School of Communication and Arts

Dr Giselle Newton

Affiliate of Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Centre for Digital Cultures & Societies
Research Fellow
School of Communication and Arts
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Researcher biography

Dr Giselle Newton (she/her) is a digital health sociologist at the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies and a Research Fellow on the Australian Ad Observatory in the Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. Giselle's research agenda is focused on understanding experiences of fertility and family in a digital age. Giselle has led projects considering how reproductive and genetic technologies shape personal life and family relationships, for example on donor-conceived people's use of digital technologies, direct-to-consumer DNA testing and digital advertising of fertility treatments and services. Giselle is interested in methodological and ethical considerations, and participatory, creative and data donation methods in social research. She is experienced working in interdisciplinary teams developing and employing digital tools and observatories to better understand individuals' (often unobservable and ephemeral) digital social worlds.

Giselle has published in Sociology, Human Reproduction, Social Media + Society, Sociology of Health & Illness, Sociological Research Online. Giselle was awarded the Early Career International Visiting Fellowship, University of Sheffield for 2024-25. In 2025, she was a keynote speaker at the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference in Adelaide. Giselle has been an invited speaker in Japan (Donor Link Japan) and Denmark (LGBT+ Danmark).

Research

Current projects:

  • Ethical, social and regulatory implications of informal sperm donation, ARC Discovery Project
  • Targeted digital advertising in fertility, reproduction and parenting, the Australian Ad Observatory
  • Engaging consumers to work towards social license for implementation of AI in healthcare
  • Technologies of the Body: Women, Visibility and Museum Collections

Past projects:

  • Understanding stakeholders' perspectives on public inquiries in sexual and reproductive health
  • DNA datascapes: how individuals seek information about family via direct-to-consumer DNA testing
  • How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on social media, using the Australian Mobile Ad Toolkit (contract research project commissioned by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education Limited, with Prof Nic Carah and Lauren Hayden)
  • On target: Understanding advertising in the fertility sector with data from the Australian Ad Observatory, a winter research collaboration (with Romy Wilson Gray and Maria Proctor).
  • Everyday belongings: how Australian donor-conceived adults' use digital technologies to bond, sleuth, educate and strategise. Giselle's PhD study won Dean's Award for Outstanding PhD Theses in 2022.
  • Understanding care endings: Sociological and educational approaches to support pathways out of caring

Research supervision and development

Current students:

  • Lauren Hayden (PhD candidate, Communications and Arts, UQ) - Digital advertising and cultures of alcohol consumption on social media platforms (with Prof Nicholas Carah, Prof Dan Angus) (2022-2026)
  • Adriana Saab (Master of Genetic Counselling, UTS) - Understanding targeted advertising of genetic tests, products and services in Australia: a thematic analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
  • Quita Olsen (PhD candidate, Queensland Digital Health Centre, UQ) - Developing an Inclusive Framework and Communication Strategy towards the Public's Willingness to Share Health Data for Secondary Purposes (with Prof Jason Pole, Dr Leanna Woods, Dr Amalie Dyda) (2025-2028)
  • Juan Ospina Deaza (PhD candidate, Communications and Arts, UQ) How digital platforms shape experiences of male (in)fertility/parenthood (with Dr Giang Nyugen-Thu) (2026-2029)

Past students:

  • Phoebe Price-Barker (Honours, Criminology, UQ) - Assessing cyber vulnerabilities in direct-to-consumer genetic testing platforms (with Dr Caitlin Curtis) (2025)
  • Simone Sanders (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Representations of breast cancer predisposition testing on TikTok: a qualitative analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
  • Lina Choi (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Unpacking Narratives about Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing in TikTok Videos: A Thematic Analysis (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive)
  • Cushla McKinney (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - The impact of direct-to-consumer DNA testing on genetic counselling practice (with Dr Lisa Dive, A/Prof Aideen McInerny-Leo, Dr Vaishnavi Nathan).
  • Diya Dilip Porwal (Master of Genetic Counselling student, UTS) - Experiences of carrier screening and genetic testing in gamete donors (with Julia Mansour and Dr Lisa Dive).

Areas of supervision: Giselle welcomes research proposals focused on social research in digital identities and cultures; family relationships and practices; DNA and genetic testing/screening; reproductive health and donation.

Giselle is a member of the School of Communication and Arts HDR Committee.

Teaching

Giselle has coordinated and lectured across undergraduate and postgraduate programs in courses in humanities, social sciences and health. She has delivered guest lectures to students of Masters of Public Health on 'Digital Methods' and to Master of Diagnostic Genomics on 'Direct-to-consumer genetic testing'. She was course coordinator for COMU2030 Communication Research Methods in 2023, lecturer in HHSS6000 HASS Honours Research Design in 2024 and HHSS6040 Honours Research Design in Arts and Culture in 2025 and will continue in 2026.

