My research interests are focused on communicative pathologies of democracy in an international comparative perspective. I focus on populism’s affinity with the media ecology. Within this I address symbolic practices of political meaning-making, especially on social media and the evolving relationship between truth and authenticity in the new media environment. I convene the Political Communication Research Group at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, and the Political Studies Populism Specialist Group. I have published on populism, democratisation and mediatisation, aesthetic politics and democratic listening on social media. My first book, Populist Communication: Ideology, Performance, Mediation, was published with Palgrave in 2021 and won the ICA Global Communication and Social Change Division’s Best Book Award in 2022.
Specializations
| Methodological | multi-modal discourse, grounded theory, mixed digital methods |
| Topical | Populism, political performance, democratisation |
| Regional | Europe, South Africa |