We work across a wide range of social fields including media, politics and the economy. We critically analyse discourses from language, rhetoric and text to mediated images, videos and music and their integration in digital platforms. We are particularly interested in understanding how data and communication shape and reflect contemporary society and how this knowledge can help us make a difference towards a better society. We use a variety of methodological approaches, involving both computational and interpretive perspectives.
Our key current interests are:
- Multimodal analysis of traditional and digital media in relation to framing and representations of different social events, actors and their discursive strategies
- The mediatisation of political, economic and migratory ‘crises’ in both traditional (e.g. press) and ‘new’ media platforms
- Strategic communication as manifested in business discourses and crisis, public and NGO communication
- Science communication, digital technologies and ethics
- Issues of ‘digital’ social exclusion including literacies and hate speech
- Interface between Artificial Intelligence and communication and the ethics of digital technologies and explainable AI
- Argumentation and persuasion in (social) media discourses
- (Mis) and (dis)information in the online world and its impact on the networked society
- Digital media analysis at scale and related visualisation tools and methodologies
- Discourses of global popular culture and public protest in news, radio and popular music
- Discursive construction of social, political and organisational identities in the (trans)national public sphere
- Communication of social, environmental, and economic ‘sustainability’ relating for example to issues of climate change, modern slavery and human rights
Current members of the Discourse, Data and Society research group include (in alphabetical order):
- Dr. Alex Herasimenka
- Dr. Hannah Little
- Dr. Elena Musi
- Dr. Tom Nicholls
- Prof. Kay O'Halloran
- Dr. Rudi Palmieri
- Dr. Mark Pogson
- Dr. John Richardson
- Dr. Lyndon Way
- Prof. Simeon Yates