Publications

Book Chapters (3)
Journal Articles (11)
Thesis (1)
Research Reports (2)
Newspaper Articles (4)

Book Chapters

Kirby, Emma, Newton, Giselle, Smith, Louisa, Strnadová, Iva, Churchill, Brendan, Hoffstätter, Lukas, Judd-Lam, Sarah and Newman, Christy E. (2025). When caring ends: exploring the hidden aspects of loss in trajectories out of caring in Australia. Understanding the grief and loss experiences of carers: research, practitioner and personal perspectives. (pp. 110-122) edited by Kerry Jones and Joanna Horne. London, United Kingdom: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781003435365-9
Newton, Giselle (2023). On familial haunting: donor-conceived people’s experiences of living with anonymity and absence. Donor-linked families in the digital age: relatedness and regulation. (pp. 154-173) edited by Fiona Kelly, Deborah Dempsey and Adrienne Byrt. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/9781009008129.012
Newton, Giselle (2022). Doing reflexivity in research on donor conception: examining moments of bonding and becoming. Reproductive citizenship: technologies, rights and relationships. (pp. 279-301) edited by Rhonda M. Shaw. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan Singapore. doi: 10.1007/978-981-16-9451-6_12

Journal Articles

Newton, Giselle, Kirby, Emma, Hofstätter, Lukas, Judd-Lam, Sarah, Smith, Louisa, Churchill, Brendan, Strnadová, Iva and Newman, Christy E. (2025). ‘Is There Anything Else You’d Like to Tell Us About Your Experience?’ Orientations towards listening to open-ended survey responses. Sociological Research Online, 30 (3), 711-729. doi: 10.1177/13607804241287628
Porwal, Diya, Newton, Giselle, Mansour, Julia and Dive, Lisa (2025). Stakeholders’ experiences and perspectives of reproductive genetic carrier screening in gamete donation: a scoping review. Human Reproduction, 40 (9) deaf128, 1-10. doi: 10.1093/humrep/deaf128
Andreassen, Rikke, Newton, Giselle and Dahl, Ulrika (2025). Sprouting sideways: queer temporalities and kinship in donor conception. Culture, Health and Sexuality, 27 (9), 1179-1194. doi: 10.1080/13691058.2024.2446260
Newton, Giselle, Kirby, Emma, Carah, Nicholas and Wilson Gray, Romy (2024). On the sensations of direct-to-consumer DNA testing: realisations, resemblance and relationships. Emotions and Society, 1-18. doi: 10.1332/26316897y2024d000000045
Newton, Giselle, Zappavigna, Michele, Drysdale, Kerryn and Newman, Christy (2024). From lived experience to lived expertise: how donor-conceived witnesses claim and sustain epistemic authority. Journal of Pragmatics, 221, 89-104. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2023.12.006
Newton, Giselle, Drysdale, Kerryn and Newman, Christy E. (2024). Embodied sociotechnical imaginaries: how donor-conceived people imagine identity, family and reprodigital futures beyond regulation. Frontiers in Global Women's Health, 4 1221913, 1221913. doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2023.1221913
Lewis, Sophie, Newton, Giselle, Kenny, Katherine and Boyle, Frances (2023). The incurable self: Negotiating social bonds and dis/connection with metastatic breast cancer. Sociology of Health and Illness, 46 (2), 295-314. doi: 10.1111/1467-9566.13704
Newton, Giselle and Southerton, Clare (2023). Situated Talk: A method for a reflexive encounter with #donorconceived on TikTok. Media International Australia, 186 (1) 1329878X211064646, 66-80. doi: 10.1177/1329878x211064646
Newton, Giselle, Drysdale, Kerryn, Zappavigna, Michele and Newman, Christy E. (2023). Truth, proof, sleuth: trust in direct-to-consumer DNA testing and other sources of identity information among Australian donor-conceived people. Sociology, 57 (1) 00380385221091184, 36-53. doi: 10.1177/00380385221091184
Newton, Giselle, Zappavigna, Michele, Drysdale, Kerryn and Newman, Christy E. (2022). More than humor: Memes as bonding icons for belonging in donor-conceived people. Social Media and Society, 8 (1) 069055, 1-13. doi: 10.1177/20563051211069055
Kirby, Emma, Newton, Giselle, Hofstätter, Lukas, Judd-Lam, Sarah, Strnadová, Iva and Newman, Christy E. (2022). (How) Will it end? A qualitative analysis of free-text survey data on informal care endings. International Journal of Care and Caring, 6 (4), 604-620. doi: 10.1332/239788221x16357694113165

Thesis

Newton, Giselle (2022). Everyday belongings: Exploring Australian donor-conceived adults’ social, linguistic and digital practices across private and public domains. PhD Thesis, CSRH, UNSW.

Research Reports

Hayden, Lauren, Newton, Giselle, Carah, Nicholas, Tran, Dang Khuong, Brownbill, Aimee, Obeid, Abdul and Irving, Rohann (2024). How alcohol and gambling companies target people most at risk with marketing for addictive products on Facebook. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education.
Curtis, Caitlin, Hereward, James and Newton, Giselle (2023). Submission to the Australian Government: Attorney-General’s Department review of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) - genetic and genomic data. Canberra, ACT, Australia: Australian Government. Attorney-General’s Department.

Newspaper Articles

Newton, Giselle , Macmillan, Caitlin and Gelber, Katharine (2023, 03 08). Qld agrees to allow donor-conceived people the right to know the identity of their donor. Here’s why it’s important The Conversation
Newton, Giselle (2022, 06 14). Donor-conceived adults are speaking out about their experiences, but will governments listen? The Power to Persuade
Gray, Rachel and Newton, Giselle (2020, 07 17). Australians are discovering they are donor-conceived via direct-to-consumer DNA testing UNSW Sydney Newsroom
Gray, Rachel and Newton, Giselle (2020, 01 20). Donor-conceived people lobby UN for access to their genetic heritage UNSW Sydney Newsroom

Areas of research

Media and Cultural Studies