Mathieu O'Neil

Associate Professor of Communication, News and Media Research Centre, University of Canberra
Mathieu is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Canberra’s News & Media Research Centre, where he leads the Critical Conversations Lab. Mathieu’s research focuses on the affordances of commons-based peer production such as free and open source software and Wikipedia. He is currently investigating how Wikipedia can assist in generating civic online reasoning and best fact-checking practice in three ACT schools. He also leads an international team researching the organisational and public policy implications of the production of free and open source software. Mathieu has played a key role in developing the field of peer production studies by founding and editing the peer-reviewed Journal of Peer Production (2011-2021), by editing the Handbook of Peer Production (Wiley-Blackwell Handbooks in Communication and Media, 2021), and by founding an international think tank, the Digital Commons Policy Council, in 2021.

Mathieu has also made significant contributions to the development of innovative online research methods and concepts, most recently thanks to an international project in which he is developing heuristics to detect online echo chambers. Mathieu is a founding member of the Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks (VOSON), a world leader in web science and big data analytics located in the Australian National University. Mathieu’s research on the adoption of innovation and the diffusion of health misinformation in the online environment draws on analytical frameworks such as social network analysis, actor-network theory and the sociologies of fields and controversies. In 2020 Mathieu presented findings and made policy recommendations on two occasions to the Senate Select Committee on Foreign Interference through Social Media, and was invited to discuss the Australian Perspectives on Misinformation report on the ABC's Lateline with the iconic Philip Adams.

Mathieu's research has been published in three books and in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Social Networks, Information, Communication & Society, Réseaux, New Media and Society, the International Journal of Communication, and Organization Studies, amongst others.