People

Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi
Assistant Professor

Interests and expertise: global communication and comparative journalism; digital activism; collective memory; Middle East and North Africa

Dr Nick Anstead
Associate Professor, Exam Board Chair

Interests and expertise: campaigning; citizenship; eCampaigning; ePolitics; elections; internet; new media; political participation; political parties

Professor Shakuntala Banaji
Professor of Media, Culture and Social Change

Interests and expertise: Bollywood; Hindi cinema; South Asia; audiences; children; creativity; film studies; international media; media education; media literacy;misinformation and disinformation; online participation; political contexts; social media and hate speech; young people; youth civic participation

Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser
Professor of Media and Communications, Head of Department

Interests and expertise: gender; feminist theory; race and ethnicity; consumer culture; neoliberal capitalism; branding; popular culture; social media; youth culture

Dr Ram Bhat
LSE Fellow

Interests and expertise: internet infrastructure governmentality and subjectivation; internet infrastructure hate speech and violence; qualitative methods in media and communication research; decolonising media and communications

Dr Meghanne Barker
LSE Fellow

Interests and expertise: visual culture; children's culture and media; Eastern Europe and Eurasia; postsocialism; ethnographic methods; semiotics; animation and film

Professor Charlie Beckett 
Professor in Practice, Director of Polis 

Interests and expertise: Artificial Intelligence; broadcasting; digital; emotions; ethics; future of news; governance; international media; journalism; media economics; networked journalism; newspapers; social media; start-ups; terror reporting; US media; WikiLeaks

Professor Bart Cammaerts
Professor of Politics and Communication

Interests and expertise: media strategies of activists; media representations of protest; alternative media and counter-cultures; media histories; political theory and broader issues relating to power, participation and public-ness

Professor Lilie Chouliaraki
Chair in Media and Communications, Doctoral Programme Director

Interests and expertise: corporate communication and branding; humanitarian communication; media ethics; public sphere and civil action; media representations of suffering and violence

Professor Nick Couldry 
Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory

Interests and expertise: media and data ethics; media audiences; media and platform power; reality media; social theory; sociology of culture; voice and listening

Dr Simidele Dosekun
Assistant Professor 

Interests and expertise: gender and media; race and ethnicity; Africa; consumer and popular cultures; representation; globalisation; feminist theory; qualitative research methodologies; knowledge politics

Professor Lee Edwards
Professor of Strategic Communications and Public Engagement, Director of Graduate Studies

Interests and expertise: promotional culture, particularly public relations (PR); diversity, inequality and PR; PR as a professional field; young people, PR, voice, recognition; PR and democracy; copyright policy and discourse; postcolonial and decolonial analyses of public relations; climate change communication

Dr Seeta Peña Gangadharan
Associate Professor

Interests and expertise: communication rights and technologies; data profiling; surveillance; privacy; data and discrimination; democratic communication; digital inclusion; media justice; public participation in comms/tech policy

Professor Myria Georgiou
Professor of Media and Communications, Research Director

Interests and expertise: audience research; diaspora; migration and the media; identity and the media; media and the city; transnational communities and networks 

Professor Ellen Helsper
Professor of Digital Inequalities

Interests and expertise: digital inequalities; information and communication technologies (ICTs); interpersonal mediated communication; media and everyday life; methodologies in media and communications research

Dr Zhongwei Li
LSE Fellow

Interests and expertise: popular music; subculture; cultural production and circulation; historical ethnography; media and communications in post-reform China

Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE
Professor of Social Psychology

Interests and expertise: media and everyday life; media audiences; children and digital media; media literacy; children’s rights in the digital environment; mediated participation; online risks, privacy and safety; media regulation in the public interest

Professor Robin Mansell
Professor of New Media and the Internet

Interests and expertise: media and communications regulation and policy; internet governance; privacy and surveillance; digital platforms; data and information; social, political and economic impacts of innovation and digital technology applications

Dr Bingchun Meng 
Associate Professor

Interests and expertise: Chinese media in a globalising era; copyright law and communication; ICT and development; political economy of media and information industries

Dr Dylan Mulvin
Assistant Professor

Interests and expertise: media history; media theory; infrastructure studies; science and technology studies; history of science and technology; visual culture; screen technologies; gender studies; disability studies; 20th century history; cultural studies

