People

These are the people that make up the Centre for the Study of Journalism and History.

Off

Directors of the centre

Prof Martin Conboy

Director of Centre

Professor Conboy has published widely on popular journalism, newspaper language and tabloid culture, covering the period from the sixteenth to the twenty-first centuries.

  • Conboy, M. (2017) 鈥楯anus and the journalists: discussions of British journalism 1880-1900鈥. J. Steel and M. Broersma (eds.) Redefining Journalism in the Era of the Mass Press, 1880-1920. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 31-43.

  • Conboy, M. (2016) 鈥楻esidual radicalism as a popular commercial strategy: beginnings and endings鈥. L. Brake, C. Kaul and M.W. Turner (eds.) The News of the World and the British Press, 1843-2011: 鈥楯ournalism for the Rich, Journalism for the Poor鈥. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 117-134.

  • Conboy, M. and Tang, M. (2016)  Journalism Studies.

  • Conboy, M. (2015) 鈥楯ournalism Studies and 鈥淭he Crisis in Journalism鈥 鈥. K. Rafter and O鈥橞rien, M. (eds.) The State in Transition: Essays in Honour of John Horgan. New Island Books: Dublin. 28-52

  • Conboy, M. (2015) 鈥淚t is Nobbut (Only) an Oligarchy that Calls Itself a 鈥榃e鈥欌: Perceptions of Journalism and Journalists in Britain 1880-1900. Journalism Studies Published online first DOI: 10.1080/1461670X.2015.1017409

Full academic profile


Prof Adrian Bingham

Director of Centre

Professor Bingham has used popular newspapers to explore the social and cultural history of twentieth century Britain, focusing in particular on the themes of gender and sexuality. He has recently published a paper for History and Policy on the .

  • 鈥淧eace and Future Cannon Fodder鈥? Journalism and the Great War after 1918鈥, special issue of Journalism Studies, 17/4 (2016)

  • 鈥樷淕ross interference with the course of justice鈥: The News of the World and the Moors Murder trial鈥, in Laurel Brake, Chandrika Kaul and Mark W. Turner (eds), 鈥楯ournalism for the Rich, Journalism for the Poor鈥: The News of the World and the British Press, 1843-2011 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)

  • 鈥楶in-up culture and Page 3 in the Popular Press鈥, in Maggie Andrews and Sallie McNamara (eds), Women and the Media: Femininity and Feminism in Britain, 1900 to the Present (Bas)

Full academic profile


Academic staff

Prof Jane Hodson

Prof Hodson is interested in the interface of language and literature, and particularly the way in which style is contested at an ideological level. She has written about the politics of language and style in the Romantic Period.

  • Language and Revolution in Burke, Wollstonecraft, Paine, and Godwin (Ashgate, 2007)

  • 'Women write the rights of women: the sexual politics of the personal pronoun in the 1790s' Language and Literature 16:3 (2007) 281-304.

Full academic profile


Dr Hamish Mathison

Dr Mathison is a specialist in eighteenth century literature, and has published on newspapers and popular print.

  • 鈥楾ropes of Promotion and Well-Being: Advertisement and the Eighteenth-Century Scottish Periodical Press鈥 in The News, 1600-1800: New Approaches to Newspaper History in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. J. Raymond (Frank Cass, 1999) pp. 206-225.

  • 鈥楻obert Hepburn and the Edinburgh Tatler: a study in an early British periodical鈥 in Media History (vol 11, n. 1/2, 2005)

Full academic profile


Dr Marcus Nevitt

Dr Nevitt is a specialist in seventeenth-century literature. He has written on early modern women麓s writing and on Ben Jonson and news writing in the seventeenth century.

  • 鈥楤en Jonson and the Serial Publication of News鈥 in Joad Raymond (ed.) News Networks in Seventeenth-Century Britain and Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), pp. 53-68. also published in a special double issue of Media History 11.1/2 (April 2005).

  • Women and the Pamphlet Culture of Revolutionary England, 1640-1660 (Ashgate, 2006)

Full academic profile


Dr John Steel

Dr Steel works in the area of press freedom and censorship. He is particularly interested in the ways in which 鈥榥arratives鈥 of press freedom are woven into historical and contemporary debates concerning democratic culture and journalistic practice. He is also a member of the WRoCAH network which is exploring . His most recent work explores the normative foundations of journalism and he is currently writing a book on the British Radical Tradition and Freedom of Speech for Routledge.

