Our research group will navigate the complexities of modern crises in Media, Culture, and Politics.
Crises have been a feature of society throughout history. What is new is the magnitude of crises, their convergence, a sense of their semi-permanence and the difficulty of responding when misinformation and conspiracy theories proliferate. There is an urgent need to understand how media, culture and politics intersect, interact and can contribute to the amplification and the subsiding of responses to unfolding dynamics. Our research will focus on three key areas:
Journalism
Lead - Anita Howarth: Research in this theme spans reporting on migration, the role of images in journalism and political communication, misinformation, altered images and conspiracy theories; and the use of AI-generated images and content in news. Additional avenues of research include health, environmental and humanitarian communication. Extensive work is also being done on Turkey and Nigeria.
Political communication
Lead – Billur Ozgul: Here extensive work is being done on social media, politics and society as well as political activism and protest movements. The university also has a strong tradition of research on election campaigns and propaganda, cultural diplomacy and political satire and comedy.
Media and culture
Lead – Paul Moody: One is the specialisms of the group is in British cinema history and digital media frontiers such as VR and deepfake technologies. Innovative Visual methodologies are also being used to study racialised national identities.
Boosting research credibility with specialised equipment and partnerships
Our collaborative partners
The Centre for Comedy Studies Research is an international team dedicated to the academic study of comedy. As an interdisciplinary group, we explore the production, content, reception, and broader socio-political implications of comedy across various formats and perspectives. Our research is applied through collaborations with industry bodies on live comedy and well-established relationships with the British Film Institute (BFI) for film research.
Our research facilities
The university has state-of-the-art camera, editing and production facilities that staff with research interests in the relevant areas can take out on loan or use while on campus. Much of the work on image verification and fact-checking makes use of free apps and in other cases funding is being sought to take these to a professional level.