Lecturer in Sociology and Policy
Undergraduate Programme Director for Sociology and Policy
I am a sociologist with a particular interest in the ideas and practices of elites and the social networks that influence policy making. I am the author of The BBC: Myth of a Public Service (Verso, 2016), a book which examines the BBC’s relationship with the ‘Establishment’ and the ways in which the rise of neoliberalism impacted on its organisational structure and culture. Before joining Aston in 2016, I worked at the University of Bath on the ESRC funded project, ‘Understanding and Explaining Terrorism: Expertise in Practice’, research which forms the basis of the forthcoming monograph, The Politics of Terrorism Expertise. I am the co-editor of What is Islamophobia? Racism, Social Movements and the State (Pluto Press, 2017), a book which offers a realist conception of Islamophobia as the product of concrete social, political and cultural action by the social movements and the state.
I am open to supervising PhD students with an interest in elites, media and communications, think tanks, corporate influence on public policy, Islamophobia and counter-terrorism, and neoliberalism and conservatism.
Blog
- Corbynism and the Corporation: BBC Bias and the Case for Media Transformation
- Counting the Cost of European Union Regulation, You Couldn’t Make It Up
- Is the BBC biased against Jeremy Corbyn? Look at the evidence
- Marine Le Pen isn’t the problem – the BBC panders to the right on a daily basis
- Media bias against Jeremy Corbyn shows how politicised reporting has become
- Norm Circles and Social Fields
- Post-Democratic Broadcasting
- The Legacy of Edward Herman
- The UK’s Pro-Israel Lobby in Context
- The wind of change is blowing through Britain and the BBC