Smart Services CRC scholarships in New Media Services

The Smart Services CRC is a $120 million, commercially focused collaborative research initiative, developing innovation, foresight and productivity improvements for the services sector. Services are the largest sector of the economy representing approximately 80% of Australia’s GDP and 85% of employment. Within the services industries Smart Services’ initial programs are customer-focused with outcomes translatable across the whole services sector. Initial research outcomes and demonstrators have been associated with the digital media, finance and government sectors.

In order to achieve these goals, Smart Services CRC is supporting research higher degree students at PhD and Masters level through scholarships, top-ups and in-kind support for research, travel, conferences etc. As a partner in Smart Services CRC, the Queensland University of Technology is offering scholarship packages for 2010. Research higher degree students with CRC scholarships will have access to the full range of resources offered by QUT (access to equipment and facilities, Grants-in-Aid, teaching opportunities etc.), as well as the opportunity to work with leading industry partners in the media, finance and government sectors on projects of direct real-world relevance through Smart Services CRC.

The New Media Services program at QUT is focused on research questions such as:

• What are innovative business models for new media? Can international case studies identify new opportunities for media service industries in an era of Web 2.0 that goes beyond the mass communications model?
• What new opportunities for news are enabled by digital media, including computational journalism, news visualization and citizen journalism?
• What opportunities exist to “harness the hive” of social media in advertising, marketing and integrated marketing communication?
• Can the development of digital communities and the nurturing of digital ecosystems be applied across the service industries?

Led by the Creative Industries Faculty and the Faculty of Business, the New Media Services program provides the opportunity to work collaboratively with industry partners across the media and government sectors on aligning research activity with industry goals and strategies in the emergent digital media environment.

The following topics are of interest to supervisors in the New Media Services research project team:

Professor Terry Flew (Creative Industries Faculty, QUT)

1. Innovative business models for new media;
2. Digital futures for news media;
3. Mobile and digital media content production.

Associate Professor Axel Bruns (Creative Industries Faculty, QUT)

1. Drivers and motivations for users to participate in social media Websites;
2. Future developments in online social media and social networking;
3. Business models for social media sites.

Dr. Christy Collis (Creative Industries Faculty, QUT)

1. Emerging uses and users of locative mobile media;
2. Audiences and markets for online, mobile, and cross-platform media.

Dr. Christina Spurgeon (Creative Industries Faculty, QUT)

1. Researching and developing brand communities and content;
2. Commercializing co-creative media.

Dr. Edwina Luck (School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Faculty of Business, QUT)

1. Future drivers of participation within virtual social media
2. The role of ‘electronic word-of-mouth’ in product and service marketing
3. Hyper-targeting and advertising within virtual social networks

Dr. Larry Neale (School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Faculty of Business, QUT)

1. Social media and information search
2. Delivering digital customer service

Smart Services CRC is a research and development partnership between 12 major industry players and six Australian universities, funded by the private sector and governments under the Australian Government’s Cooperative Research Centre program. Its aim is the creation of research-enabled commercial outcomes for its partners.

For more information on scholarships at QUT, go here.

Application forms for Smart Services CRC scholarships can be found here.

Information for prospective research students in the Faculty of Business can be found here.

Information for prospective research students in the Creative Industries Faculty can be found here.