There is a question that sits at the heart of everything I do, and it has done for as long as I can remember being a researcher: how are communities made, and how are they broken? The answer, I have come to believe, lives in the ways we share information and communicate with one another. That is the spine of all my work. It is a simple idea, but it contains multitudes. Communication can build bridges, create belonging, and give people a sense of identity; it can also spread fear, isolate entire groups, and turn neighbours against one another. When I say that my research looks at the ways communities can be created or destroyed through information and communication, I am not talking about abstract theories or distant political systems. I am talking about real people, real evenings in local libraries, real families sitting around dinner tables, real teenagers scrolling through their phones and deciding who they are allowed to be. I think we often underestimate how much the words around us shape the worlds we live in. A kind story can welcome someone home. A malicious rumour can push them out. And in an age of endless information, misinformation, and disinformation, the stakes have never been higher. I do this work because I believe that understanding those forces can help us choose which kind of community we want to be.
That belief did not arrive fully formed. It developed slowly, through years of looking at very specific problems and following the questions they raised. I began my academic life doing a PhD at Maynooth, where I studied how traditional broadcast and print media framed LGBTQ minorities. I was interested in the stories that were told about queer people, and the stories that were not told at all. I wanted to know how the act of framing — of choosing which words, images, and narratives to put into the world — could shape public attitudes toward an entire group of people. That work made me think more broadly about the power of information, misinformation, and disinformation, and how they circulate through society. It was not just about representation in the media; it was about what happens after those representations are absorbed, repeated, and turned into beliefs. When I moved to University College Dublin’s School of Information and Communication Studies, my focus widened further. I started to look at new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, facial recognition software, and gender-recognition tools. These technologies are not neutral. They are built by people and trained on data that carry human biases. They can include or exclude, recognise or misrecognise, validate or erase. More recently, I worked on a project that I am deeply proud of, which looked at how public disinformation campaigns around LGBTQ programming in Irish public libraries incited people to make decisions based on false beliefs that had been imported from other jurisdictions. That project crystallised everything I had been working toward. It showed how a local, harmless, inclusive event could be targeted by a global network of misinformation, and how that could lead real people to protest, complain, and demand changes based on fears that had nothing to do with their own community. The threads were all connected: media framing, technology, disinformation, and the fragile fabric of community life.
How do I actually carry out this research? The shortest and most honest answer is that I listen to a lot of people. I was originally trained to analyse themes, content, and discourse in media. I spent long hours with newspapers, television broadcasts, and increasingly, digital platforms, looking for patterns in how stories were told and whose voices were amplified. But there was always a social science itch in me, a nagging sense that I was only seeing part of the picture. The text on the page or the soundbite on the news was the end product of a long chain of human decisions, and I wanted to understand that chain. So I started interviewing producers and editors about their decision-making. I wanted to know why they chose certain angles, which sources they trusted, what pressures they faced, and how they imagined their audiences. Those conversations were revelatory. They reminded me that media is made by human beings, with all their blind spots, instincts, and compromises. From there, I pivoted quite firmly toward qualitative interviews and focus groups with people and communities. I wanted to go beyond the text and into lived experience. I wanted to sit with people and ask them how they make sense of the information they encounter, how it makes them feel, and how it shapes their relationships with others. I still listen. That is the thread running through my work. I have never lost the sense that the best way to understand a problem is to talk to the people living through it, and to trust that their experiences are data, too. It is slower work than running algorithms over a corpus of articles. It is messier and harder to summarise. But it brings me closer to the truth of what information does to human beings.
