Joanne Lim

Dr Joanne Lim is Professor in Communications, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Nottingham in Malaysia. She is also Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences. Dr Lim holds a PhD in Media and Cultural Studies and an MA in Global Media from the University of East London, UK. She had been appointed Visiting Research Fellow with the National University of Singapore in 2013, and Visiting Senior Research Fellow with the London School of Economics (Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre) in 2021. Dr Lim teaches on all levels of the UG and PGT/R programmes in the areas of (Digital) Media and Society, Cultural Policy and the Creative Industries. Her research focuses on participatory governance, participatory media (including social media and mobile media), New Communication Technologies, interculturality, youth identities; and civic/political engagement within the Malaysian-Southeast Asian context. She is currently involved in a number of (multi-disciplinary) research projects, both as primary and co-investigator in the areas of mHealth app for Cancer (pertaining to plant-based diet); Jiwa Ibu (mHealth app for women in rural communities); Mental Health and Suicide Reporting; the Weaponising of Pop Culture on WhatsApp in Singapore & Malaysia; and Sentiment Analysis of Online Perception on Human Rights in the Palm Oil Industry. She is Associate Editor of Media Asia (Routledge) and Editorial Board Member of the Southeast Asian Social Science Review (IKMAS). Dr Lim is a former journalist with one of Malaysia's leading newspaper. She also worked as a Broadcast Journalist in Alberta, Canada and a Co-producer of a radio talk show (710KIRO) in Seattle, USA. At present, Dr Lim is currently working on a research monograph which explores new media and public participation in a democracy.

Teaching Summary

Dr Joanne Lim is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA), UK. She was awarded the University of Nottingham's Lord Dearing Award in 2022 and 2014 for excellence in Teaching & Learning, and the Vice-Chancellor's Award in 2012. She teaches on all levels of the International Communications Studies programmes and the MA in Cultural Studies, specialising in the areas of Media and Cultural Studies, Postcolonialism, and the Creative Industries. She is a follower of Stuart Hall and finds areas of postmodernism and post-structuralism to be particularly significant in raising questions about the dialectical struggle between East and West, and the discourses of power and identity within and between nations and nation-states. She also engages with psychoanalytic theory and the work of such thinkers as Jacques Lacan, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said and Gayathri Spivak in examining issues concerning multiculturalism, national identity, religious fragmentation, racial tension, gender (in)equality, and the suppression of human rights. She is particularly interested in the study of Youth Cultures and Identities, and their use of alternative media forms to articulate and legitimate competing ideological agendas, especially within highly censored societies. Dr Lim also often employs the work of Henri Jenkins, Manual Castells, Deleuze and Guattari, and Raymond Williams in discussing topics pertaining to online culture and participation.

Among the modules she has taught include the following:

Foundation:

• Media and Texts: Culture
• Media and Texts: Society
• Foundations in Politics, Media and Culture

Undergraduate:

• Culture & Society
• Political Communication, PR and Propaganda
• Writing for the Media
• Culture, Film and Media Dissertation
• Researching Culture, Film and Media
• Youth & Mobile Media
• Translating Cultures

Postgraduate:

• Digital Storytelling and Production (with CNN Academy)
• Cultural Policy
• Research Methods in Cultural Studies
• Working in the Culture Industry

Dr Lim also supervises PhD students in the following areas:

• Digital Media Interventions and Strategies for Participatory Governmental Reforms in Malaysia
• Traditions in Modernity: Understanding Chinese Orchestra in Malaysia as a Cultural Ecosystem
• Cultural Identity and the Practice of Cultural Norms via Social Media Platforms Amongst Chinese Students in Malaysia
• Social Media Engagement/Government Policy
• Sustaining Media Reforms: A Comparative Study of Burma and Indonesia in the Context of Democratisation
• Impact of Mass Communication on Participatory Development in Rural Sarawak

Research Summary

Dr Joanne Lim is currently leading a 3-year multidisciplinary research project entitled mHealth App: Prevention and Management of Cancer via an AI-Integrated Mobile Application to Recommend Plant-Based Diets (funded by the Ministry of Higher Education, under its (FRGS) Fundamental Research Grant Scheme). This project brings together researchers from diverse backgrounds including Social Sciences, Computer Science, Pharmacy and Biosciences.

In 2022, she was awarded the Digital Society Research Grant by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for a study entitled, An Analysis of TV News Consumption Amongst Malaysians in Peninsular Malaysia.

She is collaborating with St Georges University of London, Universiti Malaya, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and Hanai Jiwa Ibu Sdn Bhd on a project called Jiwa Ibu: mHealth App Development for Women in Rural Communities to provide localised and tailored information on mental, women's, maternal and children's health.

