Professor Beth Johnson
- Position: Professor of Television and Media Studies; Deputy Head of School
- Areas of expertise: television; film; gender; social class; performance; sex on screen; representing the North; representing poverty; political performance; emotion.
- Email: B.L.Johnson@leeds.ac.uk
- Location: 1.02 Clothworkers' North
- Website: Researchgate | ORCID
Profile
I undertook my AHRC funded PhD at Lancaster University, completing in 2008. After this I worked 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 representational and off-screen inequalities connected to class, gender and race. 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). Other co-edited collections include Television, Sex and Society (with Aston and Glynn) (Bloomsbury, 2012) and Teenage Dreams: Youth Subcultures in Fiction, Film and Other Media (with Bentley and Zieleniec) (Palgrave 2018).
I have co-authored Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context (3rd edition) with Paul Long, Shana MacDonald, Schem Rogerson Bader and Tim Wall (Routledge, 2021).
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, and a co-authored book with Professor Kristyn Gorton on television screenwriter, Sally Wainwright (Manchester University Press, 2023).
I am Chair of MeCCSA Women's Network (2019–Present), Vice-Chair of Royal Television Society (Yorkshire, 2022–), a member of the AHRC Peer Review College, 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 currently working as an academic consultant for the Sir Lenny Henry Centre for Media Diversity (2022).
I am an External Examiner for the University of Manchester and the University of Sheffield.
Responsibilities
- Deputy Head of the School
Research interests
My main research interests concern televisual and filmic representations of social class, gender, 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.
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. My co-conveners were: Professor Stephen Coleman, Dr Kim Allen and Dr Philip Kiszely.
A selection of recent press interviews include:
- The Face
- The Conversation
- The Conversation
- The Independent
- Election Analysis UK (with Dr Katy Parry)
- Red Pepper
- Metro
- Yorkshire Evening Post
- i News
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 2021–22 I am module leader for COMM1890, Screen Narrative.
I am on research leave on semester 2.
Research groups and institutes
- Gender
- Visual Media and Communication