Media, Democracy and Social Change: Re-imagining Political Communications

About Aeron DavisDes FreedmanGholam KhiabanyNatalie Fenton

Aeron Davis is Professor of Political Communication at Victoria University of Wellington. He was formerly Professor of Political Communication and Co-Head of the Department of Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London where he was also the Co-founder and Co-Director of Goldsmiths Political Economy Research Centre (PERC). He has researched and published across the disciplines of Media Journalism Studies Politics and Sociology. His research interests also include the promotional industries elites financialization and economic policy. He is the author of two edited collections and six books: Public Relations Democracy (MUP 2002) The Mediation of Power (Routledge 2007) Political Communication and Social Theory (Routledge 2010) Promotional Cultures (Polity 2013) Reckless Opportunists: Elites at the End of the Establishment (MUP 2018) and Political Communication: A New Introduction for Crisis Times (Polity 2019). He has also published some 50 other academic pieces as well as a number of reports and news opinion pieces. Natalie Fenton is a Professor of Media and Communications and Co-Head of the Department of Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. She is also Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy. She has published widely on issues relating to civil society radical politics digital media news and journalism and is particularly interested in issues of political transformation radical media reform and re-imagining democracy. She was Vice-chair of the Board of Directors of the campaign group Hacked Off for 7 years and is currently Chair of the UK Media Reform Coalition.  Her books include New Media: Old News: Journalism and Democracy in the Digital Age (Sage 2010); Misunderstanding the Internet co-authored with James Curran and Des Freedman (Routledge 2016); Digital Political Radical (2016 Polity); Media Democracy and Social Change: Re-imagining Political Communications co-authored with Des Freedman Gholam Khiabany and Aeron Davis (Sage 2020) and The Media Manifesto co-authored with Lina Des Freedman and Justin Schlosberg and Lina Dencik (Polity 2020). Des Freedman is Professor of Media and Communications in the Department of Media Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. He is co-director of the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre and a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition. His publications include as editor Capitalisms Conscience: 200 Years of the Guardian (Pluto 2021) and as author The Contradictions of Media Power (Bloomsbury 2014) The Politics of Media Policy (Polity 2008) Misunderstanding the Internet (Routledge 2016 co-authored with James Curran and Natalie Fenton) and The Media Manifesto (Polity 2020 co-authored with Natalie Fenton Justin Schlosberg and Lina Dencik). He has co-edited books on a wide range of themes including media racism and terrorism the politics of higher education media reform and the future of television. Gholam Khiabany teaches in the Department of Media Communication and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London. He is a member of council of management of the Institute of Race Relations and Editorial Working Committee of Race and Class.  His publications include Iranian Media: The Paradox of Modernity (Routledge 2010); Blogistan co-authored with Annabelle Sreberny (I.B.Tauris 2010); and two co-edited collections:  Liberalism in Neoliberal Times: Dimensions Contradictions Limits (Goldsmiths Press 2017) and After Charlie Hebdo: Terror Racism and Free Speech (Zed 2017).