Dr Vian Bakir
Qualifications
2002: Ph.D., Department of European Studies, University of Hull, UK. Title: Media agenda-building battles between Greenpeace and Shell: a rhetorical and discursive approach.
1997: Higher Education Teaching Diploma (SEDA-accredited).
1993–94: MA in Journalism Studies, College of Cardiff, University of Wales, UK.
1989–92: BA (Hons.) in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Lincoln College, Oxford University, UK.
Main Teaching Areas
At undergraduate level, I lecture in Media and Risk, Tele-visions and Imagined Communities, and Research Methods in Media, Culture & Communication.
At postgraduate level, I lead the MA dissertation in Communication, Culture and Media, and contribute to CCI Research Methods 1, as well as delivering core academic debates relevant to our three cross-Divisional Masters in Investigative Journalism, Interactive Journalism and Multi-platform Radio.
Current Research Activity
My research revolves around strategic communication in the contemporary media environment, with an emphasis on politics, risk and trust.
I am Co-leader of the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Unit at University of Glamorgan.
Current research activity:
Currently, I am involved in two large research projects.
1. Sousveillance, Media and Strategic Political Communication: Iraq, USA, UK. Continuum: New York (forthcoming, May 2010).
This 90,000 word monograph fuses perspectives from politics, media studies and cultural studies, offering insights into impacts on strategic political communication of the emergence of web-based participatory media (‘Web 2.0’) across the first decade of the 21st century. Countering the control engendered in strategic political communication, Steve Mann’s concepts of hierarchical sousveillance (politically motivated watching of the institutional watchers) and personal sousveillance (apolitical, human-centred life-sharing) is applied to Web 2.0. Focusing on interplays of user-generated and mainstream media about, and from, Iraq, detailed case studies explore different levels of control over strategic political communication during key moments, including the start of the 2003 Iraq war, the 2004 Abu Ghraib scandal, and Saddam Hussein’s execution in 2006. These are contextualized by overviews of political and media environments from 2001–09. Dr Bakir outlines broader implications of sousveillant web-based participatory media for strategic political communication, exploring issues of agenda-building, control, and the cycle of emergence, resistance and reincorporation of Web 2.0. Sousveillance cultures are explored, delineating issues of anonymity, semi-permanence, instanteneity resistance and social change.
http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=132978&SntUrl=151675&SubjectId=1366&Subject2Id=1377
This project is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Leave Scheme Award:
http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/FundedResearch/Pages/ResearchDetail.aspx?id=144768
2. Citizens’ Juries, Trust and Risk Communication.
This explores the risk and trust discourses in a Citizens’ Jury on health risks, the data for which comes from observation and investigation of a week-long Citizens’ Jury on Preventative Medicine in 2006. This project examines lay trust in scientific, experiential and regulatory risk discourses.
This project is funded by the University of Glamorgan’s Research Investment Scheme.
I welcome MPhil and PhD proposals in any of the above areas, and in particular, in the areas of risk, trust and strategic political communication in the contemporary media environment.
I am currently supervising 3 PhDs on the following topics:
– media exposure, policy agenda setting and risk communication in Sub Saharan Africa;
– a comparative analysis of UK government agenda building during the Suez conflict and 2003 Iraq War.
– visual communication in Tony Blair’s election campaigns.
Email: vtbakir@glam.ac.uk
Tel: 0044 (0)1443 668584
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