Photo by Clem_nat reproduced by Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International Yesterday I was delighted to hear that the Media Research Methods team had received the Teaching Team Award. This was part of the annual School of Social Sciences Learning & Teaching Awards. It recognises excellence in teaching at the University of Glasgow. I was one of 19 colleagues to get this the award (the full names are listed below).

T:BUC Engagement Forum Yesterday I was an invited speaker at a Together: Building a United Community (T:BUC) Engagement Forum event. The topic was 'Social Media and its impact on Good Relations'. I spoke about my ongoing research on social media, parades and protests in Northern Ireland (2012-current). I drew on the results of my book (Digital contention in a divided society…

This week I was at Edinburgh Napier University to attend the annual MeCCSA conference. The theme this year was 'Identity and Belonging', with a specific focus on how identities are mediated and mediate themselves. First, I was part of a Glasgow University Media Group panel on the Cost of Living Crisis. I presented an overview of the key findings with…

UN Watchtower, Nicosia John Coster (Documentary Media Centre) interviewed me last week for series 2 of #10DaysofConflictMemory. We discussed my experiences walking the Green Line in Nicosia, Europe's last divided capital city. Last year, I wrote a piece on this topic. It contained some reflections on walking across the buffer zone, between the Greek Cypriot south and Turkish north of the city.

Yesterday I had an op-ed published in the Herald (Glasgow). It discusses the racist rioting seen in Northern Ireland earlier this month. I argued that politicians have to take responsibility for their role in producing a toxic political discourse about immigration. In towns like Ballymena and Larne, there was violence. Politicians framed anti-migrant demonstrations as representing the 'legitimate concerns' of local communities.

By VIEWdigital editor Brian Pelan A number of disabled campaigners and trade unionists held a protest outside the offices of NICVA in Belfast yesterday over a consultation organised by the Department ...

Find out more about VIEWdigital’s new Community Journalism project supported by the National Lottery Community Fund Northern Ireland at a special event at the University of Atypical in Belfast to mark...

On 25 June (9-10:30am GMT), I will be one of the keynote speakers (along with Weiyu Zheng, National University of Singapore) at a webinar as part of the Activism, Democracy & Social Justice series. The focus of my talk will be on how to publish monographs as an early career researcher. I will provide some advice on how to convert PhD theses into books, including things to include in the proposal and how to write for audiences outside academia.

By using AI for a task for which it is particularly ill-equipped—analyzing the testimony of Holocaust survivors—students deepen their own thinking, Jan Burzlaff writes.

Scholarly Facilitation of the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects: Providing a Veneer of Legitimacy

My article 'The Blame Game? #Brexitriots as an affective ritualized response to civil disorder in Northern Ireland has been published in the International Journal of Communication. This paper focuses on how the April 2021 violence in Northern Ireland were discursively framed on Twitter. I argue that #Brexitriots was an affective ritualised response to civil unrest in Northern Ireland. It demonstrated a lack of knowledge of the grievances fuelling this violence.

I was quoted in an article by The National’s Steph Brawn on the anti-far right summit in Scotland. I argued that there was too much focus on the spectacle of the rise of Reform. The Scottish political mainstream needs to test their policies on issues like immigration and offer viable alternatives. The rise of parties like Reform is due to a breakdown in trust in political institutions, which will take a long time to recover from.

Yesterday I had an op-ed published in The Scotsman. In 'Social media isn't solely to blame for rise of far-right', I argue for a holistic approach. It's too easy to pin the blame solely on online platforms that amplify hate and misinformation. Politicians need to dial down the rhetoric on issues like immigration. It's time to focus on why right-wing extremism resonates with young people rather than solely blame social media algorithms. Many thanks to Charlotte Morris for helping arrange this. It can be read in full here.

Research Culture & Researcher Development, University of Glasgow I have been recognised as an Outstanding Mentor by the University of Glasgow’s Research Culture and Researcher Development (RCRD…

Debate on social media and crisis communication, UNOCHA HNPW, 21 March Next Friday (21 March) I will be an invited participant in a debate on social media and crisis communication. This event is or…