She is co-investigator of another FRGS project on Stakeholder Perspectives on Safe Media Reporting for Suicide Prevention with researchers from the University of Nottingham Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

She was also involved as co-investigator in research projects namely: Decoding the Weaponising of Pop Culture on WhatsApp in Singapore & Malaysia (Integrity Foundational Research Awards by Facebook); and Predictive Analytics using Sentiment Analysis in Social Media: A Big Data Approach to Persuasive Communications in Social Media Intelligence of Palm Oil-based Products as part of an RM1.02mil project funded by the Ministry of Education on Improving Market Access of Palm Oil Exports.

Her current research also includes analysis of YouTube videos produced by Malaysians during the Covid-19 pandemic; exploring the culture/industry of eGaming in Malaysia (game design and manifestations in (re)building the ecosystem and (re)constructing a subculture); online dating platforms; discussing the Digital Rhizomorph: Understanding Online Youth Political Participation Post Malaysia's GE-14; and examining Intergenerational Differences of WhatsApp Usage Amongst Malaysians.

Dr Lim was also appointed Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, London School of Economics & Political Science from May 2021, whereby she undertook research on participatory governance in developing smart and regenerative solutions (from a digital media perspective) for communities in Southeast Asia.

Past Research

Dr Lim successfully led three research projects funded by the Malaysian Department of Higher Education. The first project under the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme focused on 'Social Media and the Agency of Youth in Malaysia'. The study examined the politics of social media in Malaysia and the issues of youth as consumers, youth as representations and youth as creators, to offer an understanding of changing lives and frustrated desires, contradictions and dispersed sites of youth agency that are refracted into various degrees and forms. By comparing how young adults engage with social media based on their geographical location and social/political determinisms, it was possible to observe different forces contend to fix their own meanings and (alternative) definitions in the construction of national-and-self identity. The findings of this study was useful to consider social media as an essential tool in the project of social, cultural and political restructuring.

The second project, 'Youth Theatre: Fostering Interculturality through the Performing Arts in Malaysia' was conducted under Exploratory Research Grant Scheme. The project took the form of an "instrumental case study" that involved developing and implementing a carefully planned series of actions which will test the potential benefits of including intercultural theatre in the school programme as a way of supporting the personal development of young people and delivering on broader social and economic development goals. The project involved the development and introduction of a pilot programme of two years duration during which an intercultural drama project was conducted with a number of selected schools. The project turned one of the defining characteristics of Malaysian society - its diversity - into a competitive advantage for its young people, providing the ideal context in which to foster the development of high order thinking skills. (see https://www.thestar.com.my/News/Education/2015/03/01/Having-the-HOTS-for-theatre?style=biz)

The third research project she led was entitled Integrating New Communication Technology: A Study of Media Convergence in the Malaysian Democracy, whereby much of the findings were published widely in journal articles and book chapters.

Dr Lim was also the Country Lead Researcher on the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) PAN eGov Project involving six nations, entitled 'Youth, ICTs, and Political Engagements in Asia'. The project had set out to examine the role of ICT to mobilize and advocate (political) change among young Malaysians. The project culminated in a series of reports and a journal article on Videoblogging and Youth Activism in Malaysia, published in the International Communication Gazette.

She had also obtained a Korean Studies Grant to study The Politicization of Hallyu in Southeast Asia: Cultural Perceptions and Barriers to Consumption, which lead to the publication of an edited book: The Korean Wave in Southeast Asia: Consumption and Production (ISBN-13: 9789670630472) book chapters, journal articles and numerous media interviews on Hallyu and K-Pop culture in Malaysia.

Her past research also focused on the cultural politics of the reality TV phenomenon within a postcolonial context and published an article entitled 'Reinventing Nationalism' in Media, Consumption and Everyday Life in Asia.

Previous research also focused on the impact of ICT on Broadcast Journalism, comparing the adoption of ICT between news stations in Malaysia and the United States. This resulted in several published articles including a chapter in Research in Language, Literature and Communication.

Dr Lim was also appointed as Visiting Research Fellow with the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (more specifically, the Cultural Studies Research Cluster led by Professor Chua Beng Huat). Her work in Singapore involved an extended research project on social media, comparing youth identities and cultural participation between young adults in Singapore and Malaysia (with further plans to explore youth cultures within the wider Asian region).

In 2019, she was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the Digital Transactions in Asia II Conference organised by Monash University Malaysia and the University of Queensland's Institute for the Advanced Study in the Humanities.

Future Research

Research concerned with discourses on digital media and society, which explores the politics and implications of the media within Asian transformations (identities, cultures and state politics) in this new era of technology and political/ social/ economic/ cultural reform. Future research areas include mobile media applications (and implications) alongside AI technology particularly in the area of Health and Lifestyle; Society 5.0; trans/interculturalism; social media and participatory culture.