A Digital Society Network & iHuman Event

Thursday 15 December 2022, 1:00-2:00pm

Elmfield Building, Room 109

Using digital methods for controversy analysis: A case study of Tesla’s (big) battery in Australia, Dr Aleesha Rodriguez (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child).

The Digital Society Network and iHuman are proud to present a research masterclass by Dr Aleesha Rodriguez (Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child

In this masterclass, Aleesha describes their methodology using digital methods to conduct a controversy analysis of Tesla’s (big) battery in Australia. Tesla’s (big) battery is an imagined and speculative technology that first materialised discursively on social media and later materialised into a physical battery known as the Hornsdale Power Reserve, in 2017. Tesla’s (big) battery became the “stuff of politics” in Australia (Braun & Whatmore, 2010) after a wager on Twitter between two billionaire tech entrepreneurs, namely Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the Australian co-CEO of Atlassian, Mike Cannon-Brookes. Tesla’s (big) battery was introduced on Twitter as, at the time, the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery that would “solve” an ongoing power crisis in the state of South Australia. The acute events experienced as part of South Australia’s power crisis were broadly considered highly controversial, as they engendered widespread media coverage and high-level accusations regarding the causes and resolutions of the crisis. However, these events also constituted a controversy in a more specific sense. Controversies in Science and Technology Studies (STS), are events that generate uncertainty, destabilise established practices and norms, and energise public deliberation wherein new relations and normative imaginaries form. To explore this controversy, Aleesha conducted a controversy analysis of Tesla’s (big) battery by mapping the key events, actors, and issues pertaining to this (big) battery, on two social media platforms, namely Twitter, the site of the (big) battery’s conception, and Whirlpool, an Australian technology forum in which users engaged in focused discussions about this (big) battery and longer-term debates about South Australia’s power crisis. In this masterclass, Aleesha will explain how they conducted a controversy analysis on Tesla’s (big) battery using digital methods and specifically, how they drew on actor-network theory (ANT)—both conceptually and empirically—to argue that Tesla’s (big) battery shaped energy futures both in Australia and globally.

Bio:

Dr. Aleesha Rodriguez is an experienced researcher in the fields of digital media communication and Science and Technology Studies (STS). They are a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, researching public imaginaries of future digital media technologies. Aleesha completed their PhD at the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), and their broad research agenda examines public communication on digital platforms, such as TikTok and Reddit, to explore the ways in which people and technology, mutually and dynamically, shape each other. Aleesha’s research has been published in the International Journal of Communication, Social Media + Society, and Media and Communication. The Literacies and Language Research Cluster at The University of Sheffield is delighted to be hosting Aleesha as a Visiting Scholar in Winter 2022.

This event will take place in room 109, Elmfield Building. There is also the opportunity to join the event virtually. A link to the lecture will be shared closer tot he event date. Please register to confirm if you will be attending the event in person or if you will be joining online.