Music, Media and Film
Further information on Media and Film coming soon!
Music research at Keele
Music research at Keele has earned the University an international reputation for excellence in practice‑led and socially engaged research.
All researchers share a focus on music production, with mutual interests including aesthetics, composition, music and the moving image, narrative, music and social contexts and technological mediation. In the most recent Research Excellence Framework (2021) 76.9% of the Music staff research outputs were rated 3* or 4*, indicating internationally excellent or world-leading quality, while 100% of the research environment was rated 3* or 4*, where the panel judged the unit’s research strategy, infrastructure, and culture to be both world-leading and internationally excellent
Practice-based expertise
Music researchers at Keele consist of a team of practitioners with worldwide reputations. Researchers with specialisms in music production and composition are active in music technology, sound-based and immersive music making, live and interactive music, as well as electronic, score-based and studio creativity. Music created at Keele is thus diverse, ranging from orchestral composition to acousmatic music, audiovisual works to digital interfaces for musical expression. The group continues to develop new forms of live processing and composition for multi-channel environments.
For more details, see the individual profiles of Manuella Blackburn, Miroslav Spasov and Tim Canfer. This research collective also includes Professor Emeritus, Professor Rajmil Fischman and Dr Sohrab Uduman.
Music and social change research
A further research focus shared across the Music team is music and social change. This work examines how music operates within communities, shapes identities, and responds to social, political, and cultural conditions. Dr Fiorella Montero-Diaz’ work as an ethnomusicologist, popular music scholar and a music ethnographer has been at the forefront of this work, leading international projects on music hybridity, racial imaginaries and links between identity, technology and music. Recent research within this area include the ‘Sounding a Queer Rebellion: LGBTI Musical Resistances in Latin America’ project which assembled an interdisciplinary network in the Global South, focusing on LGBTI – especially transgender – communities who use music and artivism. Dr Manuella Blackburn’s ‘Overcoming Sonic Stalemates: Representing cultural diversity in sample packs’ project has influenced international music‑industry practices by introducing new approaches to audio labelling and artwork standards that more accurately represent cultural diversity in commercial audio products.
For more details, see the individual profiles of Dr Fiorella Montero-Diaz and Dr Manuella Blackburn
Software
Not only are our academic staff active researchers, but also software creators! Check out the free software created by Music lecturers Tim Canfer, Rajmil Fischman and also Miroslav Spasov.
Keele Music Forum
Keele Music Forum (KMF) invites speakers representing the breadth of music and music technology research. This long-standing research fora welcomes a blend of academics and professional guests to speak about research and music industry topics. Guest speakers have included Fabrice Fitch (RNCM), Gary Bromham (producer and industry professional , Miguel Mera (City University), Luis-Manuel Garcia (University of Birmingham), Kirsten Hermes (University of Westminster) and Russ Hepworth-Sawyer (York St John University). Staff and PGR students within the unit are encouraged to share research in this nurturing and supportive environment.
Media and Communications research at Keele
Keele Media and Communications has an inter-disciplinary research focus, with a history of collaboration with disciplines such as Sociology, English and Creative Writing, Politics, Film, and Music as well as subject areas such as Memory Studies, Religious Studies, Science and Technology Studies and the Environmental Humanities. We also have a strong focus on practice-based research, which brings media theory and practice together in creative and critical ways.
Although we have a wide range of interests, the department is especially interested in the following themes:
Cultural Politics, with a specific interest in: Cultural memory; digital and social media; news production; globalization; inequalities and exclusions within the media; feminist approaches to science and technology; popular feminism, and critical cultural theory. For example, Wood’s work on consumer sexualities explores how feminine gender identities are constructed and mediated through consumer culture.
Social Movements, with a specific interest in: Environmental, social movements in India; and mediated activism. See Bisht’s British Academy research project that mobilises environmental storytelling to tackle the catastrophic challenge of urban air pollution here
Representation, with a specific interest in: Media representations of religious and ethnic minorities; self-representations of marginalized populations; the production and reception of news; refugee and migrant representation; class politics; and broader questions about audiences. See
Contesting Islamophobia for Poole’s AHRC project on online hate speech.
Practice based expertise
Our practice based expertise is concentrated in the areas of documentary film, environmental storytelling and participatory approaches to storytelling. See Bisht’s recent project on community narratives of the decline of Herring fisheries in the Scottish Minch (in collaboration with Lydia Martens).
We also welcome MRes and PhD applications which engage with these themes, and can support both conceptually-focused and practice-based projects.
Keele is a member of the , which provides Arts and Humanities Research Council funding for excellent students in Media and Communications. We would, however, encourage all students who are applying for external funding to contact potential supervisors before submitting applications so that we can work together to develop a strong application. For a list of staff, with more specific details about research interests, please click here.
