Our distinctive inter-and multidisciplinarity is best characterised in terms of four thematic areas, providing a focus around which our research and teaching contributions are clustered.
Innovation and Governance
Policy and regulation in the information society in the global ‘north’ and ‘south’ – including the consequences of the uneven spread of technologies for changing relationships among states, governments and the law; ‘digital divide’ policies and evidence-based policy for communication empowerment; international governance of new media/ICT; the dynamics of innovation; intellectual property rights; public service regulation; and policy in changing media markets and governance.
The Mediated Public Sphere
Political communication, civic engagement and journalism ethics – including the significance of media in the information environments of democratic, transitional and authoritarian societies; participation in global social movements; mediation of suffering and journalism ethics; professionalisation and marketing of politics; the civic activities of citizens and consumers, and the structures and institutions that support citizens’ engagement in the changing public sphere.
Transnational Media Cultures
Global, comparative and diasporic perspectives – including the historical and current nature of mainstream and alternative media in national and comparative perspective; global media industries; global trends in media representations; media and diasporic communities in Europe; cross-national contexts of mediated childhoods; transnational shifts in mediations of ethnicity, gender, and human rights; and global news including post-communist media and transnational media history.
Mediation and Digital Literacies
Audiences, representations and identities in everyday life – including new literacies and competencies associated with the changing technological environment; mediated expressions of identity, including civic engagement, the aesthetics of mediation processes and familial (adult and child) responses to mediated risks and new digital opportunities; and ICT-related capabilities among disadvantaged groups in high income countries and among the wider public in low income countries.