Goldsmiths - University of London

David Morley

David Morley’s research spans both micro-practices of media consumption and macro questions such as the role of media technologies in constituting the ‘electronic landscapes’ within which we live. His research has addressed questions of media consumption, especially in relation to broadcast television and, more recently, the uses of a variety of ‘new’ communications technologies such as the mobile phone. His interests are focused on the role of these technologies in articulating the public and private spheres, and he has done extensive ethnographic work in this field addressing both the functional and symbolic dimensions of communications technologies. He has also works on questions of cultural theory and globalisation - and has focussed on how to develop a non-Eurocentric media studies, within a cultural studies framework. Given his interdisciplinary approach, his work spans the fields of cultural geography and media anthropology and has been concerned with the role of media technologies in the construction of communities at different scales, in the context of processes of de/re-territorialisation, and in the re-constitution of boundaries and techno-regions. Having explored questions of ‘newness’ in relation to a variety of media in his last book, his most recent research attempts to re-articulate the study of virtual communications with that of material forms of transportation, so as to better theorise the varieties of mobility (and stasis) which characterise the contemporary world.

Before coming to Goldsmiths he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham and then taught at Lanchester Polytechnic and at Brunel University. He has held positions as Visiting Professor/Scholar at the University of Stockholm, University of Madison –Wisconsin, University of Southern California, North Western University (Chicago), University of Western Sydney, University of Toulouse, and at Ramon Llull University (Barcelona). At Goldsmiths he co-founded both the Transnational Research Unit and the Pacific Asia Cultural Studies Forum. He is the editor of the Comedia book series for Routledge and is on the Editorial/Advisory Boards of a number of journals, including Cultural Studies, The European Journal of Cultural Studies, Television and New Media and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

Areas of supervision

PhD topics supervised include:

Media power, space and place
The cultural significance of MTV Europe
Cultural identity and communications technologies in Taiwan
Television, the public sphere and the representation of ‘race’ in the UK
Satellite television and youth culture in Thailand
Music and cultural identity in Korea
Multicultural broadcasting in Eastern Europe
Telenovelas and political culture in Mexico
Japanese migrant cultural experiences in New York and London
The circulation of ‘cool’ between London and Tokyo
Transnational film culture is in Taiwan
The culture of the Jamaican reggae sound system
The Simpsons as inter-textual television
The ethnography of online music-file sharing
Media consumption in the Chinese diaspora
Technological competencies and media literacies

Selected publications

Books

David Morley's work has been translated into 15 languages and his books include Everyday TV: Nationwide (with Charlotte Brunsdon, BFI 1978) The Nationwide Audience (BFI 1980); Family Television (Comedia 1986); Television, Audiences and Cultural Studies (Routledge 1992) Spaces of Identity (with Kevin Robins, Routledge 1996); Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies (co-edited with Kuan Hsing Chen, Routledge1996); British Cultural Studies (with Kevin Robins 2000) Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Identity (Routledge 2001) Media and Cultural Theory (edited with James Curran, Routledge 2005) and Media, Modernity and Technology: The Geography of the New (Routledge, 2006).

Recent articles and chapters (selected)

• `Belongings – space , place and identity in a mediated world` European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 4(4) 2001
• `What`s Home got to do with it?’ European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 6 (4) 2003
• `The domestication of the media and the dis-location of domesticity` in T. Berker et al The Domestication of Media and Technology (Open University Press, 2005)
• 'Communication technologies and the re-configuration of Europe` (with K Robins) in V. Vitali and P. Willemen (eds) Theorising the National in Cinema (British Film Institute, 2005)
• ‘Globalisation and cultural imperialism re-considered: old questions in new guises’ in Curran and Morley (eds) op cit 2005
• `Belongings: Place, Space and Identity` (in Spanish translation) in L Arfuch (ed) Pensar este Tiempo (Buenos Aires: Paidos, 2005)
• ‘The News from Birmingham – How Media Studies got a Brummejum Accent` and `Re-Conceptualisng the Media Audience` in A Gray et al (eds) Cultural Studies (2 Vols) (Routledge, 2007)
• `Unaswered Questions in Audience Research` The Communication Review (USA) Summer 2006) – in French translation, in I Charpentier (ed) Actualites des Recherches en Sociologie de la Reception et des Publics (Paris: Creaphis, 2006)
• ‘Istanbul Tales: Autobiography and the City` Soundings, 37, 2007

Recent conference papers

• `Mediation, domestication and dis-location` American Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, London, April 2005
• `Cultural studies and its regional forms` Mexican Association of Mass Communications Researchers Workshop, Mexico City, April 2005
• ‘Globalisation Today` Network Societies and Post-Industrial Identities Conference Eberhard Karls Universitat, Tuebingen, October 2005
• `Old perspectives on `new` technologies` ‘Mobile Identities` Conference Institute of Advanced Studies, Lancaster University, November 2005
• ‘After Globalisation` and ` Heimat and Home` Dept of Communication, Central European University Budapest, April 2006
• ‘Technologies of Magic` Dept of Radio-Film-Television, NorthWestern University, Chicago, May 2006
• ‘The Geography of the New’ Dept of Media Studies,University of Bremen, June 2006
• `Regional Theories and Electronic Landscapes’ Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, Istanbul, July 2006
• ‘Techno-Rhetorics’ University of Gloucester, October 2006
• ‘Material Globalisation: Shipping Matters’ `Homeland Securities` conference (New York Univeristy), November 2006
• ‘Media Technologies and their Uses’ Dept of Communications, Fordham University, New York, November 2006
• ‘Globalisation and Cultural Imperialism` and ‘Audience Research Today` Dept of Journalism and Communication, American University in Cairo, February 2007
• ‘New Media Theory – Some Problems’ University of Sunderland, March 2007
• ‘Technology and the Idea of Home’ Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, March 2007