Yesterday I delivered a guest lecture on the Media and Politics undergraduate course run by the University of Edinburgh.

I discussed the mediated nature of flag protests, with a specific focus on my work on the 2013 union flag protests in Northern Ireland, the connective actions of far right movements and the recent anti-immigration protests in the UK. A synopsis of the session is below:

We also discussed the role of media (both legacy and digital) and discourse elites in mainstreaming far right policies around issues like immigration. Relevant concepts such as the illiberal public sphere were introduced to explain what the implications of these trends might be for democratic institutions.

Big thanks to Professor Kate Wright (Edinburgh) for the invitation and to the students for their contributions during the class. A copy of the slides can be found below.