John Richardson

Biography

John E. Richardson is a Research Assistant on the research project #ContestingIslamophobia.

He studied at the University of Humberside & Lincolnshire (BSc Applied Social Sciences) and the University of Sheffield (PhD Sociological Studies) and has since worked at the University of Sheffield, Loughborough University and Newcastle University. His research interests include critical discourse studies, British fascism, racism, rhetoric and argumentation, and commemorative discourse.

His recent publications include the books, the Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies (2018, co-edited with John Flowerdew), British Fascism: A Discourse-Historic Analysis (2017, Columbia University Press), Cultures of Post-War British Fascism (2015, co-edited with Nigel Copsey) and Analysing Fascist Discourse: European fascism in talk and text (2013, co-edited with Ruth Wodak); and academic articles on critical discourse studies, commemorative discourse, argumentation, political communications, multi-modality and the politics of music.

He is Editor of the international journal Critical Discourse Studies, co-editor of Bloomsbury book series Advances in Critical Discourse Studies and is on the editorial boards of various journals.

Research and scholarship

My research has made a significant contribution to the understanding of contemporary racism and racist violence. My research monograph, (Mis)Representing Islam (2004), was one of the first books to analyse the representation of Muslims in domestic and international reporting. I have published in-depth, qualitative work analysing extreme-right wing political discourse in contemporary and historic Britain, with my 2017 book welcomed as “a methodological breakthrough in the study of the UK far right”.

My work applies a variety of quantitative and qualitative research methods, combining content analysis, linguistic analysis (corpus and syntactic analysis), thematic analysis, narrative analysis, visual analysis, rhetoric and argumentation, ethnography and historical analysis. I am Editor of the international journal Critical Discourse Studies and co-editor of Bloomsbury book series Advances in Critical Discourse Studies. Currently I work as a Research Assistant on the AHRC funded project #ContestingIslamophobia, with Professor Elizabeth Poole, Professor Ed de Quincy and Dr Eva Giraud. This project examines the dynamics of anti- and pro-Muslim online activism. Using Twitter # campaigns as its starting point we focus on the appropriation of global ‘trigger’ events, such as terror attacks, by right wing US activists to create anti-Muslim narratives, and how these narratives are in turn opposed by anti-racist groups.

Collaborations and grants awards

Leverhulme Research Fellowship, February 2017-February 2018: Making ‘memory makers’: Holocaust Memorial Day since 2002

Noble Foundation: ‘Narrating the past, narrating the Nation: The Rhetoric of Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain and Poland’

British Academy: ‘Nation, culture and identity in a French language Corsican newspaper’

I have also contributed to research teams, helping to deliver client-facing projects for the BBC (Reporting Israel-Palestine), the Commission for Racial Equality (‘Britishness’ during General Election campaigns) the Scottish Government (Community Experiences of Sectarianism), Facebook (A Guide to Online Radical-Right Symbols, Slogans and Slurs) and the Home Office (Younger Audience Engagement with Right Wing Terrorism).