Alison Winch
Staff details

Alison is a Lecturer in Promotional Media.
She researches intimacy, power and sexual politics in a branded media culture.
Her books include The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism: Celebrity Tech Founders and Networks of Power (Routledge 2021), which is co-authored with Ben Little.
Her monograph Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood (Palgrave, 2013) looks at how the affect of friendship is harnessed in a media culture.
Teaching and Supervision
Convenor MC51005B Culture and Cultural Studies
Convenor MC52069A The Promotional Industries: Convergence and the Digital
Co-Convenor MC52069A Creative Collaborations
- BA Promotional Media
- BA Media and Communications
Research interests
The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism offers a critique of the billionaire founders of US West Coast tech companies, addressing their collective power, influence and ideology, their group dynamics and the role they play in the wider socio-cultural and political formations of digital capitalism.
Alison has also published on generation, brand sociality, celebrity, feminism, wedding media, chick flicks, and male fitness networks.
She welcomes applications from prospective PhD students in any of these areas.
Publications and research outputs
Article
Winch, Alison and Little, Ben. 2021. Mediating American hospitality: Mark Zuckerberg’s challenge to Donald Trump? European Journal of Cultural Studies, 24(6), pp. 1243-1260. ISSN 1367-5494
Little, Ben and Winch, Alison. 2020. Patriarchy in the Digital Conjuncture: An Analysis of Google's James Damore. New Formations(102), pp. 44-63. ISSN 0950-2378
Little, Ben and Winch, Alison. 2017. Generation: the politics of patriarchy and social change. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture(66), pp. 129-144. ISSN 1362-6620
Winch, Alison. 2017. ''Does Feminism Have a Generation Gap?": Blogging, Millennials and the Hip Hop Generation. Angelaki: Journal of Theoretical Humanities, 22(1), pp. 207-221. ISSN 0969-725X
Little, Ben and Winch, Alison. 2017. “just hanging out with you in my back yard”: Mark Zuckerberg and Mediated Paternalism. Open Cultural Studies, 1(1), pp. 417-427. ISSN 2451-3474
Winch, Alison. 2016. 'I just think it's dirty and lazy': Fat surveillance and erotic capital. Sexualities, 19(8), pp. 898-913. ISSN 1363-4607
Winch, Alison; Littler, Jo and Keller, Jessalynn. 2016. Why “intergenerational feminist media studies”? Feminist Media Studies, 16(4), pp. 557-572. ISSN 1468-0777
Winch, Alison. 2015. Brand Intimacy, Female Friendship and Digital Surveillance Networks. New Formations(84/85), pp. 228-245. ISSN 0950-2378
Winch, Alison. 2015. Feminism, generation and intersectionality: Generational differences within feminism are also opportunities for dialogue. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture(58), pp. 8-20. ISSN 1362-6620
Winch, Alison. 2013. “Drinking a Dish of Tea With Sapho”: The Sexual Fantasies of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Lord Byron. Women's Writing, 20(1), pp. 82-99. ISSN 0969-9082
Winch, Alison. 2012. The Girlfriend Gaze. Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture(52), pp. 21-32. ISSN 1362-6620
Winch, Alison and Webster, Anna. 2012. Here comes the brand: Wedding media and the management of transformation. Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 26(1), pp. 51-59. ISSN 1030-4312
Winch, Alison. 2012. 'We can have it all': The Girlfriend Flick. Feminist Media Studies, 12(1), pp. 69-82. ISSN 1468-0777
Winch, Alison. 2011. ‘Your new smart-mouthed girlfriends’: Postfeminist Conduct Books. Journal of Gender Studies, 20(4), pp. 359-370. ISSN 0958-9236
Book
Little, Ben and Winch, Alison. 2021. The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism: Celebrity Tech Founders and Networks of Power. Abingdon: Routledge. ISBN 9780367260118
Winch, Alison. 2019. Darling, It's Me. London: Penned in the Margins. ISBN 9781908058676
Winch, Alison. 2013. Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230348752
Book Section
Winch, Alison and Hakim, Jamie. 2016. 'I'm selling the dream really aren't I?' Sharing Fit Male Bodies on Social Networking Sites. In: Sandro Carnicelli; David McGillivray and Gayle McPherson, eds. Digital Leisure Cultures: Critical Perspectives. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 39-52. ISBN 9781138955073
Winch, Alison. 2014. “If Female Envy Did Not Spoil Every Thing in the World of Women”: Lies, Rivalry, and Reputation in Lady Elizabeth Craven's Travelogues. In: Clare Broome Saunders, ed. Women, Travel Writing, and Truth. New York: Routledge, pp. 91-105. ISBN 9781138023529
Edited Journal
Winch, Alison; Forkert, Kirsten and Davison, Sally, eds. 2019. Neoliberalism, Feminism, Transnationalism, Soundings: A Journal of Politics and Culture, (71). 1362-6620
Attwood, Feona; Hakim, Jamie and Winch, Alison, eds. 2017. Mediated Intimacies: Relationships, Bodies, Technology, Journal of Gender Studies, 26(3). 0958-9236
Winch, Alison; Littler, Jo and Keller, Jessalynn, eds. 2016. An Intergenerational Feminist Media Studies: Conflicts and Connectivities, Feminist Media Studies, 16(4). 1468-0777
Further profile content
Featured publications
2021: The New Patriarchs of Digital Capitalism: Celebrity Tech Founders and Networks of Power (Routledge)
2021: 'Mediating American Hospitality: Mark Zuckerberg's Challenge to Donald Trump?' European Journal of Cultural Studies 24, 6: 1243-1260
2020: 'Patriarchy in the Digital Conjuncture: An Analysis of Google's James Damore'. New Formations, 102: 44-63.
2015: Brand Intimacy, Female Friendship and Digital Surveillance Networks New Formations. 84/85: 228-245
2013: Girlfriends and Postfeminist Sisterhood (Palgrave)
Goldsmiths Research Centres/Groups
- Digital Culture Unit
- Researchers at the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies who have a special interest and expertise in digital culture in the broade