If you strip away all the academic jargon, the conference panels, and the heavy volumes of research, my life’s work centres on a painfully simple question: what makes us feel that we belong, and what cruelly tears that feeling of belonging apart? I look at the ways in which communities can be created or destroyed through information and communication, and that dynamic is truly the spine of everything I do. It isn’t just about data packets, news headlines, or social media algorithms; it’s about the very architecture of human connection. A community is a fragile structure, held together not by mortar or steel, but by an invisible glue of shared stories, common references, and a profound, mutual trust in the information we exchange. When that trust is nourished, we feel safe, seen, and understood. When loyalty is betrayed—by a viral lie, a distorted news article, or a malicious disinformation campaign—the foundation begins to crumble almost instantly. Over the years, I have seen this fragile dynamic play out in countless contexts, from marginalized minorities trying to find a lifeline in media representations to whole local populations turning on each other because of imported falsehoods that have nothing to do with their reality. The power of a single, true, compassionate narrative can heal a generation’s trauma or welcome someone in from the cold. Conversely, a well-aimed piece of fake news can shatter friendships, divide families, and weaponize entire nations. I find this interplay absolutely electrifying, not because it is abstract or distant, but precisely because it is so painfully granular and personal. I get deeply caught up in the human stories behind the noise, because ultimately, information is simply people whispering to each other across space and time. Like any conversation, it can be a source of immense comfort, a quiet anchor in the storm, or it can be the first spark that ignites a terrible fire. It is a heavy responsibility to study this, but it is also an immense privilege, and it drives me to get up every morning because I know that navigating this labyrinth is not just an intellectual exercise; it is an act of survival for the bonds we hold dear.
This obsession started, as these things often do, with an attempt to understand my own context and the communities I belonged to. My PhD at Maynooth initially focused on a very specific, very personal issue: how traditional broadcast and print media were framing LGBTQ minorities. I was fascinated by the language used, the silences, the imagery—the subtle ways that a headline or a news report could either validate someone’s existence or reduce them to a political football or a social disease. Digging into those archives made me think much more broadly about the raw power of information, misinformation, and disinformation, not just for a particular identity group, but for the very survival of a democratic society. Moving to the school of information and communication studies at UCD was a pivotal moment for me. I suddenly had the tools and the interdisciplinary space to explore the rapid evolution of technology. I started looking at new and emerging fields like artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and even gender-recognition software. These technologies promised efficiency and progress, but I was far more interested in their dark, often sinister side effects: how they create new categories of exclusion, how they automate prejudice, and how they quietly decide who gets to be seen and who gets to be erased. Lately, a project I am truly proud of tackled a very current, very frightening phenomenon: public disinformation campaigns. We examined how these campaigns around LGBTQ programming in Irish public libraries managed to incite ordinary, decent people into making decisions based on false beliefs that had been cherry-picked and imported from other jurisdictions entirely. What struck me most was the terrifying efficiency with which a template for outrage could be replicated, as if they were clinical in their execution, downloading anger from one county and uploading it wholesale into another. It showed me that the digital thread connects all of us, and a cut on one side of the world can easily bleed on the other.
So, how do I actually carry out my research? The mundane answer is that I listen. I listen to a lot of people, often for hours on end. My academic training originally leaned towards what we call discourse and content analysis—the meticulous, almost forensic unpacking of themes within media texts. I was good at it, but there was always a maddening social science itch underneath my skin pulling me to go beyond the text. I wanted to see the beating heart behind the pixels and the printers’ ink. So, I started interviewing producers and editors about their decision-making processes. I wanted to know what factors made them choose a certain story, cut a certain interview, or angle a piece a particular way. I discovered that bias wasn’t always a conscious malevolence; it often came down to tiredness, pressures, or inherited assumptions about audiences. But I didn’t stop there. From those media professionals, I pivoted quite firmly in a humanistic, qualitative direction. I began conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups with the actual people and communities living through these phenomena. I sat in kitchens, in community centres, and in library reading rooms, just letting people talk. This method is slow, methodical, and often emotionally draining, but it is also the only way I know to actually ground my theories in the gritty texture of life. I often ask participants to bring a photo or an object that represents their experience, and those little props unravel the deepest insights. My role became less about being an expert with answers and more about being a humble conduit for their experiences. When a person trusts you with their fears about a surveillance tool or their anger at being misrepresented in the news, you feel the weight of it. The static text will always only give you half the story; the other half exists in the pauses, the hesitations, and the uncontrollable emotion of a living human voice.
