Dr Aeron Davis

Aeron Davis has worked in departments of politics, sociology and media and communication. His research and teaching merges elements of each of these disciplines, and includes: public relations, politics and political communication; promotional culture, media sociology and news production; markets and economic sociology; elites and power. He has investigated communication at Westminster, the London Stock Exchange, amongst the major political parties and across the trade union movement. Along the way he has interviewed close to 300 high-profile individuals employed in journalism, public relations, politics, business, finance, NGOs and the civil service. He has published on each of these topics in journals and edited collections and is the author of Public Relations Democracy (MUP, 2002), The Mediation of Power (Routledge, 2007), Political Communication and Social Theory (Routledge, 2010) and Promotional Cultures (Polity, forthcoming 2013). He is the Director of the MA in Political Communication, a member of the Centre for the Study of Global Media & Democracy and a participant in the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre and the Media Reform Coalition.

Selected publications

Books

(2013) Promotional Cultures, Polity Press

(2010) Political Communication and Social Theory, Routledge‎

(2007) The Mediation of Power: A Critical Introduction, Routledge

(2002) Public Relations Democracy: Public Relations, Politics and the Mass Media in Britain, Manchester University Press

Journal Articles

(2010) with Emily Seymour, ‘Generating Forms of Media Capital Inside and Outside the Political Field: The Strange Case of David Cameron’ in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp 1-20

(2010) ‘New Media and Fat Democracy: The Paradox of Online Participation’ in New Media and Society, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp 745-61

(2010) ‘Forms of Capital and Mobility in the Political Field: Applying Bourdieu’s Conceptual Framework to UK Party Politics’ in British Politics, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp 202-23

(2009) ‘Evaluating Communication in the British Parliamentary Public Sphere’ in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Vol. 11, No. 2, pp 280-97

(2009) ‘Journalist-Source Relations, Mediated Reflexivity and the Politics of Politics’ in Journalism Studies, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp 204-219

(2007) ‘Investigating Journalist Influences on Political Issue Agendas at Westminster’, Political Communication, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp 181-99‎

(2007) ‘Economic Inefficiency of Market Liberalisation: The Case of the London Stock Exchange’, Global Media and Communication, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp 157-78

(2006) ‘Media Effects and the Question of the Rational Audience: Lessons from the Financial Markets’ in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp 603-625

(2006) ‘The Limits of Metrological Performativity: The Case of Valuations in the London Stock Exchange’ in Competition and Change: The Journal of Global Business and Political Economy, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp 3-22

(2006) ‘The Role of the Mass Media in Investor Relations’ in Journal of Communications Management, Vol. 10, N0. 1, pp 7-17

(2005) ‘Media Effects and the Active Elite Audience: A Study of Media in Financial Markets’ in European Journal of Communications, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp 303-326

(2003) ‘Whither Mass Media and Power? Evidence for a Critical Elite Theory Alternative’ in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 25, No. 5, pp 669-690

(2000) ‘Public Relations, News Production and Changing Patterns of Source Access in the British National Press’ in Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 22, No. 1 pp 39-59

(2000) ‘Public Relations, Business News and the Reproduction of Corporate Elite Power’ in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp 282-304

Book Chapters

(2013, forthcoming) 'Political Journalism in the UK' in Kuhn, R and Nielsen, R eds. Political Journalism in Transition, IB Taurus

(2013, forthcoming) 'Financial Insider Talk in the City of London' in Murdock, G and Gripsrud, J eds. Money Talks, Intellect

(2011) ‘Promotion, Propaganda and High Finance’ in Sussman, G ed. The Propaganda Society: Promotional Culture and Politics in Global Context, Peter Lang

(2011) ‘Mediation, Financialization and the Global Financial Crisis: An Inverted Political Economy Perspective’ in Winseck, D and Jin, D eds. The Political Economies of Media: The Transformation of Global Media Industries, Bloomsbury

(2010) ‘Media and Politics: An Overview’ in James Curran and Michael Gurevitch eds. Mass Media and Society, 5th Edn, Arnold

(2009) ‘Politics, Journalism and New Media: Virtual Iron Cages and the New Culture of Capitalism’ in Fenton, N ed. Futures of the News, Sage‎(2008) ‘Public Relations’ in Franklin, B ed. Pulling Newspapers Apart, Routledge

(2008) ‘Investigating Cultural Producers’ in Pickering, M ed. Research Methods for Cultural Studies, Edinburgh University Press

(2006) ‘Spinning Money’ in Miller, D and Dinan, W eds., Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy, Pluto Press

