Communication, Cultural and Media Studies
Area of research excellence: Communication, Cultural and Media Studies
As the media industries continue to be transformed by social developments like #MeToo and recently, COVID-19, it is of utmost importance that a discipline such as Communication, Cultural and Media Studies plays a significant role in rethinking media as a force for change.
Our research focuses around the development of excellence and innovation in socially engaged media research. We aim to creatively rethink what film, media and computing can achieve in diverse communities, driving forward innovative approaches to collaboration across theory and practice, public engagement, and community/industry impact.
Our areas of research strength are based around three new areas of strategic interdisciplinary focus:
- Digital Ecologies
- Film and Social Context and
- Play and Multiplatform.
These three themes have been transformed into active, operational research clusters within the Centre for Media Research, structuring the research activity of our established and early career researchers.
The Centre for Media Research, itself the unit’s structural mechanism for enabling research and impact strategy across Film, Media and Creative Computing at ºÚÁÏÕýÄÜÁ¿, instills precisely this thinking in its approach to research excellence and innovation.
Based in the School of Creative Industries, the Centre positions film, media and creative computing at the heart of social and community dynamics that affect daily life, bringing together media artists and researchers, filmmakers, game and app developers; and benefitting from interdisciplinary engagement across the fields of Sociology, Theatre, Heritage and Environmental Humanities.
Related research centres
- Centre for Cultural and Creative Industries (Strategic)
- Centre for Media Research (School based)
- Making Books Research Centre (School based).
Research projects
Research outputs
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Feasey, R (2019) Infertility and non-traditional family building: from assisted reproduction to adoption in the media. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030177867
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Freeman, M (2019) The world of The Walking Dead. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781138303379
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Steele, J (2019) Francophone Belgian cinema. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh. ISBN 9781474420761
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Freeman, M and Proctor, W, eds. (2018) Global convergence cultures: transmedia earth. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781138732384
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Turner, P (2017) Hip hop versus rap: the politics of droppin' knowledge. Routledge, Abingdon. ISBN 9781138679757
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Freeman, M (2016) Historicising transmedia storytelling: early twentieth-century transmedia story worlds. Routledge, London. ISBN 9781138217690
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Brown, A.R, Spracklen, K, Kahn-Harris, K and Scott, N.W.R, eds. (2016) Global metal music and culture: current directions in metal studies. Routledge, New York, NY. ISBN 9781138822382
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Feasey, R (2016) Mothers on mothers: maternal readings of popular television. Peter Lang. ISBN 9783034318266
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Steele, J (2018) 'Cinema made in Liège: a ‘hub’ of francophone Belgian filmmaking.' In: Gott, M and Schilt, T, eds. Cinéma-monde: decentred perspectives on global filmmaking in French. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp. 257-281. ISBN 9781474414982
article
Newman, J (2019) 'Wrong warping, sequence breaking and running through code: systemic contiguity and narrative architecture in 'The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time' any% speedrun.' Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities, 4 (1). pp. 7-36. ISSN 2188-7276
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Newman, J (2019) 'Saving (and re-saving) videogames: rethinking emulation for preservation, exhibition and interpretation.' The International Journal of Creative Media Research, 1. ISSN 2631-6773
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Freeman, M (2019) 'Transmedia historiography as educational practice: narrativising Colombian cultural memory.' The International Journal of Creative Media Research, 1. ISSN 2631-6773
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Newman, J (2018) 'The music of microswitches: preserving videogame sound — a proposal.' The Computer Games Journal, 7. pp. 261-278. ISSN 2052-773X
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Brown, A.R (2018) 'A manifesto for metal studies: or putting the ‘politics of metal’ in its place.' Metal Music Studies, 4 (2). pp. 343-363. ISSN 2052-3998
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Newman, J (2018) 'The Game Inspector: a case study in gameplay preservation.' Kinephanos: Journal of Media Studies and Popular Culture, Spec. (August). pp. 120-148. ISSN 1916-985X
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Feasey, R (2017) 'The hierarchy of celebrity childbirth stories.' Celebrity Studies, 8 (2). pp. 278-293. ISSN 1939-2397
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Cresswell, M and Karimova, Z (2017) 'Ken Loach, 'Family life' and socialist realism: some historical and theoretical aspects.' Journal of British Cinema and Television, 14 (1). pp. 19-38. ISSN 1743-4521
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Newman, J (2016) 'Mazes, monsters and multicursality. Mastering Pac-Man 1980–2016.' Cogent Arts & Humanities, 3 (1). p. 1190439. ISSN 2331-1983
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Curry, J, Price, T and Sabin, P (2016) 'Commercial-off-the-shelf-technology in UK military training.' Simulation & Gaming, 47 (1). pp. 7-30. ISSN 1552-826X
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Hobbs, J, Grigore, G and Molesworth, M (2016) 'Success in the management of crowdfunding projects in the creative industries.' Internet Research, 26 (1). pp. 146-166. ISSN 1066-2243
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Freeman, M (2015) 'Branding consumerism: cross-media characters and story-worlds at the turn of the 20th century.' International Journal of Cultural Studies, 18 (6). pp. 629-644. ISSN 1460-356X
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Brown, A.R (2015) 'Explaining the naming of heavy metal from rock’s “Back Pages�: a dialogue with Deena Weinstein.' Metal Music Studies, 1 (2). pp. 233-261. ISSN 2052-4005
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Brown, A.R and Griffin, C. (2014) '‘A cockroach preserved in amber’: the significance of class in critics’ representations of heavy metal music and its’ fans.' Sociological Review, 62 (4). pp. 719-741. ISSN 1467-954X
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Ashton, D (2014) 'Making media workers: contesting film and television industry career pathways.' Television and New Media, 16 (3). pp. 275-294. ISSN 1527-4764
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Wilkins, S (2021) Landscape/composite (2016-2020) [REF2021 collection].
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Scott, L (2021) Opera for web and mobile media (2015-2019) [REF2021 collection].
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Manton, C and Aga, B (2021) Conversational AI (technology that talks) and speculative design activism (2018-2019) [REF2021 collection].
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Manton, C (2021) Shared pasts: decoding complexity (2018-2019) [REF2021 collection].
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White, R (2021) (Dis)enchanted walking: walking/multimedia arts practice as interdisciplinary research (2015-2017) [REF2021 collection].
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Clark, S (2021) Remodelling theatre narrative through digital technology (2015-2017) [REF2021 collection].
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Levy, C and Farrar, R (2021) (In)fertility, the media & me (2018) [REF2021 collection].
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Tweed, C (2021) Fiction machines (2016-2019) [REF2021 collection].
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Tweed, C (2021) The signal and the noise (2016) [REF2021 collection].
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Farrar, R (2020) Dear Carnegie Hall: utilising new media technologies to unlock multiple perspectives of the past (2015-2019) [REF2021 collection].
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Farrar, R (2020) Shextreme: creating impact through participatory action research: a film festival framework case study (2014-2020) [REF2021 collection].
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Tweed, C (2019) Re-writing the machinic anthropocene (2014-2017) [REF2021 collection].