When people ask me about the huge issue of online misinformation, they expect angry solutions or technical fixes, but my answer often surprises them. I wish people knew that it is genuinely okay to get things wrong. Being misinformed is actually fine if you are willing to learn and engage with the world around you. None of us have a monopoly on truth, and our minds are constantly making mistakes. The fatal problem arises when people are misinformed and are also aggressively unwilling to change their opinion—when they cement their identity to a piece of false information. The danger isn’t the error; it’s the stubbornness. I also wish people felt much more comfortable saying the deceptively simple phrase, “I don’t know.” We live in a culture that demands an immediate answer to everything, that sees hesitation as weakness. But admitting ignorance is the first, bravest step towards knowledge. I try to treat everything as a learning opportunity because nothing is ever really a done deal. The truth is a moving target, and our job is to keep aiming. But what can people actually do to counter the tsunami of falsehoods? I am deeply, almost unfashionably, passionate about reading as a defence. I genuinely believe that the slow, deliberate act of reading a book is a revolutionary act in our modern era. Short-form content like TikTok videos and scrolling feeds is actively eroding our attention spans and teaching us to accept things immediately without thought. Reading forces us to sit still, to parse complex sentences, and to change our minds alongside a narrative. I do not advocate for it because books are inherently noble objects—some of them are dreadful—but because the very act of finishing a chapter demands a sustained engagement that our fractured digital selves desperately need to relearn. I carry a book absolutely everywhere I go, and I read during my commutes on public transport. It is my sanctuary, my mental gym, and my shield.
In the middle of all those heavy, serious topics—the disinformation, the AI bias, the data wars—I have also managed to find an immense amount of joy in popular culture. My own latest book, Pop Culchie, is a love letter to the pop culture we consume and how it shapes our identities. It allows me to look at media through a lens of laughter and lightness, which is just as valid as academic heaviness. But research is just one slice of me. I became a tiny, reluctant part of pop culture myself when I appeared on The Traitors Ireland. It was a surreal experience. I started writing Pop Culchie a couple of years ago, long before the idea of applying for a reality TV show even crossed my mind. I applied because, at its core, I just genuinely wanted to play the game. As an adult, what chance do you ever get to run away for two weeks to a stunning castle, completely cut off from the real world and all its pressures? It felt like a dream come true, a mulligan on childhood adventure. I loved stepping out of my academic shell and diving headfirst into the psychological strategies and the tactical paranoia of the show. There were moments in that castle when motives blurred and alliances formed and collapsed within hours, and I realized I wasn’t far removed from my research subjects—I was living their data, which humanized the theories in a way no academic text ever could. And the silliness continues to bleed into my thoughtful work. I am part of a gig for Science Week, specifically on a panel at the “We love an icon” event at the “C’Mere Til I Tell Ye” festival. There, I’ll be talking about the celebrities that the LGBTQ+ community embraces, exploring why we elevate certain pop stars and actors to the level of saints, and how that shared admiration builds a powerful sense of collective identity and belonging. You can check out the details on the website, cmere.ie. It’s a beautiful intersection of rigorous insight and unabashed fun.
With a life so focused on the chaos of communication and the noise of humanity, you might think my time off would be frantic, but I’m a deliciously simple man. As mentioned, I love to read—that is my number one pastime. But I also have a peculiar ritual: I love going to the cinema on my own to watch two or three films in a row. I bring a giant bucket of popcorn and a separate drink for each movie, and I put my phone on aeroplane mode. There is something liberating about not having to share the experience of a movie’s first ten minutes with anyone, as the silence of the auditorium wraps around me like a glove, and when I come out blinking into the streetlights, I feel completely reset and recharged. It is a sacred, immersive dive into other realities, unbothered by the outside world. When I am feeling particularly social, I love trying new restaurants with my husband, and our absolute hobby is finding a traditional pub, ordering a couple of pints of Guinness, and critically rating the quality of those pints against each other. It’s a rigorous, yet deeply satisfying, form of quality control we take very seriously. And if we are lucky, we watch a bit of television. I have this beautifully unironic, deep love of rewatching terrible X Factor auditions. The absolute delusion, the pure cringe, the bizarre costumes—it is the perfect, mindless palate cleanser after a tough week. It is simple stuff, really. I don’t need lavish holidays or expensive gadgets to feel fulfilled. I am very easy to please. And perhaps that is the far-reaching lesson of all my work: that the strongest communities are not built on grand gestures or complex theories, but on the quiet, shared moments—a good book on a commute, a cinema trip alone, a laugh at a bad singer, and a heartfelt conversation over a well-poured pint. We just need to remember to protect those moments, and to tell each other the truth while we’re having them.