Professor of Radio and Participation
My research and practice are centred on community media production and cultures of transnational community radio and women's/feminist radio. I specialise in using mapping and participatory action research methods.
I was co-founder of Fem FM, the first women's radio station in the UK (1992), and co-curated a digital archive of the station in 2014. I have published widely about women and radio, including the edited volume ‘Women and Radio: Airing Differences’, (Routledge, 2000).
As PI for Transnational Radio Encounters, I researched ways that community stations use radio to connect transnationally with similar minority ethnic, social, and cultural groups. This research group commissioned the online interactive platform radio.garden which has attracted millions of users since its launch in 2016.
My current research focuses on developing sustainable participatory media practices and frameworks relating to communities, cultural participation, wellbeing, and sustainable development.
Teaching and supervision
I contribute to undergraduate and MA modules in the following areas:
- Radio Management
- Radio Studies
- Community Media
- Community Radio Theory and Practices
- Women and Radio
- Transnational Radio Practices
- Media Industries and Employability
I am currently supervising or co-supervising the following PhD projects:
- Screens, Podcasts, and the changing face of the radio industry.
- Reclaiming rural territory as feminist space: Embodied responses to site through art walking/drawing/performance.
- Change from Within: Communication in the Public Sector in Cyprus; The Journey of a Broadcaster.
- Landscaping Social Justice within the North East: A geographical participatory case study of grassroots responses to social justice concerns
- In Breach of the Boys’ Club: Women as Live Music Stage Crew
Research interests for potential research students
I am interested in viewing proposals for traditional and practice-based PhDs, including the following areas:
- Feminist and community radio histories and practices;
- Participatory arts and media practices
- Intergenerational perspectives on participatory media production
- Community media and UN Sustainability Goals
Research
- 2015-17: Co-investigator, with Professor Trish Winter and Dr Andrew Richardson: 'Culture Map: 'Putting Southwick on the Map', to develop a new methodology for involving local communities in the evaluation of arts-led cultural interventions.
- 2013-16: Transnational Radio Encounters: Mediations of Nationality, Identity and Community through Radio (Funder: HERA), including the Radio Garden.
- 2012-ongoing: Fem FM Archive, working with Bristol City Archives to establish a digital archive of the UK's first women's radio station.
- 2011-13: Community Media Applications and Participation (Funder: Lifelong Learning Programme. Education, Audiovisual and Cultural Executive Agency. Grundtvig.)
- 2009-10: CrossTalk: Moving stories from across borders, cultures, generations (Funder: EU-Programme, Socrates-Grundvig).
- Women and radio, history and practices
- Transnational radio
- Black and minority ethnic community radio, history, and practices
- Community media and representations of migration
- Theory and practices of participatory radio
- Participatory arts evaluation methods
- Community media training methods
- Community media applications and participation
Other projects I have been involved with include:
- Editorial Board of The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast and Audio Media
- Founder Radio Studies Network
- Radio Section of ECREA
- Women's Radio in Europe Network (WREN)
- Advisor/collaborator COMandalucia research group for local and community radio in Andalucia, Spain
- Expert Advisor to Community Media Association
