Leonie Rutherford
Leonie conducts research into young people’s texts and cultures and young people’s social contexts. In addition to textual criticism in print and media, her work is intensively engaged with interdisciplinary investigation of youth cultural participation, with a special focus on media (including print and book culture), digital literacies, media policy, and audiences.
Earlier major research projects include an Australian Research Council Linkage Project, Digital Natives: Growing up with old and new media in Australia, and an Australian Research Council Discovery Project with early childhood educators aimed at putting child agency at the forefront of initiatives to foster health and sustainability awareness.
Her current project – Discovering a good book: Pathways to reading for Australian teens investigates the ways in which traditional and new cultural intermediaries and the digital ecology in which books are embedded enable young people’s participation in reading. The project is funded by the Australian Research Council and partners with the Australian Publishers Association, the Australian Booksellers Association, the School Library Association of Victoria, the Australian Library and Information Association, the Copyright Agency, as well as leading interdisciplinary researchers from QUT and University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
She is a media adviser to Raising Children Australia, and has been a judge for national awards for children’s television (the Logies).
Leonie currently teaches narrative theory and adaptation of children’s texts across media. Her supervisions include traditional theses utilising theoretically informed textual analysis, empirical studies of audiences and social groups, as well as research-led creative projects.
Email: [email protected]
Twitter @teenreading1