Prof. Mark Noaln1, Dr Peita Richards, Dr John Gaffey
1 Charles Sturt University
Biography:
Professor Mark Nolan* is a Professor at Charles Sturt University, Port Macquarie, NSW, Australia. He is an interdisciplinary academic trained in law and social psychology (with a PhD in social psychology), and Asian Studies (Thai language and Thai studies), with research and teaching interests in comparative criminal law, criminal procedure, law reform, federal criminal law, national security and counter-terrorism law, legal psychology, social psychology of identity, and extreme social movements and extremist behaviour. Between April 2020 and December 2024, Mark was the Director of the Centre for Law and Justice at Charles Sturt University, working from both Canberra and Bathurst campuses providing leadership for staff teaching into an undergradute law degree, a criminology degree and a policing and public safety degree, before moving to Port Macquarie in June 2024. Mark served on the Council of Australian Law Deans First Peoples Partnership from 2023-2024, including one year as Co-Chair. Prior to work at Charles Sturt University, Mark taught and researched at the ANU College of Law, The Australian National University teaching into and leading undergraduate and postgraduate programs. Mark has been heavily involved in the ANZAPPL ACT Branch and has served in the past on the ANZAPPL Binational Committee as Membership Secretary and is the current Editor-in-Chief of the ANZAPPL journal Psychiatry, Psychology and Law (since April 2020). Mark is active in public intellectual work such as parliamentary inquiry and other law reform work, and, has been prominent as a life-member of the National Judicial College of Australia in judicial education and conference design; hosting conferences for ANU and the NJCA aimed at bringing together judicial officers, legal practitioners, academics and community members. Mark is co-author with Prof Jane Goodman-Delahunty, Dr Natalie Martschuk, Dr Bianca Spaccavento and Ms Corrie Goodhand of the 2nd Edition of Legal Psychology in Australia (Thomson Reuters Lawbook Co, due out in 2026).
Abstract:
This paper overviews a post-doctoral project, funded by the Office of National Intelligence, awarded to Dr Peita Richards (CSU) that has made a significant contribution to developing analytical models designed to understand and interpret social identity expression, and behavioural engagement via objective psychological markers within online environments. These developments have contributed to developing deeper understandings of how individuals and groups interact with digital spaces for performance and maintenance of identities, particularly under conditions of identity stress (such as identity incompatibility, rejection, and change) and ideological alignment. A generalisable model of online behavioural engagement matrices was developed, and described via qualitative analyses performed on large data sets of online social media posts with Communalytic and other tools able to indicate degrees of cognitive engagement across multiple online platforms. This model captures behavioural patterns that reflect varying levels of attention, processing and interaction, creating a scalable framework for cross-platform analysis. By focusing on comparable objective behavioural indicators, rather than subjective and platform-specific features, the model ensures generalisability across a diverse range of online platforms and fora. Social media posting in response to multiple salient incidents attracting extremist views online was analysed to build social identity maps from objective data sources (altering subjective social identity mapping performed by the individuals themselves as in Cruwys et al. 2016). Research methods developed had to be sensitive to demands of online platforms regarding data use and data availability, especially in light of operational decisions to make unavailable online abhorrent violent material and extremist violent material pursuant to existing legislative regimes and the declaration of some incidents as terrorist incidents.