Welcome to the 2019 autumn edition of our research newsletter, updating you on academic news from the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds.
PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS
VISUAL COMMUNICATION: UNDERSTANDING IMAGES IN MEDIA CULTURE
Dr Giorgia Aiello and Dr Katy Parry's new book, Visual Communication: Understanding Images in Media Culture, was published in November 2019. The book provides a theoretical and empirical toolkit to examine implications of mediated images. It explores a range of approaches to visual analysis, while also providing a hands-on guide to applying methods to students' own work.
Professor Chris Anderson, Dr Giorgia Aiello and Professor Helen Kennedy (University of Sheffield) have been awarded a grant of £731,818 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to investigate 'Generic Visuals in the News: the role of stock photos and simple data visualizations in assembling publics.
Dr Chris Paterson led a six-month research project in 2019 with the University of Nairobi to investigate how women in rural Kenya learn about climate change mitigation and combine imported understandings with indigenous knowledge. He was awarded £94,000 from Research England, and this funding has now been extended with a further £100,000, to continue the research in Kenya and expand it to Ghana.
A sophisticated online platform that allows television viewers watching political leadership debates to react in real time was test-driven during the first head-to-head contest.
Developed by experts from the University of Leeds, Open University and the University of Sheffield, the Democratic Reflection tool allows voters to react to the unfolding on-screen action using a tablet or smartphone, expressing their views and providing valuable data for analysis by researchers.
Jeremy Vachet has been awarded a PhD for his thesis entitled 'Coping with Precariousness in the Cultural and Creative Industries: A Study of Independent Musicians'. Jeremy's study aims to contribute to debates within cultural studies, sociology and the political economy of communication about working lives in the cultural and creative industries. By looking at different aspects of the difficulties faced by musicians, housing and working conditions, interpersonal relationships, and the distribution of recognition in the music industries, he developed an approach which examines anxiety, narcissism, recognition and self-esteem from a sociological perspective.
His thesis was supervised by Professor David Hesmondhalgh and Dr David Lee, and the examiners were Dr Charles Umney and Dr Christina Scharff (King’s College). The examiners were particularly impressed by the originality of Jeremy's work and the depth into which he explored the affective dimensions of contemporary cultural work. Jeremy is currently Assistant Professor in the Communication and Culture Department at Audencia Business School at Nantes, France.
Michael Tasseron has been awarded a PhD for his thesis entitled 'Comparative representations of culpability in the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza'.
His thesis was supervised by Dr Katy Parry and Dr Chris Paterson and the examiners were Dr Giorgia Aiello and Dr Ruth Sanz Sabido (Canterbury Christ Church University).
Michael examined textual and visual media coverage of the 2014 Gaza war by select British and South African news outlets. One of his aims was to understand more about how both countries’ historical associations with the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict is believed to inform reporting on it. Central to this is colonialism and the post-apartheid socio-political context in South Africa.
His research also focuses on news production in conflict and the factors which impact it. The project makes a contribution to multimodal approaches used in the study of political discourse, and provides insights into journalistic practices in contemporary Western and non-Western media contexts.
POLITICAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION MEDIA AND POLITICS GROUP ANNUAL CONFERENCE
16 -17 December 2019 (University of Leeds)
This conference will explore the contribution of the media, political actors and citizens to mediated performances of politics, and the potential consequences of these performances.
The 20th year anniversary of the Political Studies Association Media and Politics Group annual conference takes place at the University of Leeds in December. Our conference theme on politics and performance responds to the growing body of research emphasising the performative dimensions of political communication.