Professor Shani Orgad
Professor of Media and Communications

Interests and expertise: gender, feminism and media; motherhood; globalisation; media representations; narrative; ethnographic research methods

Dr Jean-Christophe Plantin
Associate Professor

Interests and expertise: politics of platforms; evolution of knowledge infrastructures; digital sovereignty

Dr Alison Powell
Associate Professor

Interests and expertise: technological citizenship; ethics and values in technology design; 'smart cities'; algorithmic culture; transparency and accountability of algorithmic systems; tech culture; hacker culture; tech activism 

Professor Terhi Rantanen 
Professor of Global Media and Communications

Interests and expertise: media globalization; news agencies; media history; national and global news; comparative research

Dr Damian Tambini
Distinguished Policy Fellow 

Interests and expertise: broadcasting; regulation; telecommunications; public sphere; freedom of speech; intellectual property; the commons 

Dr Wendy Willems 
Associate Professor, Deputy Head of Department

Interests and expertise: global digital culture and social change; urban communication; postcolonial/decolonial approaches to media and communication; popular culture, performance and politics in Africa; media culture and neoliberalism in the Global South

Dr Polly Withers
LSE Fellow

Interests and expertise: cultural studies (popular culture, popular music, youth subcultures); gender and sexuality; feminist theory; race and ethnicity; Middle East politics and Palestine; neoliberal capitalism, consumer culture and identity; global media and communications 

Leo Beattie - Team Lead
Research Manager, Research Operations Team Lead

Responsibilities: all aspects of Departmental research; research finance; doctoral programmes; REF 2021 preparations

Rob Sharp
Polis Manager

Responsibilities: operational management and administration of Polis, the LSE Journalism and Society Think Tank

Lwam Tesfay

Events and Communications Officer

Responsibilities: public events; online communications, website, social media and newsletters; Media@LSE

Dr Alessandro Castellini
Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: gender; sexuality; motherhood; postpartum depression; emotions; Japan; film theory; psychoanalysis; philosophies of translation; critical pedagogies

Dr Jelena Dzakula
Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: communications policy and regulation; citizenship; technological innovations; digital government

Kate Gilchrist
Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: gender, subjectivity, postfeminism, popular culture, self narrative

Dr Leslie Haddon 
Guest Teacher and Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: ICT consumption and domestication; children and the Internet; mobile phones; social shaping of technology

Dr Louise Hickman
Guest Teacher and Senior Research Officer, JUST-AI Network on Data and AI Ethics, Ada Lovelace Institute

Interests and expertise: ethics of care; critical disability studies; feminist STS; feminist labour; crip technoscience; Deaf studies; critical access studies; history of technology; future of work

Dr Rodolfo Leyva
Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: media culture and neoliberalism; new media and political participation; media psychology and neuroscience; quantitative and experimental methods in media and communications research

Dr Sarah Tafakori
Guest Teacher, Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: the intersections of global politics; emotion, mediation and the everyday, with a focus on affective discourses in transnational media contexts

Dr Jane Vincent
Guest Teacher, Visiting Fellow, freelance academic researcher and industry practitioner

Interests and expertise: youth and the Internet; mobile communications; emotion and ICTs

Dr Jun Yu
Guest Teacher and Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: algorithmic culture, privacy, dataveillance, platformisation of cultural production, social theory, solidarity

Dr Bermal Aydin
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: media governance; media citizenship; communication law; communication contexts

Dr Sally Broughton Micova
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: media and communications policy in Europe; rise of competitive authoritarianism; consequences of convergence and globalization in creative and communications industries

Dr Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer
Visiting Fellow, Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego

Interests and expertise: political communication; journalism; political commentary

Dr Leslie Haddon 
Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: ICT consumption and domestication; children and the Internet; mobile phones; social shaping of technology

Dr Velislava Hillman
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: education technologies; educational data; digital media literacy; children and young people’s digital rights; creativity; mediated learning

Atte Jääskeläinen
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: media systems; future of news; digital disruption

Osman Junaid
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: digital advertising ethics; data collection; digital surveillance; media platform regulation and governance; behaviour change; financial services media strategy; consumer healthcare media strategy; biotech; digitisation of the economy

Dr Angelos Kissas
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: Populism, digital media and democracy; the mediatization of politics; political ideology, power and institutions in the age of mediatization; the role of discourse and affect in political communication; qualitative, hermeneutic methods in the study of political communication

Dr Terence McSweeney
Visiting Fellow, Solent University

Interests and expertise: film and television studies; contemporary American cinema

Claire Milne
Senior Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: consumer affairs; consumer representation; nuisance calls; numbering; telecommunications policy; telecommunications regulation; universal service.

