The internet has become central to our way of living and social networking is a global revolution. How has the online environment altered the way we behave, relate to each other and understand the world? How has popular culture attempted to reflect, understand and challenge the impact of the online world?

Social networking is a global revolution, enabling billions of people worldwide to share experiences and information, create identities for ourselves and maintain and create new relationships. But how has this platform changed us and how we see ourselves? How has it changed how we experience loneliness, friendship, bullying, social anxiety and fame?

Join us as we explore how the online environment has altered the way we behave, relate to each other and understand the world.

Panellists: Khandis Blake, Yoshihisa Kashima, Liza Mandelup and Lisa Phillips; moderated by Hilary Harper

Dr Khandis Blake is an expert in gendered conflict who combines nature and nurture approaches to research spanning psychology, biology and gender studies. Her main work considers how behaviour and attitudes associated with gender are influenced by the interplay of biology, culture, and economics. Khandis and her collaborators propose that gendered phenomena such as intimate partner violence, attitudes toward abortion, and male-male aggression arise partially out of market conditions that shift the bargaining power between men and women. Khandis also investigates the causes and consequences of female competition and the conditions under which female sexualisation elevates women's agency. She is especially interested in methodological tools to advance the psychosocial study of female ovulation and ovarian hormones.

Prof Yoshi Kashima was born and raised in Tokyo and after studying law at Tokyo University, decided to study social psychology in the USA. As a social psychologist who grew up in Japan, was trained in the USA and is now teaching, researching and living in Australia, Yoshi’s lifestyle is multiculturalism personified. Yoshi’s current research goal is to develop a social psychological theory of cultural dynamics – that is, how concrete individuals’ context-specific activities in interaction with each other can generate and transform what we call culture. More specific projects include cultural comparisons in self and identity, narrative social influence in cultural transmission and transformation, the cultural dynamics of nationalism, patriotism and stereotyping, and connectionist modelling of cultural processes.

Liza Mandelup is an award-winning filmmaker from New York residing in Los Angeles. Starting her career in photography, she has published two photo books and shown her work in numerous exhibitions. She got her start in the industry working as a casting scout, serving as the main street scout for dozens of campaigns, films and print ads. She studied Fine Art at the School of Visual Arts, and soon after began shooting and directing films. Her short-form directorial debut, Twinheads, premiered on Dazed Digital, and since then she has been a long-time collaborator for many online platforms such as Vogue, Nowness, i-D and Dazed, as well as having directed numerous films for many other premiere editorial platforms. She has directed many commercials for brands like Adidas, Gap, Chanel, Dove, Aveeno, Champs and Delta Airlines. In 2018, Liza received the prestigious Sundance Documentary Fund grant for her film Jawline (pictured), which premiered at Sundance Film Festival where it won the Special Jury Award for Emerging Filmmaker. She was named by Filmmaker magazine as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema in 2018 and was named Variety 's top 10 filmmakers to watch in 2019.

Prof Lisa Phillips is trained as a clinical psychologist and is the deputy director of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. Her early research focus was on psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, and specifically early identification strategies and prediction of outcome and treatments for young people identified as being at ultra high risk (UHR) for psychotic disorder. Her research focus has broadened in recent years and she has been involved in research focusing on experiences of trauma, stigma, worry and increasingly is focusing on university student mental health and well-being. Lisa is also a fully registered clinical psychologist and has worked with young adults and adults experiencing a range of mental health difficulties. At the University of Melbourne she is involved in training the next generation of clinical psychologists.

Hilary Harper has previously worked as an editor, gardener, industrial laundry hand, waitress, switchboard operator and subtitler for the Deaf. She's done gig guides on PBS FM, current affairs journalism at 3CR, and arts reporting for ABC Adelaide, before finding her true home as ABC Melbourne Traffic Reporter and going on to present Saturday Breakfast and Mornings. Hilary is now the host of Life Matters on Radio National.

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Co-presented with Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences