I help people understand communication and technology. My research focuses on how the affordances and constraints of communication technologies interact with language, social action, and culture. My teaching focuses on facilitating students’ discovery of the practical strategic opportunities for making principled choices across a range of communication contexts. 

• Academic publications
• Popular publications and media comments

My specialisation is in the relationship between technology and practices of interaction and social presence. I have investigated videochat, Instant Messaging, online forums, and other platforms in contexts ranging from the personal to the institutional. 

 I am especially interested in how people deal with trouble arising from communication technology, ranging from design difficulties, through operational problems, to the separation of interactional perspectives. My interests also extend to social media strategy, internet culture, and social representations of communication technologies. I am also interested more broadly in language and social interaction, especially strategic interaction, persuasive presentations using slideware and video, and interpersonal interaction.