Research Newsletter Spring 2021

Welcome to the 2021 spring edition of our research newsletter, updating you on academic news from the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds.

PUBLICATION HIGHLIGHTS

A CULTURAL HISTORY OF THE DISNEY FAIRYTALE

Dr Tracey Mollet has published a book entitled A Cultural History of the Disney Fairytale: Once Upon an American Dream (Palgrave, 2020). This book charts the complex history of the relationship between the Disney fairy tale and the American Dream, demonstrating the ways in which the Disney fairy tale has been reconstructed and renegotiated alongside, and in response to important changes within American society. In all of its fairy tales of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Walt Disney studios works to sell its audiences the national myth of the United States at any one historical moment. With analyses of films and television programmes such as The Little Mermaid (1989), Frozen (2013), Beauty and the Beast (2017) and Once Upon a Time (2011-2018), Mollet argues that by giving its fairy tale protagonists characteristics associated with ‘good’ Americans, and even by situating their fairy tales within America itself, Disney constructs a vision of America as a utopian space.

WOMEN MAKE HORROR

Dr Alison Peirse’s edited book collection, Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism Genre (Rutgers University Press, 2020), has been widely reviewed in popular press, beyond academia:

It has also done well in relation to book awards. In April 2020 it won the BAFTSS Best Edited Collection award. It is also a Finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction, and shortlisted for Book of the Year in the Rondo Awards.

CAPTURING THE MOOD OF DEMOCRACY

Professor Stephen Coleman and Dr Jim Brogden were interviewed by the Yorkshire Post Assistant Features Editor, Chris Burn. The discussion focused on their latest book (situated in Bradford): Capturing the Mood of Democracy: The British General Election 2019 (Palgrave 2020) and the article was published in the Yorkshire Post on 12 December 2020, to coincide with the anniversary date of the 2019 General Election on the 12 December, 2019.

Read Yorkshire Post article

HOW PEOPLE TALK ABOUT POLITICS

Professor Stephen Coleman's book, How People Talk About Politics (Bloomsbury Press, 2020), was discussed in this RSA podcast.

Listen to podcast

RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT

MUSICSTREAM - MUSIC CULTURE IN THE AGE OF STREAMING

The European Research Council has awarded Professor David Hesmondhalgh €2.4 million for his project entitled Music Culture in the Age of Streaming, which will interrogate how the advent of mass music streaming has reshaped cultures of music production and consumption.

OFCOM PSB CONSULTATION

Visiting Professor Sylvia Harvey has made a submission to the Ofcom PSB consultation. Access to this document is available here, and a report from Ofcom to government, regarding the future of the PSB sector, is expected in the summer of 2021. Meanwhile copies of all available submission are now published on the Ofcom specialist website ‘Small Screen, Big Debate’.

LECTURE ROUND UP

Dr Beth Johnson hosted and ran a half day workshop for the AHRC on 13th April 2021, entitled 'Industry Voices: What does E.D.I. look like in creative research?'.

Dr Kristofer Erickson was invited to speak to the Oxford Internet Institute as part of their Spring series of public lectures, on the topic of 'Empirical Investigations of Platform Creativity'.

Dr Leslie Meier was invited to present a public lecture as part of the CRCC Seminar Series at Loughborough University, entitled 'Digital Consumerism, Digital Infrastructures, and Ecological Crisis'.

Dr Jim Brogden was invited by Professor Robert Drea (Chair of the Photography and Digital Media) to give a public lecture on 'Returning to the Non-Place' at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

STAFF NEWS

BAFTSS AWARDS 2021

The British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) has shortlisted Dr Beth Johnson and Dr Alison Peirse in their annual excellence awards.

JOURNAL OF BRITISH CINEMA AND TELEVISION

Dr Beth Johnson was invited to join the editorial board of the Journal of British Cinema and Television.

LEEDS ARTS & HUMANITIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Dr Melanie Bell will be taking up the post of Deputy Director of the Leeds Arts & Humanities Research Institute (LAHRI) from 1st August. Melanie has already led on research and impact in the Faculty, and her recent work pioneering a research development programme for mid-career researchers across a range of disciplines shows the energy and dynamism that she will bring to our collective research culture.

PhD NEWS

Sally Osei-Appiah has been awarded a PhD for her thesis ‘Media representations of women politicians: the cases of Ghana and Nigeria’. The study examined the verbal and visual portrayals of Ghanaian and Nigerian women politicians in their national press and radio media, the factors which shape production of political news, and the women's self-representational strategies on social media.

Drawing on Mediatization of politics theory, Hierarchy of Influence model and Feminist media theory, Sally’s thesis contributes to gendered mediation scholarship by revealing how certain production decisions assist in projecting women politicians in ways that conform to gender norms and expectations.

Her supervisors were Professor Giorgia Aiello and Dr Katy Parry, and the examiners were Professor Yvonne Tasker and Professor Karen Ross (Newcastle University). Sally is currently a Teaching Fellow at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds.

