Research profile
Dr Travis Noakes' interdisciplinary scholarship draws on insights from communication and media studies, and links these to contributions from other fields, such as sociology. An overarching focus of his qualitative research is linking the micro-level practices in online content creation (OCC) to social influences at meso- and macro levels. Travis's completed research projects have explored: OCC by high school visual arts learners and media studies university students, academic cyberbullying, and the implications of difference in qualitative research software for live Twitter (now X) data analysis.
SCHOLARLY CONTRIBUTIONS
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).
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.
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orcid.org/0000-0001-9566-8983
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