(2005) ‘Placing Promotional Culture’ in Curran, J and Morley, D eds., Media and Cultural Theory, 2nd Edn., Arnold, pp 149-163

(2003) ‘Public Relations and News Sources’ in Cottle, S ed., News, Public Relations and Power, Sage, pp 27-42

(1999) ‘Public Relations Campaigning and News Production: The Case of New Unionism in Britain’ in Curran, J ed., Media Organisations, London, Arnold, pp 173-192

(1999) with Curran, J et al, ‘Media Organisations in Society: Central Issues’ in Curran, J ed., Media Organisations, Arnold, pp 19-65

Papers Given (selection)

Conference Paper (Sept 2012) 'The Rise of Speculative Value in the Era of Financialization and Ponzi-Scheme Capitalism', CRESC Conference, Manchester

Invited Paper (May 2012) 'The Disembedding of Political and Financial Elites', University of Helsinki

Invited Paper (Jan 2012) 'The Production of Financial and Economic News and Information', University of Geneva

Invited Conference Paper (Dec 2011) How the Financial Media Failed the Public and Boosted Ponzi Scheme Finance, The British Academy/City University

Invited Paper (March 2011) ‘The Cultural and Communicative Disembedding of UK Political Elites’ Royal Holloway, University of London

Invited Workshop Paper (March 2011) ‘Media Management, Mediatisation and Mediation in Politics’, Oxford University

Invited Paper (February 2011) ‘Media Capital in the UK Political Field’ Cardiff University

Invited Paper Series (Jan 2011) on topics of Media Capital, Digital Media and Politics, Journalist-Source Relations, and Elite Disembedding, University of Toulouse

Invited Conference/Workshop Paper (Dec 2010) ‘Media As Democracy’, Is Democracy Possible? Conference, British Academy, London

Invited Paper (April 2010) ‘Professionalization in Political Parties, the New Wave of Party Leaders, and the Implications for Electoral Representation in the UK’, University of Auckland

Invited Paper (April 2010) ‘Foreign Policy-Making, Communication and the Embedding/ Disembedding of International Policy Networks: The Case of Iraq 2003’, Victoria University, Wellington

Conference Paper (May 2009) ‘Journalist-Source Relations, Mediated Reflexivity and Politics’, ICA Annual Conference, Chicago

Key Note Speaker and Respondent (April 2009) ‘Political Journalists as an Interpretive Community’ at Media in Power Workshop, University of Tampere

Invited Paper (Dec 2008) ‘Media Capital and Mobility in the Political Field’, ICS, Leeds University

Conference Paper (Nov 2008) ‘Politicians, Forms of Media Capital, and Mobility in the Political Field: Applying Bourdieu’s Conceptual Framework to Politics at Westminster’, University of Westminster

Conference Paper (May 2008) ‘The Cultural Embedding and Disembedding of Political Elite Networks’, ICA Annual Conference, Montréal

Conference Paper (Jan 2008) ‘Evaluating Communications in the Parliamentary Public Sphere’, MeCCSA Annual Conference, Cardiff 

Conference Paper (Nov 2007) ‘New Media and Political Engagement In and Around the Parliamentary Public Sphere’, Goldsmiths Spaces of the News Annual Symposium, Goldsmiths 

Conference/Workshop Paper (Sept 2007) ‘Embedding and Disembedding of Political Networks at Westminster’, at CRESC Cultural and Social Change conference, Manchester University

Invited Paper (May 2006) ‘Financial Markets and Rational Herds’ in ‘New Actors and Financial Networks’, ESEMK Workshop, London (Apr 2006) ‘Thinking About Public Relations Democracy’, Cardiff University Invited Paper

Invited Paper (Mar 2006) ‘The Commodification of Information in Established Financial Markets’, Manchester University

Conference Paper (July 2005) ‘Autonomous Cultures in Financial Elite Networks’ at CRESC Cultural and Social Change conference, 11-13 July 2005, Manchester University

Conference Paper (Dec 2004) ‘Media Effects and the Question of the Rational Audience’ at LSE

Invited Paper (Nov 2004) ‘Spinning Money: Corporate PR and the London Stock Exchange’ at Spin and Corporate Power conference, Glasgow

Conference Paper (Dec 2003) ‘Ideology in Culture: Repression of the Return?’ at MeCCSA conference, Sussex  

Conference Paper (Sept 2001) ‘Elite Communications and the Mass Media’ at MPG group of Political Studies Association, Loughborough

Conference Paper (Mar 2000) ‘The Rise and Impact of Corporate Public Relations’ at Political Studies Association conference, LSE