The Media, Culture and Politics research group addresses how crises and technological innovations are reshaping their traditional roles in society.
As mega-crises converge, uncertainty about how these will unfold and anxiety about the present and future are escalating and destabilising societies. At the same time, traditional communication methods have been disrupted but not replaced in an age of rapid technological change and media abundance.
As the old and the new co-exist and co-mingle in confusing ways or conflict, alternative groups and subcultures that previously occupied the margins of society have capitalised on the opportunities presented and, in so doing, are challenging mainstream media and politics.
There is an urgent need for scholars and practitioners to reflect on what such developments mean for the interaction of politics, communication, and culture. Where are the continuities, what are the disruptors, and how might we better understand our current times? Where and how might interdisciplinarity help in understanding conditions of flux? What might traditional social and political methods still offer the researcher, and how can these be buttressed by new methods, whether adapted from industry (such as fact-checkers) or drawn from artistic research methods (such as performance and installation design, staging and curation).
The Group aims to respond to crisis conditions by exploring and reflecting on some of these questions and others.
Addressing and responding to challenges
Writing, training and mentoring
Dr Katalin Halasz presented at our first 'work in progress' session on her article on the film “A Father, A Son and Sankara” (2023) along with the producer-director Andreas Landeck.
Our group ran training workshops one online and one offline on “Using AI in Research: Sourcing Gray Materials and Academic Literature”.
Research seminars
Anita Howarth presented a paper entitled “A Visual Politics of Migration: The Communication Strategy of the far-right”
Billur Ozgul spoke about why protestors engage in misinformation on social media in a seminar titled “Is regulation keeping up with the changing use of online digital communications?
We are inviting papers for a seminar in May on Media, Culture and Politics in an Age of Converging Crises and Uncertainty.
Meet the experts
We ran our first event of the series on the 13 March at 1 pm when Dr. Nikki Soo from TikTok talked on a wide range of industry safety issues and mis/disinformation. She also outlined pathways for students interested in joining TikTok's team and introduced TikTok's research tools for academics. The talk was opened to all staff and students in the department to attend.
Grant applications
Anita Howarth and Alison Carrol won just under £2000 of internal funding for a grant writing and collaborative workshops to put together a bid with Northampton University for to put together a grant application on “Representing the migrant through appeals to emotion: Past, Present and Future”.
Build links with industry
We are building links with industry through our “Meet the experts” series and through a series of workshops run throughout term 1 and 2 by the BFI (British Film Industry).
Publishing and marketing information
A quarterly Group newsletter detailing the activities was circulated in the department and on social media. Our activities are also being promoted on the Sociology, Media and Journalism social media pages.