The lecturers of Communication and Media Studies at Murdoch University

Kirsty Best - Image Meet Kirsty Best

Senior Lecturer

"We communicate and use new media every day. It’s exciting to stand back from things we are so used to and find out what is really going on. I like to introduce students to new tools and theories to help in this task, as well as to try out all sorts of practical activities designed to get us to communicate or ask questions about new media in novel ways."

Education

  • BA (Concordia), PhD (RMIT)


Grants

  • Australia Research Council Discovery Grant, 2009-2011
    $236,000, 3 years
    Title of project: Isolation, illness and the Internet: Exploring the possibility of a second life for sufferers of ME
  • Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 2005-2009
    $67, 604, 3 years
    Title of project: Information, Interfaces and Technological Consent-A critical analysis of the impact of digital screen technologies on information control and democratic debate


Publications

  • Best, K. (2010). Redefining the technology of media: Actor, world, relation. Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology, 14(2).

  • Best, K. (2010). Concealing screens: Consent, control and the desiring user. Reconstruction, 10(2).

  • Best, K. (2010). Living in the control society: Surveillance, users and digital screen technologies. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 13(1).

  • Best, K. (2009). When mobiles go media: Relational affordances and present-to-hand digital devices. Canadian Journal of Communication, 34(3), 397-414.

  • Best, K. (2009). Invalid command: Affordances, ICTs and user control. Information, Communication & Society, 12 (7).

  • Best, K. (2008). The Effects of Mediation? Beyond the Construction of Consent in the War on Terror. In D. Grenfell & P. James (Eds.), Rethinking Insecurity and Violence: Beyond Savage Globalization. London: Routledge.
  • Lamey, A., & Best, K. (2008). Posner on the uselessness of moral theory: An empirical analysis. Teaching and Learning Forum 2008, Perth.
  • Best, K. (2006). Visceral hacking or packet wanking? The ethics of digital code. Culture, Theory and Critique, 47(2), 213-235.
  • Best, K. (2005). Celebrity.Com: Internet finance and frenzy at the millennium. Consumption, Markets & Culture, 8(4).
  • Best, K. (2005). Rethinking the globalization movement: Toward a cultural theory of contemporary democracy and communication. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 2(3).
  • Lewis, J., & Best, K. (2005). Pure Filth: apocalyptic hedonism and the postmodern surfer. Scope, 2.
  • Best, K. (2004). Interfacing the environment: Networked screens and the ethics of visual consumption. Ethics and the Environment, 9(2).
  • Best, K,. (2004). Visual imaging technologies, embodied sympathy and control in the 9-11 wars, Global Insecurities, Melbourne.
  • Best, K. (2003). Beating them at their own game: the cultural politics of the open software movement and the gift economy. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 6(4), 449-470.
  • Best, K. (2003). The Hacker's Challenge: Active access to information, visceral democracy and discursive practice. Social Semiotics, 13(3), 263-282.
  • Best, K. (2003). Revisiting the Y2K Bug: Language Wars over Networking the Global Order. Television and New Media, 4(3), 297-319.
  • Lewis, J., & Best, K. (2003). The Electronic Polis: Media Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq. Reconstruction, 3(3).
  • Lewis, J., & Best, K. (2002). After Y2K: Time, Andre the Giant and other Democratic Avatars. In F. Sudweeks & C. Ess (Eds.), Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication. Murdoch: Murdoch University, 107-127.
  • Best, K., & Lewis, J. (2000). Hacking the Democratic Mainframe: The Melissa Virus and Transgressive Computing. Media International Australia (95, May), 207-226.