Media cultures

Media is pervasive. It's used to communicate ideas, opinions and ideologies, and new technology is increasing who has access to digital content, and who is able to create it.

In our media cultures research, we analyse and critique texts that have meaning, to highlight the evolving power relationships between producers and audiences. Our research examines new cultures of production and consumption, and aims to understand how media audiences are becoming content creators.

We're also looking at the relationship between the production of media texts across various forms – including film, television, music, video games and animation – and the contexts in which they are consumed. We're examining the cultural and creative links between creative industries and their audiences too, and the importance of technology and institutions in sharing media across international borders.

Our work has been published in journals including Transnational Cinemas, Screen, the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, the Journal of Popular Culture Reconstruction, the Journal of Fandom Studies, the Journal of Popular Television, the Journal of British Cinema and Television, and the Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television.

Methods and facilities

Methods used to conduct our research include fan and web ethnographies, feminism, genre studies, postcolonialism, literary studies, philosophical approaches, queer theory, and Marxism. We also engage with data and statistical approaches, industry and archival approaches, and textual analysis.

Our facilities include video production suites to teaching spaces. We also hold public lectures and conferences in our own dedicated cinema space.

Collaborations and funders

Our research has had direct impact on public knowledge and the promotion of popular media culture and communities of reception outside of academia.

Working with partners, we have developed and run conventions such as Portsmouth Comic Con, content of international commercial events such as Destination Star Trek at Birmingham NEC, and museum exhibitions at venues such as The City Museum.

We have received funding from bodies such as the AHRC and Heritage Lottery Fund.

Discover our areas of expertise

Media cultures is one of 3 areas of expertise within our Film and Media research. Explore the others below.

Interested in a PhD in Film & Media?

Browse our postgraduate research degrees – including PhDs and MPhils – at our Film & Media postgraduate research degrees page.