More information about our research degrees

Brendan Lawson has been awarded a PhD for his thesis on 'The use of numbers by journalists during seven humanitarian crises in 2017'. This mixed-methods approach involved both quantitative and qualitative analysis of news media articles, reports and interviews with journalists. It’s main contribution was to draw comparisons between the banal use of statistics in journalism by 'non-quantitative experts' with the work of data journalists. Through this, it outlined how the quantitative exerted power both structurally and instrumentally.

His supervisors were Dr Chris Paterson, Professor Chris Anderson and Dr Jairo Lugo-Ocando, and his examiners were Dr Adrian Quinn (internal) and Dr Glenda Cooper (City University). Brendan now works at Loughborough University as a University Teacher (part-time) and is a Co-Investigator on Journalist Roles and Performance (JRP) for NU-Q (part-time).

He is currently writing a book titled The Lives of Numbers: communicating the quantitative during COVID-19. This project takes a case study approach to the life of the quantitative during the pandemic in political, science and journalistic communication. In doing so, it draws from History and Philosophy of Science, Science and Technology Studies, Mathematics, Journalism Studies, Political Communication, Science communication and Cultural Studies.

Brendan has also published in a number of academic journals, including Journalism Practice, Journalism, Media, War and Conflict, Journal of Humanitarian Affairs and the European Journal of Communication. These have been solo projects based in his PhD empirical and theoretical work, as well as collaborative projects with other PhD researchers (Matt Lovatt and Michael Tasseron). It is these collaborative efforts that he is most proud of.

LAWSON, B.T. 2021. Hiding behind databases, institutions and actors: how journalists use statistics in reporting humanitarian crises. Journalism Practice. 0(0).
LAWSON, B.T. 2021. Book Review: Glasman, Joel. 2020. Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs (London: Routledge), softcover, 274 pages; ISBN: 9780367464165. Journal of Humanitarian Affairs. Submitted.
LAWSON, B.T. & M. LOVATT. 2021. Towards a Rhetorical Understanding of Statistics in Politics: Quantifying the NHS ‘Winter Crisis’. European Journal of Communication. 36(2). 110-124.*
LAWSON, B.T. 2020. Using colouring and anchoring as metaphors for understanding the quantitative-qualitative split in crisis reporting. Journalism. 0(0). 1-15.
TASSERON, M. & B.T. LAWSON. 2020. Legitimising military action through statistics and discourse in the 2014 IDF assault on Gaza. Media, War & Conflict. 0(0). 1-19.

More information about our research degrees

Postgraduate Researcher Jasmin Surm has published an article in Journalism (SAGE Journals), entitled 'AFP, EFE and dpa as international news agencies', in her first semester as a PhD candidate. You can read the article here.

Read article

Postgraduate Researcher Laura Minor won the annual BAFTSS (British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies) Postgraduate Research Poster award for 'Reconfiguring the Unruly Woman in British TV Comedy'.

EVENTS

PSA MPG Seminar Series Book Launch, 9 June (4pm-5pm BST)

In this first seminar in our new Media and Politics Group (MPG) seminar series, we are delighted to introduce Dr Lone Sorensen’s new book, Populist Communication: Ideology, Performance, Mediation (Palgrave) in a Q&A format with Dr Katy Parry, with opportunities for audience members to also ask questions.

Sonic Intimacy and Black Diasporic Cultures: A Panel Discussion,
17 June (5:30pm-7pm BST)

“Sonic intimacy” is a concept through which sound, human and technological relations can be assessed in relation to racial capitalism. In his new book of that title, Malcolm James provides an analysis of alternative music cultures of the Black Atlantic (reggae sound systems, jungle pirate radio and grime YouTube music videos). In this seminar, Malcolm James is joined by three other researchers (Professor David Hesmondhalgh, Dr Helen Kim and Julia Toppin) to consider the book and what the concept of sonic intimacy reveals about human relations and alternative, Black and anti-capitalist politics.

Book Launch: Making Film, Making History: Women, Visibility and Production Cultures, 2 July (5pm-6pm BST)

The format of the book launch will be a roundtable discussion where Dr Melanie Bell, Professor Shelley Stamp and Professor Yvonne Tasker explore the multi-faceted aspects of women’s labour in film production and their place in film histories. Opening up questions of creativity, visibility and value, the speakers will reflect on the challenges and opportunities of rewriting production history through a gendered lens, and why feminist media historiography continues to offer some of the most exciting developments in the field.

Media Education Summit

Dr Kristofer Erickson was the University of Leeds organiser for the Media Education Summit, an international conference on media literacy, education and research. This year’s conference was a 2-day digital format using Zoom. We were relieved that the technical aspects went off smoothly and we had a lively and productive exchange of research perspectives. We welcomed the MECCSA Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Network, a screening of Dr Beth Johnson’s (University of Leeds) work on her film Industry Voices, and other researchers from around the world, including Professor Eszter Hargittai (University of Zurich), Ivan Sigal (Washington D.C.), Professor Kate Pahl (Manchester Metropolitan University), Sam Fray (Leeds) and Professor Stephen Coleman (University of Leeds). The next meeting of the Media Education Summit will be 2022 in Vancouver at Simon Fraser University. Please do consider putting in papers to this conference if your research abuts a neighbouring theme and speak to Dr Kristofer Erickson if you have any questions about the event.

More information

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