice. Likewise, he has contributed innovative ways to research emergent forms of intellectual harassment, and microblogging. Travis' development of novel frameworks, methodologies and rationales have made helpful inter-disciplinary contributions to the fields of media and communication studies, cultural sociology, and the sociology of scientific knowledge. He also led the setting up of the Social Media Laboratory for Internet Research (SMILR), which supports affordable data extraction for postgrad research:

SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS

Travis’ past research (2009-20) focused on the productions of South African OCC producers and how their agency is supported, or hampered, though varied cultural, economic and social influences. While OCC is extensively described for the informal and academic contexts of the developed world, little had been written concerning academic contexts in Africa. Travis’ research has contributed to closing this gap.

So far, his scholarship has resulted in three new frameworks and seventeen case studies for OCC.

i. Twelve learner case studies were developed following the ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework (2018, 2019);

ii. Three in-depth case studies addressed Media Studies students’ informal engagement with Connected Learning (2013, 2016).

iii. Four case studies were written for a framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation (2020, 2022);

iv. One case study for an Emeritus Professor’s negotiations of cyber harassment followed the ‘Online Academic Bullying Routine Activities Theory’ (OABRAT) framework (2021);

v. An exploration of the knowledge contradictions during the COVID-19 event for the infodemic research agenda and mNRA vaccine development (2022);

vi. A QDAS software comparison for live data extraction that identified key disparities in the organisational phase of research (2024);

vii. A rationale for the role for qualitative methods in researching microblogging data on a popular science article's communication (2025).

viii. The Social Media Laboratory for Internet Research (SMILR) supports affordable data extraction for postgrad research into digital voice on X

i) ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework

Travis developed the ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework during his PhD (2018) for linking descriptions of young people’s e-portfolio curations to the opportunities in their different social contexts, or obstacles that they might be able to workaround, or not. These have included OCC producers in marginalised settings, who are often overlooked in communication and media studies research. Notably, the cases for three young black women from the townships at an under-resourced school (2019) were described in the Learning, Media and Technology journal’s special issue, ‘Global technologies, local practices: redefining digital education with marginalised voices’. This article has achieved 3 Web of Science citations.

ii) Online content creation by Media Studies students as Connected Learning

There are also few case studies for how the everyday lives of African university students are tied to their OCC roles. Together with Professors Lara Czerniewicz and Cheryl Brown, Travis wrote about three such young content creators (2013). As the case studies spanned digital practices that were informal and extracurricular yet peer-supported, as well as interest-driven and academically oriented, the pedagogical framework of Connected Learning proved an appropriate heuristic (2016). Their research suggested that being a digital creator gave these students a competitive edge in our globally competitive society. This article featured in another special issue of Learning, Media and Technology titled ‘Social Media and Education, Now the Dust Has Settled’. This special issue was republished as a book (2019). Their article has achieved 14 Web of Science citations and over 2,000 views.

iii) Framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation

Professor Arlene Archer and Dr Noakes proposed a framework for analysing and producing argument in data visualisation (2020) to help teach students to become critical citizens via infographic poster production and analysis. This framework informed changes to a blended-learning course that better supported students’ development as critical designers and engaged citizens (2022). The first chapter on this framework was published in ‘Data visualization in society’ (2020). A follow-up chapter has recently been approved for publication in ‘Learning design voices’, which is scheduled for publication early in 2022. The initial chapter has been cited seven times on Google Scholar, and recommended twice on ResearchGate.

iv) Online academic bullying routine activities theory (OABRAT) framework

As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at CPUT, Travis’ research shifted to focusing on OCC by health experts who take to digital platforms for advocating the insulin resistance model of chronic ill health (IRMCIH) paradigm. This research continues to address OCC, but by health experts, and spotlights two neglected negative phenomena in Higher Education (HE): (1) the impact of scientific suppression of academic free speech in HE’s Health Sciences and (2) cyber harassment from HE employees. There has been very little conceptual or empirical research concerning academic employees who victimise their peers and others online. Such attacks may serve as new form of intellectual harassment and scientific suppression when targeting whistleblowers and dissenting scholars.

In developing one such case with his father, Professor Tim Noakes, they developed an original definition for the negative phenomenon of online academic bullying (OAB). OAB is proposed to be 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. The authors also developed an OAB Routine Activities Theory framework to assist the recipients of OAB, and cyberbullying researchers, with understanding OAB’s distinctive characteristics. For example, hypercritical academic bloggers whose chains of re-publication become sourced for one-sided, defamatory online "profiles". This article was downloaded 2152 times in just twelve months, ranking in the Heliyon journal’s top 20 percentile of papers. The article's Altmetric results on PlumX and Dimensions confirm that this paper is well-shared on social media.

v) A critique of the "Infodemic" research agenda

Just as orthodox critics against the insulin resistance paradigm have continued to shutdown opportunities for its discussion in Higher Education, so have international health authorities behind the COVID-19 counter-measures seem to have stifled any formal debates regarding theiur guidelines’ efficacy. Instead, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has sponsored an infodemic research agenda that seeks to frame dissent as “disinformation” at best, “malinformation” at worst. In response, Dr David Bell, Professor Tim Noakes and Travis wrote a critical opinion piece (2022) that explored how 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.

vi) Implications of noteworthy disparities between CAQDAS tools for live Twitter data analysis

Little has been written concerning the research implications of differences in Qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) packages’ functionalities, and how such disparities might contribute to contrasting analytical opportunities. Travis led a co-authored paper to address this regarding live Twitter data imports. This article's findings may help guide Twitter social science researchers and others in QDAS tool selection.

vii) A rationale for the role for qualitative methods in researching microblogging data on a popular science article's communication

This 2025 paper responded to calls from Big Data communication researchers for qualitative analysis of online science conversations to better explore their meaning. Travis and his co-authors identified a scholarly gap in the Science Communication field regarding the role that qualitative methods might play in researching small data regarding micro-bloggers' article communications. Although social media attention assists with academic article dissemination, qualitative research into related microblogging practices is scant. To support calls for the qualitative analysis of such communications, we provided a practical exemplar. Our analysis identified several potential qualitative research contributions in analysing small data from microblogging communications: Qualitative research can provide a rich contextual framing for how micro-practices (such as tweet shares for journal articles...) relate to important social dynamics (... like debates on paradigms within higher-level social strata in the Global Health Science field) plus professionals' related identity work. Also, in-depth explorations of microblogging data following qualitative methods can contribute to the research process by supporting meta-level critiques of missing data, (mis-) categorisations, and flawed automated (and manual) results.

viii) The Social Media Laboratory for Internet Research (SMILR) supports affordable data extraction for postgrad research into digital voice on X

As an executive director at The Noakes Foundation (TNF), Travis successfully motivated TNF's support for infrastructure enabling postgrads to do cost-effective X data extracts via its new Social Media Internet Laboratory for Research (SMILR) at the Younglings Academy. SMILR supports CPUT postgrad research linked to digital voice under TNF's Academic Free Speech (AFSDV) research theme. CPUT PhD candidate Portia Motshware used SMILR to extract data for her thesis that seeks to define the ‘Digital practices of cybermobs: X -bullying in a South African celebrity context’. Travis and the late Dr Pat Harpur initially guided Pinky Motshware's research on this topic.