After my stops in Brussels, Aarhus, Hamburg, and Bergen I'm now on the Brazilian leg of this conference journey, having already visited Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre for satellite symposia before the AoIR 2025 conference proper begins tomorrow. Here are some updates from those events, and slides for my presentations.
In Belo Horizonte I presented a keynote at the colloquium “Perspectives on Public Spheres and the Network of Publics”, outlining my current thinking on what has replaced 'the' public sphere; the slides are here:
Axel Bruns. “From 'the' Public Sphere to a Network of Publics: Rethinking Contemporary Public Communication Spaces.” Keynote presented at the colloquium “Perspectives on Public Spheres and the Network of Publics” at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 6 Oct. 2025.
This builds on an article I published in Communication Theory a couple of years ago, and which itself continues a long-standing train of thought that dates back at least to my 2008 piece in Information Polity (preprint). The 2023 article in Communication Theory is online here:
Axel Bruns. “From ‘the’ Public Sphere to a Network of Publics: Towards an Empirically Founded Model of Contemporary Public Communication Spaces.” Communication Theory 33.2-3 (2023): 70-81. DOI: 10.1093/ct/qtad007.
For the empirical analysis of this network of publics my team and I are increasingly using our new practice mapping approach, and so I also presented a paper on practice mapping (actually a shortened version of last year's ACSPRI keynote) at the symposium in Belo Horizonte. My sincere thanks to Rousiley Maya and her team for the invitation to visit the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais for this event.
Practice mapping was also a key analytical framework in a keynote at a second AoIR 2025 satellite event on “Disinformation, Social Media Platforms, and the Climate Crisis”, organised by the great Raquel Recuero at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre. Here, I presented work in progress on a very large dataset of public climate coverage in Australia on Facebook from 2018 to 2024. We're not nearly finished with analysing this large collection of data, but some early patterns are beginning to emerge:
Axel Bruns. “Destructive Polarisation in Climate Debates: An Exploration Using the Practice Mapping Approach.” Keynote presented at the AoIR 2025 satellite event “Disinformation, Social Media Platforms, and the Climate Crisis” at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 9 Oct. 2025.
Speaking of climate coverage, by the way, I also contributed to a new journal article led by my QUT colleague Katharina Esau that examines the journalistic coverage of climate movements in Australia and Germany, looking for evidence of polarised media framing. The results are mixed, and the article (which builds on our presentation at the ICA 2024 conference) is out now in Media International Australia:
Katharina Esau, Hendrik Meyer, Mike Farjam, Axel Bruns, Helena Rauxloh, and Michael Brüggemann. “Polarised Media Framing of Climate Movements: A Comparative Mixed-Methods Analysis of Australia and Germany.” Media International Australia. DOI: 10.1177/1329878X2513775.
I made a much smaller contribution (mainly some data wrangling) to another article that is also out now, led by frequent QUT Digital Media Research Centre visitor Alice Fleerackers and involving a number of other colleagues. Published in Journalism Practice, it examines what drives both the republication of articles from The Conversation in other news outlets, and Facebook engagement with such content:
Alice Fleerackers, Ines Engelmann, Michelle Riedlinger, Kim Osman, Laura Vodden, Katharina Esau, Arjun Srinivas, and Axel Bruns. “Amplifying the News: An Analysis of the Factors Driving Republication and Facebook Engagement with News.” Journalism Practice. DOI: 10.1080/17512786.2025.2545440.
So that's where things stand for now; tomorrow we start the 2025 Association of Internet Researchers conference, so there will be plenty of liveblogging ahead for me – especially also from the various presentations that my colleagues and I will make during these next few days. I'll post a round-up of those presentations (and my paper at the ZeMKI 20th anniversary conference in Bremen next week) at the end of the trip...
