Research Themes
Our research analyses communication power in the light of ongoing transformations in society and the communications landscape. Current work in CAMRI can be expressed through our four research themes: Media Policy, Democracy, and the Public Interest; Global Media, Decolonisation and Mobilities; Communication, Platforms and Infrastructures; and Media Industries and Creative Labour.
Media Policy, Democracy and the Public Interest
Research focused on issues of policy, regulation, ownership and control over communication outlets and infrastructures has a long history at the University of Westminster. A special emphasis is on media policy and the public interest, through work on Public Service Media, local news provision, comparative international broadcasting policy, international media ownership structures, and digital policies in response to questions of governance, literacy and trust raised by Artificial Intelligence. Our research in these areas has an established track record of impact, and CAMRI members are called upon regularly for expert advice and input in national and international policy circles such as the Council of Europe and UNESCO, working with parliamentarians, activists and civil society groups such as Hacked Off and the British Broadcasting Challenge, industry, think tanks, and other external organisations such as Ofcom.
Global Media, Decolonisation and Mobilities
CAMRI is a diverse community of international scholars, with expertise in the study of media, culture and society in many different regions of the world, including Africa, China, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. CAMRI encourages critical research in global media that is positioned in international, comparative and historical contexts. It reflects on recent paradigmatic shifts in the field of media, communication and cultural studies in research on media and development, critical political economy of digital media, internationalising media studies and cultural translation, activism and digital media, and audiences and media ethnography in globalised contexts. Decolonising Media and Communication studies is central to CAMRI’s research and intellectual activities – rather than reproducing binaries between the global North and the global South, CAMRI’s global media researchers adopt a critical, translational approach to decolonisation that subjects both regions and their epistemologies to rigorous critique. An important strand of research within this theme examines communicative aspects and discourses of migration and mobility.
Communication, Platforms and Infrastructures
CAMRI research has always explored social, political, economic and cultural aspects of media and communication technologies. Current research explores the characteristics of the digital in mediated communication, and their social implications. This has produced work on AI and society, synthetic media and deepfakes, geospatial technologies and information management, platform industries and social media. Related aspects of CAMRI research include work on media and data literacies, on news and misinformation, on digital activism, campaigning and social movements, and on alternative media, as well as on societal infrastructures of sustainable development, ethics and care.
Media Industries and Creative Labour
CAMRI researchers conduct critical and empirical work on established and emerging media industries, with a core emphasis on wellbeing and creative labour. Recent research in this thematic area has examined mental health, discourses of creative work and labour, and corporate organisational cultures in the music industries, as well as historical and contemporary studies in film, print, television and radio industries and production cultures. Researchers have worked closely with major external industry organisations such as Sony Music and the BFI.