One of the things I wish more people understood about online misinformation is that it is okay to get things wrong. This might sound strange coming from someone who studies misinformation, but I truly believe it. Being misinformed is actually fine if you are willing to learn and engage. None of us knows everything, and all of us are exposed to falsehoods at some point. The problem is not that people are misinformed; the problem arises when people are misinformed and unwilling to change their opinion. When being right becomes more important than being open, when admitting a mistake feels like defeat, that is when misinformation hardens into something dangerous. I also wish people felt more comfortable saying the words “I do not know.” There is a kind of liberation in admitting uncertainty. It opens the door to learning, to conversation, and to the possibility of being surprised. I think we have become so afraid of looking foolish that we cling to half-baked beliefs rather than asking questions. But everything is a learning opportunity, and nothing is ever a done deal. If we could all embrace that, we would be much better equipped to resist the pull of disinformation. I also want people to understand that they are not powerless. There are practical things we can all do. And I am passionate, perhaps above all, about reading as a defence against misinformation. Short-form content such as TikTok videos is eroding our attention spans. We scroll, we swipe, we react, and we move on. We do not sit with ideas long enough to examine them. Reading books is an antidote to that. It forces us to slow down, to follow a long argument, to sit with characters who are different from us, and to develop the patience that critical thinking requires. I carry a book everywhere. I read on my commutes on public transport, in waiting rooms, in the few quiet minutes before bed. It is not just an indulgence; it is a practice of protecting my own mind.
My own latest book is about popular culture, and I have to laugh, because I ended up becoming part of popular culture myself when I appeared on The Traitors Ireland. That was surreal. But the book, Pop Culchie, is something I started writing a couple of years ago, long before I ever thought about applying for the show. It came from a place of genuine love for the subject, not from any desire for attention. I just wanted to say something about the intersections of popular culture, identity, and belonging. The Traitors was separate. I applied because I genuinely wanted to play the game. As an adult, what chance do you ever get to run away for two weeks to a castle, cut off from the real world, and play a game of strategy, trust, and deception? It was a dream come true. It was also, I have to admit, a fascinating experiment in communication and community. Here we were, a group of strangers thrown together in an isolated place, trying to form alliances, build trust, and survive. I could not stop watching it through my researcher’s eyes. The same dynamics I study in society played out in miniature in that castle: who was believed, who was doubted, who was cast out, and how stories were spun to create or destroy loyalties. It was life imitating my research, and I loved every second of it. I am also part of a gig for Science Week, which I am very excited about. I will be on the panel at an event called “We Love an Icon” as part of the “C’Mere Til I Tell Ye” festival. The festival website is cmere.ie. We are going to be talking about the celebrities that the LGBTQ+ community embraces, why we love them, what they mean to us, and how those shared loves help create a sense of belonging. It is going to be a wonderful conversation about joy, culture, and community, and I cannot wait.
And when I get time off, I am simple to please. As I said, I love to read, and I carry a book everywhere I go. But I also love going to the cinema on my own to watch two or three films in a row. I get a popcorn and a drink for each one, I switch my phone to aeroplane mode, and I disappear into other worlds for a few glorious hours. It is one of my favourite things in the world. I find it deeply restorative. I also love trying new restaurants with my husband, especially places we have never been before, and ordering a pint of Guinness with a good meal. We have developed a little hobby of rating the quality of the pints wherever we go, and we take it very seriously. Is the head too thick? Is the temperature right? Is it served with a proper smile? These are the important questions. And I have a very deep, possibly embarrassing love of rewatching terrible X Factor auditions. I mean the truly awful ones, the ones where people are profoundly off-key but utterly convinced they are destined for stardom. There is something joyfully humane about them. They remind me that confidence and delusion are often indistinguishable, and that we are all, in our own ways, performing for an audience we can only half see. Simple stuff, really. I am very easy to please. At the end of the day, my research and my life are not separate things. I study how communities are created and destroyed through information and communication, but I also live it. I read, I listen, I watch, I laugh, I argue, I change my mind. I try to hold my beliefs lightly enough that I can keep learning. That is what I hope my work offers other people: not certainty, but curiosity; not answers, but better questions. And if a terrible X Factor audition can teach us anything, it is that being wrong is not the end of the world. It can be the beginning of a good laugh, and with a little humility, the beginning of a better understanding too.