Our work in this area often draws on social media discourse, political communication, public health messaging and digitally networked forms of participation. Studies have examined how misinformation spreads, how public attitudes are shaped by media environments and how authority and credibility are constructed through language across platforms such as X (formerly Twitter). Our research integrates discourse analysis with computational approaches to large-scale textual data, including social media data collection and corpus-informed analysis.

These approaches allow systematic examination of how patterns of interpretation and communicative action emerge across populations exposed to similar informational environments. The interactive research process below models the recursive relationships between information environments, identity structures, trust, risk perception and behavioural adaptation within digitally mediated communication systems.

The interactive system below models the relationships between personality traits, nationalism, patriotism, commitment to national heritage, political ideology, trust in government, vaccine hesitancy and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 misinformation among Japanese youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system visualizes how developmental characteristics and national identity function within a broader public health communication ecology in which competing identity orientations exert contrasting effects on misinformation acceptance and vaccination attitudes. Particular emphasis is placed on the distinction between nationalism and patriotism, with the tested structural model demonstrating that patriotic attachment and trust in government response were associated with lower susceptibility to misinformation and reduced vaccine hesitancy, whereas nationalistic orientations exhibited the opposite tendency.

The interactive research model conceptualizes public health communication as a dynamic relational system in which identity, trust, ideology and information vulnerability interact recursively during periods of social disruption and uncertainty. This work is documented in the following article : Rivers, D.J., Unser-Schutz, G., & Rudolph, N. (2024). Vaccine hesitancy and susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 misinformation in Japanese youth: The contribution of personality traits and national identity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21(1), 42.

The interactive system above visualizes the multimodal ecology underpinning the “drum and bass on the bike” initiative examined in Rivers (2022). Positioned against the social fragmentation and embodied restrictions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the system conceptualizes DJ Dom Whiting as a harmonic navigator moving through urban space while coordinating sound, mobility, social participation and collective affect. Drawing from a social semiotic multimodal framework, the model illustrates how drum and bass music, cycling collectivities, livestream interaction and urban occupation converge to produce three emergent multimodal gestalts associated with post-pandemic utopianism: the reformation of driver–cyclist relations, the reformation of urban road-space use and the reformation of diversity within organized cycling events. The visualization emphasizes how sound, movement, embodiment and networked participation transform the city into a temporary mobile dancefloor and site of inclusive social dreaming in the aftermath of lockdown culture. This work is documented in the following article : Rivers, D.J. (2022). Multimodal gestalts and post-pandemic utopianism: Drum and bass on the bike. Frontiers in Communication, 7, Article 817332.

The interactive system above models the “sport is war” conceptual metaphor as a recursive discourse architecture operating within professional cycling commentary. Drawing from conceptual metaphor theory and discourse analysis, the system visualizes how commentators map military terminology, tactical imagery, combat symbolism and conflict narratives onto elite road cycling in order to intensify audience engagement, dramatize competition and structure interpretations of rider behaviour, teamwork and strategic action. Particular emphasis is placed on metaphorical constructions associated with attack, defence, sacrifice, armour, bodyguards, battle formations and territorial struggle, alongside their relationships to broader communicative themes of competition, strategy, power, teamwork and sportsmanship. The visualization conceptualizes cycling commentary as a symbolic meaning-making system in which warfare metaphors recursively shape audience interpretation, rider identity, tactical narration and the emotional framing of professional sport within televised media discourse. This work is documented in the following article : Ross, A.S. and Rivers, D.J. (2018). “Froome with his SKY bodyguards, layers of armour”: The ‘sport is war’ conceptual metaphor in grand tour cycling commentary. Communication & Sport, 7(2), 176–197.