Dr Beth Johnson

Profile

I undertook my AHRC funded PhD at Lancaster University, completing in 2008. After this I worked briefly as Post-Doctoral Teaching Fellow in Media at Liverpool Hope University before taking up post as Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at Keele University. Over six and a half years at Keele I inaugurated successful undergraduate and postgraduate Film Studies degree programmes. I was awarded a 18 month Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2013 for a project on the transnational success and style of the television serial Shameless (Channel 4, 2004-2013; Showtime 2011- ), and became Programme Director of Film Studies on my return to work in summer 2014. I joined the University of Leeds in January 2016 taking up post as Associate Professor in Film and Media. I am the author of Paul Abbott (Manchester University Press, 2013) and I have published widely on screen representations of gender and class. I co-edited a dossier on English Television Stardom and Performing the North (with David Forrest, University of Sheffield) for Journal of Popular Television (2016, 4:2), and co-edited, again with Forrest, a book collection entitled Social Class and Television Drama in Contemporary Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017). My latest co-edited collection, Teenage Dreams: Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (with Bentley and Zieleniec), was published by Palgrave in May 2018.

I have co-authored Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (3rd edition) with Paul Long, Shana MacDonald, Schem Rogerson Bader and Tim Wall. This revised and updated edition will be published in June 2021 by Routledge.

I am currently working on a monograph entitled Class and Poverty on Popular Television: A Case for Change (E.U.P.), due for publication in 2023.

I am Chair of MeCCSA Women's Studies Media Network (2019- ), and a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of British Cinema and Television. I led Equality, Diversity and Inclusion work for the Screen Industries Growth Network across 2020-2021.

I am an External Examiner for the University of Manchester, University of Sheffield and Leeds Trinity University.

Research interests

My main research interests concern televisual and filmic representations of gender, social class, poverty, race and place on and off screen. I am also engaged in research on activism, performance, emotion and politics.

I am co-convener of the Visual Media and Communication Research Group in the School of Media and Communication. 

In my remit as EDI lead on SIGN, I collaborated with Candour Productions and industry professionals to create a film series called Industry Voices (2021), shortlisted for the BAFTSS Innovation Award. The link to the series and my blog can be found below:

Film series: https://screen-network.org.uk/videos/ 

Industry Voices blog: https://screen-network.org.uk/industry-voices-diversity-and-inclusion/ 

Across 2018-19, I led and convened the Sadler Seminar Series 'The Performance of Political Feeling', funded by the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute: https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/leeds-arts-humanities-research-institute/doc/performance-political-feeling. My co-conveners were: Professor Stephen Coleman, Dr Kim Allen and Dr Philip Kiszely. 

A selection of recent press interviews include:

https://theconversation.com/film-and-tv-diversity-behind-the-camera-is-getting-much-worse-154622 

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/sex-and-the-city-reboot-heterosexual-b1791183.html 

https://theconversation.com/caroline-flacks-death-is-yet-another-reason-to-be-angry-at-the-way-the-media-treats-women-131920

http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2019/section-8-personality-politics-and-popular-culture/tune-in-turn-away-drop-out-emotionality-and-the-decision-not-to-stand/ (with Dr Katy Parry)

https://theconversation.com/laurence-fox-thanks-for-the-chance-to-talk-about-the-inequality-that-is-rife-in-the-uks-entertainment-industry-130310

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/how-television-informs-our-ideas-about-class/

https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/18/the-jeremy-kyle-shows-popularity-showed-we-are-a-society-lacking-in-kindness-9585235/?ito=article.mweb.share.top.email

https://metro.co.uk/2019/04/16/all-hail-phoebe-waller-bridge-and-the-revolution-of-the-bond-girl-9221729/

https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/business/channel-4-relocation-to-leeds-worth-1bn-over-next-decade-as-experts-hail-economic-and-cultural-benefits-of-move-1-9424209

https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/yorkshire-film-locations-uk/

<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
• MA (Distinction)
• BA (Hons)

Professional memberships

• SCMS (Society for Cinema and Media Studies)
• MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association)
• BAFTSS (British Association for Film, Television and Screen Studies)
• PSA (Political Studies Association)
• RTS (Royal Television Society)
• Chair of MeCCSA Women's Studies Network
• ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association)

Student education

In session 2020-21, I lead the modules:

COMM3805 Script Project

COMM2566 Screen Fiction

Research groups and institutes

• Gender
• Visual Media and Communication

Current postgraduate researchers

• Laura Minor

<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>