Professor Hannu Nieminen
Visiting Professor

Interests and expertise: communication and democracy; theories of the public sphere; European media and communications policy; media regulation; communication rights

Dr Jedrzej Niklas
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: state and technology; human rights; data protection; data and discrimination; bureaucracy and public institutions; surveillance studies; civil society and participation; political theory

Dr Ioanna Noula
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: citizenship education, critical pedagogy, digitalisation

Dr Kruakae Pothong
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: design-led research, deliberative methods, human-computer interaction, digital ethics, internet of things, internet and related policies, user research

Professor Sandra Ponzanesi
Visiting Professor

Interests and expertise: gender and postcolonial studies

Dr Maria Rikitianskaia
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: wireless communication; transnational approach; the political economy of communication; the social construction of technology

Dr Maggie Scammell
Visiting Staff

Interests and expertise: political communications, especially political campaigning, media and elections, governments and news management, political marketing and political journalism.

Professor Philip Schlesinger
Visiting Professor, University of Glasgow

Interests and expertise: cultural policy; digital cultures; post-truth and the politics of expertise; creative and cultural industries; collective identity

Professor Julian Sefton-Green
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: media education; new technologies; creativity; digital cultures; informal learning

Jonny Shipp
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: sustainability, accountability corporate purpose and ethics in relation to digitalisation; online platforms and Internet services.

Dr Johanna Sumiala
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: media and social theory; ritual; death; religion; digital anthropology

Giancarlo Summa
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: international organisations and multilateralism; social media and digital diplomacy; political communication; authoritarian leaders and right-wing movements; Latin American media

Lara Srivastava
Visiting Fellow

Interests and expertise: ICT and media regulation and governance, technical and policy standardization, ICT for development, Technology policy, technology and society

Dr Jane Vincent
Visiting Fellow, Guest Teacher, freelance academic researcher and industry practitioner

Interests and expertise: youth and the Internet; mobile communications; emotion and ICTs

Dr Servet Yanatma
Visiting fellow

Interests and expertise: news agencies; media and politics in the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey; political economy of media and media ownership; online news consumption and media business models

Dr Jun Yu

Visting Fellow and Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: algorithmic culture, privacy, dataveillance, platformisation of cultural production, social theory, solidarity

Imre Bard
Research Officer, JUST-AI Network on Data and AI Ethics, Ada Lovelace Institute

Emma Goodman
Policy Officer, Media@LSE

Interests and expertise: media policy; fake news; e-campaigning; national and international news journalism; media and development

Dr Louise Hickman
Senior Research Officer, JUST-AI Network on Data and AI Ethics, Ada Lovelace Institute, Guest Teacher

Interests and expertise: ethics of care; critical disability studies; feminist STS; feminist labour; crip technoscience; Deaf studies; critical access studies; history of technology; future of work

Dr Sam Mejias
Postdoctoral Research Officer, STEM Inside

Interests and expertise: citizenship; education; digital media; human rights; neoliberalism; race and ethnicity; youth participation; creative arts; critical media literacy; media representation; international development;discourse analysis; ethnography

Esra Ozkan
Table Co-Director, Justice, Equity and Technology

Interests and expertise: social justice; anti-racism; social action; movement building; network development

Dr Eva Połońska-Kimunguyi
Research Fellow, We, the People

Interests and expertise: media and public diplomacy; political communication; media, populism, identity politics; media and narratives in foreign policy; Europe-Africa media relations

Sanne Stevens
Table Co-Director, Justice, Equity and Technology

Interests and expertise: politics of data-driven automation; demystifying technologies; digital welfare state; organising; social justice; anti-racism; repression

Dr Mariya Stoilova
Research Officer, Global Kids Online

Interests and expertise: digital technologies, well-being, and family support; social change and transformations of intimate life; citizenship and social inequalities