Media, Culture, Heritage Research
Our research empowers staff & students to be committed, critical, and creative researches who want to push the boundaries.
Research in Media, Culture, Heritage is dynamic and cutting-edge, often interdisciplinary, and international in scope. A positive and supportive Media research environment empowers staff to be committed, critical, and creative researchers who advance knowledge, push at the boundaries of their disciplines, and make positive contributions to policy development and the lives of individuals and communities. We believe that working collaboratively with partners and stakeholders at local, regional, and global levels means that our Media research remains meaningful and relevant to real people and real lives and not simply academically interesting.
In REF 2021, the vast majority (93%) of our submitted research was classified as ‘World Leading’ or ‘Internationally Excellent’. An important aspect of our research is its contribution to and impact on, the social, cultural, environmental, economic, political, and scientific issues which concern us as global citizens as well as academic researchers.
An example of such impact is Professor Peter Stone's work on improving the protection of cultural property during armed conflict. This research has impacted on non-governmental organisations, national, and international policymakers (including HM Government), and the international military landscape.
Another example is the work of Dr Alastair Cole who directed the multi-award-winning film Colours of the Alphabet (2016, 80 mins, documentary), which won Best Feature Film at the International Children’s Rights Film Festival, 2018. COTA has been translated into 40 languages including 20 indigenous African languages. Alastair is a member of the Newcastle University Research Centre for Film where you can see more of the work of our filmmakers.
We connect cutting edge researchers with others working in governmental, non-governmental, creative, and community settings in order to promote and enhance quality of life across ever-changing contexts and for diverse groups.
Our media studies research has been supported by all the major UK funders including the AHRC, ESRC, Leverhulme, and the British Academy, as well as international funders such as the Swedish Research Council and the European Commission.
Current research projects
Newcastle Critical Discourse Group
Newcastle Critical Discourse Group is a research group previously organised by staff at Newcastle University and Northumbria University. Under the broad umbrella of Critical Discourse Studies, the group aims to address issues concerning the relationships between language, politics, media, and culture.
The group was initially run by co-organisers Dr. John Richardson, Dr. Christopher Hart, and Dr. Majid KhosraviNik. It is currently run by Dr. Majid KhosraviNik and Dr. Darren Kelsey at Newcastle University and is co-ordinated by Soudeh Ghaffariand and Sarah Hill. The group hosts a range of speakers to present innovative research and encourage constructive discussion. Staff and post-graduate students from all disciplines concerned with language and society are welcome.
Newcastle Critical Discourse Group aspires to be an interdisciplinary group, facilitating discussion on all aspects of Critical Discourse Studies. The group includes members from institutions across the UK, including the editors and board members of the journals CDS (Critical Discourse Studies) and CADAAD (Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines).
It endeavours to bring together an interdisciplinary community of internal and external researchers, including postgraduate students, from adjacent fields, including but not limited to linguistics, media and cultural studies, politics, journalism, history, and more.
The group therefore welcomes and encourages critical studies of texts and discourses from various theoretical and methodological perspectives and on a variety of socio-political issues.
For more information, please contact darren.kelsey@newcastle.ac.uk or majid.khosravinik@newcastle.ac.uk
Queer Media, Culture, Heritage
The Queer Media, Culture, Heritage (QMCH) seminar series and network hosts, develops and sustains a unique programme of seminar discussions, screenings, and network events and performances around the three key themes of queer media, culture, and heritage. By bringing together writers, performers, political activists and academics the network explores, unpacks and discusses how media texts, archives, subjectivities, technologies, experiences, desires, and memories are all linked.
In 2017 this was established by Dr Gareth Longstaff as The Queer Media, Self-Representation and Cultural Change seminar series but since then it has grown to encompass a much broader and diverse range of collaborative events that explore the queer intersections of themes such as community, resistance, performance, futurity, assimilation, and subversion. All of those involved and allied to QMCH are connected to these approaches and the intention to develop and explore them in relation to historical, political, and discursive practices allied to queer desire, creativity, and experience.
In a short space of time this has created a series of intersectional networks and dialogues from both inside and outside the academic unit, school, and university itself which will continue into 2018-19.
For more information please contact gareth.longstaff@ncl.ac.uk