Senior Lecturer in Political Communication, University of Glasgow
I joined the subject of Politics at Glasgow in September 2006 from the London School of Economics (LSE), where I completed my PhD in Political Communication. My research focuses on political communication: how politics is mediated and how this affects the conduct and nature of the democratic process. Most of my work has focused on the UK and Scotland but I have also done comparative work about countries including Argentina, Germany and China.
During the early years of my career, I focused on the personalisation of politics, especially its media dimensions. I still work on the topic but, in the last few years, I have become keenly interested in understanding how the hybrid media environment is affecting ‘classic functions’ of political communication and its impact on democracy. I have recently published work about the Scottish independence referendum campaigns and have work in progress about non-party campaign organisations or ‘satellite’ campaigns.
Most of my current work focuses on analyzing how different types of media shape discourse and especially the policy process. This includes a recent paper about Windrush, published in the International Journal of Press/Politics, and a project (funded by NIHR & MRC) about the role of social media on shaping the Chinese government’s policy response during COVID. I have also started to explore how different platform affordances shape to what extent and how topics are politicised.
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