Research Newsletter Autumn 2021

Welcome to the 2021 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

POPULIST COMMUNICATION

Dr Lone Sorensen has published a book entitled Populist Communication: Ideology, Performance, Mediation (Palgrave, 2021). How can we make sense of the current age of global political disruption when populism leaves norms overturned and the future form of democracy unpredictable? Political representatives are no longer elected for their experience and expertise but out of a desire for authenticity, a direct connection to citizens, and the certainty of the truths they tell. But when populists project these ideas and claim to represent the citizenry, what is reality and what is strategic performance for the media? This conceptually rich book explores the performative strategies of the populist politicians who disrupt the normative order with acts of ‘truth-telling’. It disentangles their complex use of media—from their appeal to news values through spectacular disruptions to sophisticated social media commentary—in repertoires of mediated performances. Based on vigorous empirical research in both established and transitional democracies, it develops a theoretical framework of populist communication in the new media environment.

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MEDIA STUDIES

Dr Beth Johnson has published a text book entitled Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (Routledge, 2021), with co-authors Paul Long, Shana MacDonald, Schem Rogerson Bader, and Tim Wall. This thoroughly revised and updated third edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches to the field, explaining why media messages matter, how media businesses prosper and why media is integral to defining contemporary life. This is an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media and popular culture.

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THE JOURNALISM MANIFESTO

Professor Chris Anderson has published a book entitled The Journalism Manifesto (Polity Press, 2021), with co-authors Barbie Zelizer and Pablo Boczkowski. Focusing on the relevance of elites, norms and audiences, Zelizer, Boczkowski and Anderson reveal how these previously integral components of journalism have become outdated: elites, the sources from which journalists draw much of their information and around whom they orient their coverage, have become dysfunctional; the relevance of norms, the cues by which journalists do newswork, has eroded so fundamentally that journalists are repeatedly entrenching themselves as negligible and out of sync; and because audiences have shattered beyond recognition, the correspondence between what journalists think of as news and what audiences care about can no longer be assumed.

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MORE PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS

Professor David Hesmondhalgh has co-authored research on musicians’ income in the digital age, gathering evidence on musicians’ earnings from streaming. Commissioned and published by the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office, the 224 page report provides the fullest research yet undertaken into this controversial issue.

Professor Yvonne Tasker was featured in a BBC article entitled ‘What is the future of the cop drama?’.

Dr Alison Peirse was featured in an article by The Guardian about the Halloween franchise.

Rafe Clayton has had his research cited in a parliamentary report on the impact of COVID-19 on early childhood education.

Professor Bethany Klein and Professor Stephen Coleman have published a new article in Media, Culture & Society, entitled ‘Look at me, I’m on TV: the political dimensions of reality television participation’. You can read the article here.

John Corner, Visiting Professor, has published a short article on the patterns of statistical information about the pandemic, patterns involving differences of scientific analysis, and political perspective. You can access the article here.

Dr Giles Moss and Dr Nely Konstantinova have collaborated on new research investigating public responses to official communication about COVID-19. Download the full report here.

Professor Chris Paterson has co-authored an essay entitled ‘The securitisation of capitalist rule in Africa’. You can read the essay here.

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RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

FANTASTIC BEINGS IN FAMILIAR WORLDS

Dr Tracey Mollet has been awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant to do archival research in the States on her new Cold War animation project: ‘Fantastic Beings in Familiar Worlds: Animation and American Cultural Life (1945-1969)’.

TIM HETHERINGTON AND CONFLICT IMAGERY NETWORK

Dr Katy Parry has been awarded £2,230 from the Interdisciplinary Research and Impact Fund for Culture, run jointly by the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute and the Cultural Institute. She will be working with the Public Engagement and Learning Team at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) and the creative youth arts charity, Gorse Hill Studios, to run a series of workshops with refugees from Greater Manchester. The workshops build on focus groups conducted with refugees as part of the AHRC-funded ‘Tim Hetherington and conflict imagery network’ with Greg Brockett and Katy Thornton from IWM. But these new workshops will take a creative ‘photovoice’ approach to further explore themes of representation, storytelling and agency, and for participants to gain skills in a supportive environment.

TOWARDS A NATIONAL COLLECTION

Simon Popple will be a Co-Investigator on a successfully awarded AHRC Discovery Project on cultural heritage, part of the ‘Towards a National Collection’ initiative. The £3 million project is titled Congruence Engine: Digital Tools for New Collections-Based Industrial Histories. Led by the Science Museum Group, this project will involve over 20 partners, ranging from the British Film Institute to Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums. They will work together to create the prototype of a digital toolbox allowing everyone fascinated by our industrial past to connect an unprecedented range of items from the nation’s collection to tell the stories they want to tell. Through iterative exploration of the textile, energy and communication sectors, the project will fine-tune collections-linking software to make it responsive to user needs.

