1. Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures
  2. School of Media and Communication
  3. People
  4. Profile
Dr Matthias Revers

Dr Matthias Revers

  • Position: Lecturer in Media and Communication, Director of Postgraduate Research Studies
  • Areas of expertise: media sociology; political journalism; political communication; political polarization; speech norms and regulation; media populism
  • Email: M.Revers@leeds.ac.uk
  • Phone: +44(0)113 343 3618
  • Location: 1.13 Clothworkers North
  • Website: | Twitter | Googlescholar | Researchgate | ORCID

Profile

I joined the University of Leeds in January 2018. Before that I was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Frankfurt and Department of Sociology at the University of Graz.

I obtained my PhD in sociology from the State University of New York in Albany (SUNY-Albany) in 2014, where I focused on cultural sociology and social theory. I’m a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University and a former Fulbright scholar.

Responsibilities

  • Director of Postgraduate Research

Research interests

My previous research focuses on journalism and political communication. My book Contemporary Journalism in the US and Germany (Palgrave US) is a comparative ethnographic study of political reporters in the two countries.

I have published articles on journalistic professionalism, how journalists perform it, how it is affected by technological change, how Twitter in particular influenced spatial and temporal aspects of news making, on the adoption of technologies, and on the history of media sociology.

My current research encompasses several studies on political polarisation in contemporary democracies, including:

  • the moral boundaries of speech (free speech/hate speech) 
  • the establishment, use, enforcement, breach, and battle against inclusive language (and political correctness)
  • the mediated experience of political antagonism
  • right-wing populist journalism

This research involves hermeneutic and computational methods of text analysis, survey experiments, and qualitative field research.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Any research projects I'm currently working on will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

Qualifications

  • PhD Sociology
  • MA Sociology
  • BA Sociology

Professional memberships

  • ASA
  • ICA
  • BSA
  • Editorial board Cultural Sociology

Student education

I am involved in teaching journalism and political communication and PGR training at the School of Media and Communication.

Research groups and institutes

  • Journalism
  • Media Industries and Cultural Production
  • Political Communication

Current postgraduate researchers

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>