Tania Lewis

Tania Lewis is an RMIT Professor in the School of Media and Communication and Social Change Symposium Chair for the College of Design and Social Context.

Formerly the Director of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (2018-2022) at RMIT, she has a background in cultural studies, sociology and American studies, and was a medical doctor in a former life.

Over the past couple of decades, her research has been concerned with the politics of lifestyle, sustainability and consumption, including a growing focus on everyday social practices and digital devices, platforms and media. She has conducted a wide range of empirical research including video ethnographic studies of sustainability and cafés, household hard waste upcycling, backyard permaculture and digital ethnographic research on lifestyle migration and remote work from home.

Tania has published over 100 journal articles, book chapters and reports while her most recent book, Digital Food: From Paddock to Platform (Bloomsbury 2020), was the first monograph to engage with the politics and culture of everyday digital food practices, from culinary livestreaming to automated and digitised food labour.

Tania has written and co-authored a number of other books including Digital Ethnography: Principles and Practices (Sage); Smart Living: Lifestyle Media and Popular Expertise (Peter Lang), and Telemodernities: Television and Transforming Lives in Asia (Duke University Press), and has edited collections on Ethical Consumption, Green Asia, Lifestyle Media in Asia and TV Transformations.

She is on the editorial and advisory boards of: Cultural Studies, Media International Australia, Food and Society: New Directions, (Book Series, Bristol University Press), Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia (Book Series, Routledge) and Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies

Tania has worked as a doctor in New Zealand and has held five competitive national and international Fellowships. She has taught and conducted research in a range of disciplinary contexts including media and communication studies, sociology, cultural studies, public health, education, and American Studies.

Her previous positions include:

• Senior Vice Chancellor's Fellow, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University
• Charles La Trobe Research Fellow, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne.
• R. D. Wright Fellow, Faculty of Medicine, University of Melbourne.
• Visiting Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies of the Humanities, University of Edinburgh.
• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Education, Monash University.
• Visiting Scholar, Institute for Comparative Culture, Sophia University, Tokyo.
• Lecturer, Media and Communications Program, University of Melbourne.
• Doctor working in medicine, surgery and psychiatry in NZ (1990-1994)