MORE RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS

Dr Beth Johnson was invited to participate in the ECREA Doctoral Summer School organised by the University of Cádiz in Spain, and across September and early October, worked closely with doctoral students on the programme providing feedback on their projects, spoke on a round table on 'Women in Academia', and ran a specialist half-day workshop on 'Interviewing as a Feminist Method'.

Dr Tom Tyler was invited to give the opening keynote at the Technology and Socialization conference in Warsaw, which took place in October 2021. You can view the conference booklet which contains Tom's presentation abstract here.

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STAFF NEWS

Professor Kristyn Gorton joined us in August 2021 as the new Head of the School of Media and Communication and Professor of Film and Television. Kristyn has research interests in the concepts of emotion and affect, feminist theory, the construction of resilience on screen, and the history of British television.

Professor Giorgia Aiello has been promoted to Professor of Culture and Communication. Giorgia's research focuses on the politics of visual, multimodal, and material communication. She is especially interested in how social, cultural, and political identities are formed, how both difference and diversity are negotiated, and how inequalities are maintained or overcome through choices and changes in images, design, and space.

Professor Melanie Bell has been promoted to Professor in Film History. Melanie is a prize-winning film scholar recognised as an authority in the fields of British Film Studies and Women’s Film History, with specialisms in digital archives, oral history, and the construction of screen femininities.

Professor Kate Nash has been promoted to Professor of Media and Communication. Having come from a background in media production, specialising in documentary, Kate's research is focused on the production, circulation and impacts of long-form factual media.

Professor Chris Paterson has been promoted to Professor of Global Communication. Chris's current research focusses on the processes of mediation which enable continuing forms of imperialism in Africa, and on the ways communication research can be used to mitigate the effects of global crises such as climate change in developing regions.

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Dr Alison Peirse’s book Women Make Horror has won the 2021 British Fantasy Award for Best Non-Fiction Book. This is the second win for Women Make Horror, after winning the BAFTSS 2021 Best Edited Collection. It was also Runner Up for Book of the Year at the 2020 Rondo Awards, and a Finalist for Superior Achievement in Non–Fiction at the 2020 Bram Stoker Award s.

Dr Beth Johnson and Dr Alison Peirse’s research on women screenwriters in UK TV, entitled 'Genre, gender and television screenwriting: The problem of pigeonholing', has been shortlisted by the Screenwriting Research Network for Best Article. You can read more about the findings of this research in a Conversation piece that Beth has written here.

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IN MEMORIAM

J.G. BLUMLER - AN INTELLECTUAL LEGACY

Professor Stephen Coleman has published a tribute to Professor Jay G. Blumler in the European Journal of Communication, titled 'Jay G. Blumler – An intellectual legacy: Wanting better'.

Professor Coleman along with Professor Chris Paterson, Dr Katy Parry, Dr Julie Firmstone, and Professor Frank Esser of the University of Zurich are organising a half day preconference for the International Communication Association entitled ‘Is there still a crisis of public communication? A tribute to Jay Blumler’.

The preconference has been approved by ICA to take place on 25 May 2022, at Science Po Paris (The Paris Institute of Political Studies). A call for papers will circulate in November, and will be posted to ICA’s pre and post conference page. The School of Media and Communication is a co-sponsor of the preconference and will support travel bursaries to enable participation by developing country scholars.

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EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES

RESEARCH SEMINARS

Our Research Seminar series for 2021-2022 is shaping up nicely. In Semester One there were talks by Professor Cherian George (Hong Kong Baptist University), Professor Caitlin Petre (Rutgers University), Professor Catherine O’Rawe (Bristol University), and Professor David Arditi (University of Texas at Arlington).

Upcoming talks will be given by Professor Chris Bail (Duke University), Professor Francis Lee (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Dr Maria Repnikova (Georgia State University), Dr Michelle Westerlaken (University of Cambridge), Professor Justin O’Connor (University of South Australia), Dr Alison Peirse (University of Leeds), and Dr Toussaint Nothias (Stanford University Digital Civil Society Lab/ Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society).

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LEVERHULME TRUST EARLY CAREER FELLOWSHIPS - CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The School of Media and Communication is welcoming applications for the 2022 Leverhulme Early Career Fellowships scheme. Applicants are requested to send a two-page statement of proposed research, CV, and statement of support from the mentor to Dr Kristofer Erickson by Monday 6 December 2021.

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The School of Media and Communication Research Newsletter is sent out three times a year to academic colleagues at institutions across the world.

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University of Leeds · School of Media and Communication · University of Leeds · Leeds, LS2 9JT · United Kingdom