معرفی
Professor Cassandra Sharp is a distinguished academic at the University of Wollongong's Faculty of Business and Law, School of Law, where she was promoted to Professor in 2022 after serving as Associate Professor from 2017-2022. Her interdisciplinary research bridges cultural legal studies, popular culture, and social media analysis, focusing on how law is constructed in the public imagination through digital narratives.
- PhD and BA/LLB (Hons) from University of Wollongong
- Recipient of national OLT Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning (2015)
- Current Chief Investigator on Australian Research Council project 'Voices, Listening and Law and Policy Reform on Violence Against Women' (2025-2027)
Sharp's research centers on cultural legal studies with particular emphasis on law's representation in popular culture and social media. Her work examines how individuals, communities, and governments interact through digital platforms during crisis moments, especially regarding terrorism, sexual violence, and pandemic responses. She employs interdisciplinary methodologies drawing from cultural studies, linguistic theory, psychology, and legal theory to interrogate public interaction with law.
Her recent publications reveal a strong trend toward analyzing social media discourse as jurisprudential material, particularly examining hashtag activism related to #MeToo, #March4Justice, and terrorism responses. Sharp's monograph Hashtag Jurisprudence: Terror and Legality on Twitter (Edward Elgar, 2022) represents a landmark contribution to understanding how social media responses to terror events construct legal consciousness.
- National OLT Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Teaching and Learning (2015)
Professor Sharp actively supervises doctoral students, currently guiding 6 PhD candidates with 7 completions to date, and regularly mentors LLB Honors students. Her research is supported by significant funding including Australian Research Council grants and University of Wollongong internal funding. She leads innovative projects examining the relationship between storytelling, social media campaigns, and legal reform processes, particularly regarding sexual harassment and women's voices in law reform.
Sharp maintains active research collaborations across disciplines including psychology, linguistics, and business, demonstrating her commitment to interdisciplinary approaches to legal questions. Her work has established her as a leading scholar in cultural legal studies with particular expertise in social media's role in shaping legal consciousness during crisis moments.
