Staff Profiles

Michele made the move west to Perth from Melbourne in 2001, enticed by the possibilities of a position within the relatively new Internet Studies area. Before coming to Curtin, she taught in the Politics Departments at Monash University and the University of Melbourne. She was also one of the editors of Arena Magazine for a number of years.

Michele has authored a number of publications on the topics of online communities, networks and technology and sociality, including a book on rethinking community (Technically Together) and a chapter on virtual communities (in Holmes, Virtual Politics) reprinted in The Cybercultures Reader (2000, 2^nd edition, 2007). She has co-authored a number of articles exploring e-research in the humanities (see Publications for further details). More recently, she has been exploring notions of the public sphere online and understandings of the social, political and cultural impact of code, software and algorithms. Her recent book with Mark Balnaves, A New Theory of Information and the Internet: Public Sphere meets Protocol is one of the outcomes of this interest.

Affiliations
AoIR (Association of Internet Researchers); ICA (International Communications Association); ANZCA (Australian and New Zealand Communication Association)

Information and communication technologies are the main focus of Michele’s research, and in particular, the implications of these technologies for community, social forms, and subjectivity. Society increasingly relies on technology to mediate and extend human relations and social practices. She is extremely interested in understanding if and how these abstracted processes affect the ways we see ourselves in the world and the ways in which we relate to one another. As such, she has a keen interest in the operation and analysis of mediated forms such as virtual communities , social networks and in technologies such as the Internet.

The above interests - technology, community, and communication - mean that she has a wide ranging familiarity with material published around these areas; the challenge has been to find ways to integrate these discussions in a productive manner. This familiarity has enabled teaching across diverse areas as well as the writing of articles across seemingly disparate areas: from a critique of the Responsive Communitarian movement in the United States to an article on questions of authenticity raised by the use of technology within a social/cultural context.

The interest in community also feeds into having an interest and understanding of theories and practices of the nation-state and of nationalism. International relations theory; theories of power and also analysis of political, cultural and social issues are all overlapping interests with which she has also had some teaching experience.

Current research interests:

• Materiality of code, software and algorithms and the  political and social implications of these.
• The implications of using communication/information technology to mediate social relations and social practices for community forms and for individual subjectivity.
• Ethics of the internet - implications for relations with the other…radical potentials and possibilities
• Reconceptualizing the nation-state system: do changing information, economic and political practices encouraged by the use of the Internet and globalised practices call into question issues of national identity and the role of the nation state within an international system of states.
• Within and between: looking in more detail at ways of examining and implications of the crossovers and mergers of the real and the virtual.
• E-research in the humanities (with colleagues, Dr Paul Genoni and Dr Helen Merrick).
• Intersection of notions of the public sphere, protocol and information (with colleague, Prof. Mark Balnaves)

ARC Linkage (LP110200026), 2011-2014,  (Balnaves, Noal, Madden, Moore, Willson, & Leaver) Online Money and Fantasy Games - an applied ethnographic study into the new entrepreneurial communities and their underlying designs. 

Current HDR Students  

(2011-) Main Supervisor PhD: Gerard Gill 'Power and Human Rights in the New Media.'  

(2011-) Co-Supervisor PhD: David Cake, 'Internet governance'

(2010) Main supervisor, PhD: Shafiiq Gopee: 'Digital Inequality, the Internet in Mauritius'

(2010) Main Supervisor PhD: Mescal Stephens, 'Short termism in Natural Resource Management'

(2008) Co-Supervisor PhD: Cynthia Verspaget, 'Unruly Bodies: monstrous Readings of Biotechnology'.

(2008-) Main supervisor PhD: Edin Tabak 'The impact of nationalism on information sharing in scholarly communities: an investigation of a Bosnian university.'

 (2007-) Main supervisor PhD: Mark Perkins, 'Rural Internet: The uses of ICTs and its effects on perceptions of isolation in Australian rural and remote communities.'

HDR Completions

-(2010) Associate Supervisor PhD, Rick Forno 'Cybersecurity Information Flows'

-(2010) Associate Supervisor PhD, Stewart Woods 'Convivial Conflicts: The Form, Culture and Play of Modern European Strategy Games'

-(2010) Associate Supervisor PhD, Othman Obeidat 'An Invesitgation into the Role of Digital Libraries in bridging the Digital divide in developing arab countries'

-(2008) Main Supervisor PhD: Susan Mee Mee Leong, 'An Investigation into how Imagining the Nation is affected by Understandings of the Internet'

-(2008) Main Supervisor PhD: Teodor Mitew, 'The politics of networks: using actor network theory to trace techniques, collectives, and space-times'

-(2007) Main Supervisor PhD: Erika Pearson, 'Usefulness of Futures Research for Internet Studies'.

-(2007) Associate Supervisor PhD: Ali Al-Aufi, 'The Use of Networked Information for Research and Scholarly Communication: A case study of Sultan Qaboos University'.

-(2007) Co-supervisor PhD: Scott Hollier, 'The Digital Divide: A Study into the Impact of Internet Technologies on People with Disabilities'

2003 Curtin Excellence and Innovation in Teaching Award (Internet Studies Team)

Books (Authored, Research)

• Willson, M, and Balnaves, M. 2011. A New Theory of Information and the Internet: Public sphere meets Protocol. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
• Willson, M. 2006. Technically Together: Rethinking Community within Techno-Society, 28 Edition. New York, USA: Peter Lang.

Book Chapters (Authored, Research Quality)

• Willson, M. 2010. The Possibilities of Network Sociality. In International Handbook of Internet Research, eds Hunsinger, Klastrup and Allen, 493-505. Dordrecht: Springer.
• Willson, M, Genoni, P, and Merrick, H. 2009. e-Research and Scholarly Community in the Humanities. In E-Research. Transformation in Scholarly Practice, 1st Edition, eds Nicholas W Jankowski, 91-108. London: Routledge.
• Merrick, H, and Willson, M. 2001. All Wired-Up: Reflections on Teaching and Learning Online. In Politics of a Digital Present: An Inventory of Australian Net Culture, Criticism and Theory, eds Hugh Brown, Geert Lovink, Helen Merrick, Ned Rossiter, David Teh. Michele Willson, 69-78. Melbourne: Fibreculture Publications.
• Willson, M. 1997. Community in the Abstract: A Political and Ethical Dilemma?. In Virtual Politics: Identity and Community in Cyberspace, eds David Holmes, 145-162. London: Sage Publications.

Refereed Articles (Scholarly Journals)

• Willson, M. 2010. Technology, networks and communities: an exploration of network and community theory and technosocial forms. Information, Communication and Society. 13(5): 747-764.
• Willson, M, Merrick, H, and Genoni, P. 2006. Scholarly communities, e-research literacy and the academic librarian. The Electronic Library 24(6): 734-746.
• Willson, M. 2005. Review Article. Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 19: 571-574.
• Willson, M, Genoni, P, and Merrick, H. 2005. The use of the Internet to activate latent ties in scholarly communities. First Monday 10(12).
• Willson, M. 2001. Community With(out) Others. Mots Pluriels et Grands Themes de Notre Temps No. 18: 1-8.

Fully written papers (Refereed Conference proceedings)

• Balnaves, M, Leaver, T, and Willson, M. 2011. The Ubiquity of Information Filtration. Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference: Communication on the edge 2011, 06/07/2011. Hamilton, New Zealand: ANZCA.
• Balnaves, M, Willson, M, and Leaver, T. 2010. Habermas and the Net. 60th annual meeting of the International Communication Association, 23/06/2010. Singapore: All Academic, Inc.
• Genoni, P, Willson, M, and Merrick, H. 2005. Community, communication and collaboration: scholarly practice in transformation. The Next Wave of Collaboration: Educause Australasia 2005, 05/04/2005. Auckland, NZ: Educause Australasia.
• Willson, M, Merrick, H, and Genoni, P. 2004. Virtual symposia: an investigation into scholarly communities online. Breaking Boundaries: Integration & Interoperability: 12th Biennial Conference and Exhibition, 03/02/2004. Melbourne, Victoria: Victorian Association for Library Automation.
• Willson, M. 2003. _being_ together: technologically mediated sociality and community theory. Broadening the Band AoIR, 01/10/2003. Toronto, Canada: Association of Internet Researchers.