Rate My Professor Michael Daubs

Dr Michael Daubs is a Senior Lecturer in the Media, Film and Communication programme at the University of Otago, a position he began in 2025. He earned a BA in Telecommunications and an MSc in Informatics (Media Arts and Sciences) from Indiana University, followed by a PhD in Media Studies from The University of Western Ontario. Early in his career, Daubs worked as a web, database, and multimedia developer. He then served as Adjunct Lecturer and subsequently Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at Western Ontario. In 2013, he joined Victoria University of Wellington as a Lecturer in the Media Studies programme (later renamed Media and Communication), where he was promoted to Senior Lecturer after over nine years of service. Daubs also held roles as Senior Policy Advisor at InternetNZ and Senior Policy Analyst for the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs.

Daubs' research specializations include mobile and ubiquitous media, media and activism, media and extremism, media policy, and the political economy of media, along with information communication technologies and social media, the spread of extremist ideology and networking of white extremism, disinformation and 'fake news', digital labour, visual culture, and media aesthetics. He edited the book Mobile and Ubiquitous Media: Critical and International Perspectives (Peter Lang, 2018). Notable publications feature "Analyse von extremismus in online-spieleplattformen: Ansätze und herausforderungen" in Communicatio Socialis (2024, with J. Wimmer), the chapter "Internationalising white extremism: Far-right networks in New Zealand and beyond" in Histories of Hate (Otago University Press, 2022), "Friction-free authenticity: Mobile social networks and transactional affordances" in Media, Culture & Society (2021, with V. Manzerolle), and "Framing 'digital well-being' as a social good" in First Monday (2020, with A. Beattie). He has given invited lectures at the New Zealand Institute for International Affairs, National Library of New Zealand, and Speaker’s Science Forum at Parliament, appeared on RNZ, TVNZ, Newsroom, The Spinoff, and New Zealand Herald, and presented at conferences in North America, Europe, and Oceania. Previously at Victoria University of Wellington, he supervised multiple PhD and MA theses to completion.