Media studies

Cardiff professor works with comedian to explain how players of BBC quiz show can avoid dreaded ‘brain fry’

British Academy report also expresses concern about fall in number of academic staff working in media studies

The UK archaeology programme, which is being revived on YouTube, represents an ideal to which other disciplines can aspire, says Keith Frankish

An initiative by the University Alliance to offer training and support to BAME scholars is an important step in the right direction, says Vini Lander 

Academics are ‘groping along blindly’ in a fierce debate over whether certain phrases or subjects are still legal

Academics feel responsibility to speak publicly on issues such as press freedom and ‘fake news’ 

Public confusion is one thing, but some subjects provoke quizzical and sometimes dismissive frowns even among colleagues from different departments. Here, nine academics set the record straight about what they do – and why it matters

The English professor and author of Bookishness on what drew her to book history and how humans and computers will shape reading in the future

Suzanne Franks has reservations about an impressive study of the ideals journalists should embrace

The readers’ editors employed by some quality newspapers offer a model for how to protect and promote universities’ core values, argues Priya Rajasekar

Fear permeates all aspects of higher education, from classroom teaching to overseas funding 

Suzanne Franks on what the decline of traditional media means for our ability to hold power to account

Academics are taking advantage of their freedom to launch new research, but question how long this will last

Suzanne Franks is unconvinced by the latest attempt to fight back against the symptoms of our post-truth world

Prince Andrew’s fall from grace a full decade after Jeffrey Epstein’s conviction underlines academia’s failure to probe modern power, says Jason Lee

Ivor Gaber is left wanting more in this account of how Facebook became a linchpin of today’s ‘surveillance capitalism’

Ever since it emerged from English departments in the 1970s, media studies has been routinely dismissed as the archetypal ‘Mickey Mouse’ degree. But in an era of fake news and media hegemony, has this multifaceted subject finally found its place in the zeitgeist?

Book of the week: Suzanne Franks assesses the state – and future directions – of media studies

Sharon Wheeler celebrates the core journalistic skills that changing technology are unlikely to render obsolete

The serious-minded pursuit of knowledge is not incompatible with an enjoyment of some rather more popular pursuits. Six academics talk about their passion for a topic conspicuous by its absence from the scholarly literature 

Tributes paid to footballer turned queer theorist

‘More objective’ news reporting has not necessarily yielded better politics, finds Suzanne Franks

Ivor Gaber enjoys a biography of an Oxford don who became the UK’s first on-screen pollster

If you want your manuscript to be accepted, pepper it with formulaic neologisms, irrelevant but impressive references and suitably indented vulgarity, advises Janelle Ward

Telling opponents of liberal values to ‘jog on’ may be tempting, but it risks confirming opponents’ claims that universities are aloof bastions of leftism, says Julie Odams

Partisan social media posts typically get more attention, but dispassionate analyses are what academics are valued for, says Stuart Brown 

Emily Rees on a study of the goggle-box that touches on the Victorians, the Nazis and Elvis

Tributes paid to award-winning Australian journalist who later became an academic

Profit should not be a ‘dirty word’ in education, says former Manchester United and England star

Analysis of departmental spending suggests there is a large gulf in costs between some disciplines

Viewed by many academics as an impostor subject, media studies is more critical than ever, says Louise Byrne

Paper was rejected by journal because it had appeared on website of education centre

Generic courses may not be equipping students with much-needed skills, says British Film Institute

E. Stina Lyon on the contradictory feelings of insecurity and optimism that  digital cultures provides mothers

Book of the week: the digital deluge can harm our social health; Emma Rees commends a prescription to tackle it

Is a study of addiction everything that we need it to be in a post-truth, alternative facts era? asks Tara Brabazon

The voices of 10 defectors are the most powerful parts of a study of the Hermit Kingdom, says Hazel Smith

Book of the week: Americans have to reach out to fight the political division fed by social media, says Angelia Wilson

Horror films and even video games may influence the way many people think about universities, new book says

Survey of students across 10 countries suggests handwriting and printed books have advantages over digital materials

Tara Brabazon on a study examining the concept and forms of liveness in media studies

Evidence suggests you can teach students to spot fake stories, say Joseph Kahne and Benjamin Bowyer

Ulrike Zitzlsperger on how international media coverage of the end of a physical divide shaped the narrative and the meaning of the event

Hear all about it: René Wolf listens in for chapter and verse on the history and art of the audiobook

More developed critical literacy skills can tackle fake news, say Philip Seargeant and Caroline Tagg

Comic strips present a rich, varied – and surprising – picture of life on campus, researchers have found, but also may explain prejudices

As we cannot cut the cords tethering us to tech, we must fully grasp the connection, says John Gilbey

Are our mental faculties really too unevolved to keep us afloat in an ocean of digital distraction? asks Shane O’Mara

Book of the week: From the black stuff to books, who gets the goods in a sharing and streaming era? asks Paul Bernal

Has the corporation acted as an arm of the state in the past, and might it in the future? Ivor Gaber wonders

Cheap taxis come at a price but remodelling the online marketplace is an option, says Kylie Jarrett

From Fox News to the race for the White House, this work is all about politics, says Sharon Wheeler

Dana Ruggiero on new ways of thinking about how to construct gaming experiences that allow people to help tackle intractable challenges

Stefania Milan on the socio-legal complexities of digital redemption and digital reinvention

As we continually wait for the next big thing, we are doomed to disappointment, finds Tara Brabazon

Well-researched portraits of female pioneers and game gals capture the buzz around the Beeb as women entered the professions, says Sharon Wheeler

Ivor Gaber welcomes a work that gives overdue attention to the risks that members of the press and those who help them too often face

Optimism and realism vie in a study telling us where we are, where we’re going and how best to get there, says Jon Turney

The idea of barriers to work being benefits leaves Robert Eaglestone wondering if he missed the joke

Birmingham City conference on ‘terrorism and cultural freedom’ explored everything from Macbeth to Islamic State video games