  • Steel, J. (2017) 鈥溾楧isruption鈥 in UK journalism education? A study of narratives of resilience鈥, Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies (forthcoming)

  • Steel, J. (2017) 鈥淟iberal鈥 Reform and Normativity in Media Analysis鈥, in A. Abraham-Hamanoiel; D. Freedman; G. Khiabany; K. Nash & J. Petley (eds.) Liberalism in Neo-liberal Times, London: Goldsmiths University Press, (in press)

  • Eldridge II, S. & Steel, J. (2016) 鈥淣ormative Expectations: Co-production as a mode of assessing journalism鈥檚 normative claims鈥, Journalism Studies, 17(7), pp. 817-826

  • Steel, J. (2016) 鈥楻eappraising Journalism鈥檚 Normative Foundations鈥, in M. Broersma & C. Peters (eds.) Rethinking Journalism Revisited, London: Routledge, pp. 35-48

  • Steel, J. & Broersma, M. (eds.) Redefining Journalism in the Era of the Mass Press 1880-1920, (Routlege, Taylor & Francis, 2016)

  • Steel, J. & Broersma, M. (eds.) (2015) Special Edition: 鈥淩edefining Journalism in the Era of the Mass Press鈥, Media History, 21(3), pp. 235-312

  • Conboy, M; Steel, J (eds) The Routledge Companion to Media History, (Routledge, 2014)

  • Steel, J. Journalism & Free Speech (Routledge, 2012)

  • Steel, J. 'Leveson: Solution or Symptom? Class, crisis and the degradation of civil life', Ethical Space, (vol. 10 n. 1, 2013) pp. 8-14

Full academic profile


Minyao Tang

Minyao's research looks at the metaphorical representations of China in the economic press, with an emphasis on exploring how Sinological understanding of China has been shaped historically. Minyao is currently working as the conference organizer and research assistant for , to be held in 91直播 in June, 2017.

  • Conboy, M. and Tang, M. (2016) 鈥' Journalism Studies.


Christopher Shoop-Worrall

Christopher's research explores the political content of the early popular press, as well the political reactions to the rise of this new political press. He has presented his work into Labour and the early mass media across the country, and has been accepted to present at the ECREA 2017 Journalism Studies conference in Odense, Denmark. He is also a Postgraduate Member of the Royal Historical Society; a co-organiser of the upcoming  in September 2017 and the editorial assistant for the forthcoming Edinburgh History of the British and Irish Press (Twentieth Century Volume).

  • Christopher Shoop-Worrall, 鈥楻eview of 鈥淢aking News: The Political Economy of Journalism from the Glorious Revolution to the Internet鈥, edited by R. R. John and J. Silberstein-Loeb (Oxford, 2015)鈥, English Historical Review, February 2017. 

  • Christopher Shoop-Worrall, 

  • Christopher Worrall, 

Full academic profile


Steven Harkins

Steven's recent research focuses on the articulation of poverty and inequality in the news. His previous work has focussed on public relations and corporate lobbying. He was also part of the British International Studies Association's "Teaching about Terrorism" research team. He is a former member of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation鈥檚 expert communications group and has written for the British Medical Journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, LSE Review of Books, the Conversation and Spinwatch.

  • Harkins, S. & Lugo-Ocando J. (2017) Poor News: Media discourses of poverty in times of austerity, London: Rowman and Littlefield (Forthcoming)

  • Briant, E. & Harkins S. (2017) Managing the social impacts of austerity Britain: The cultural politics of neo-liberal 鈥榥udging鈥, in Berry, D. (ed.) Cultural Politics in the Age of Austerity, London: Routledge

  • Harkins, S. & Lugo-Ocando, J. (2016) All people are equal but some people are more equal than others: How and why inequality became invisible in the British press, in Servaes, J. & Oyedemi, T. (eds.) The Praxis of social inequality in media: A global perspective, London: Rowman and Littlefield


James Whitworth

James鈥 research utilises a multi-modal approach to investigate the visual and linguistic role of pocket cartoons in British newspapers between 1939 and 1979.

He is a nationally syndicated newspaper cartoonist. James' work appears daily in papers throughout the UK from Edinburgh to the south of England. He has also contributed to a wide range of newspapers and magazines, including The Independent, Private Eye (for whom he has also written jokes) and Prospect.

James is also the author of the DCI Miller crime novels, and lectures on journalism courses at universities including 91直播 Hallam, Leeds Trinity, Huddersfield, and Derby.

Full academic profile


Honorary member

Prof Michael Bromley

Dr Bromley has published widely on journalism and newspapers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He was a founding co-editor of the journal Journalism and head of the School of Journalism and Communication, University of Queensland (2007-2012) and head of the Department of Journalism at City, University of London (2014-2016)

  • (with Vera Slavtcheva-Petkova) (in press, 2018) Global Journalism 鈥 An Introduction. London: Palgrave.

  • Bromley, M. (2017). 鈥業nvestigative journalism and human rights鈥. In Tumber, H. and Waisbord, S. (eds), The Routledge Companion to Media and Human Rights (pp. 220鈥228). Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Bromley, M. (2016). 鈥楾elevisual newspapers? When 24/7 television news channels join newspapers as 鈥渙ld media鈥濃. In Cushion, S. and Sambrook, R. (eds), The Future of 24-hour News: New Directions, New Challenges (pp. 129鈥142). New York: Peter Lang.

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