Invited presentation at Memory, Conflict & Peace event

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Paul Reilly

Yesterday I gave an invited presentation at an event entitled ‘Memory, Conflict & Peace’. It was organised by the University of Glasgow’s Memory Lab, an interdisciplinary initiative exploring how memories are made, stored and retrieved by individuals.

Featuring a keynote by Prof. Ann Rigney (Utrecht University), the event considered how memory contributes to conflict. It addressed questions such as: How do official narratives sustain nationalism and preparedness for war? In what ways do digital media amplify, reshape, or contest memories of past violence? What can we learn from societies where memory of division remains a site of contestation?

My paper was called Random Access Memories or clichéd representations? How historical photographs of the Troubles are interpreted on Instagram. This was based on my previous article published in the journal Information, Communication & Society,

The slides can be read below.

View this document on Scribd

Many thanks to the organisers (Yulia, Maria & Craig), the other speakers and attendees for such an thought-provoking workshop.

TEN presentation on MCS Independent Research Project

Posted on December 17, 2025 by Paul Reilly

View this document on Scribd

Yesterday, I delivered a presentation at a symposium. The symposium, Leading Curriculum and Assessment Innovation, was organised by the University of Glasgow’s Teaching Excellence Network.

My presentation was titled ‘ Is a dissertation the best way to assess international students? Developing the MCS Independent Research Project’. I discussed the challenges I faced developing and implementing the IRP over the past few years. These challenges ranged from training staff and students to the workload implications of adopting this new model.

Thanks to Julia, Honor and Errol for organising the symposium, and the other participants for their inspiring contributions.

SPS Teaching Team Award

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Paul Reilly

Photo by Clem_nat reproduced by Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Yesterday I was delighted to hear that the Media Research Methods team had received the Teaching Team Award. This was part of the annual School of Social Sciences Learning & Teaching Awards. It recognises excellence in teaching at the University of Glasgow. I was one of 19 colleagues to get this the award (the full names are listed below).

The award committee noted:

“Team teaching is not new our school, but we have recently seen bigger and bigger teams coming together to develop core courses for our largest programmes. The challenge for team delivered courses is the ability to ensure coherence of experience for all students. This is something that the event winners of this award certainly achieved over the past year. Responsible for the largest single course in the school, the judging committee noted that the Media Research Methods team delivered an outstanding first run of a complex, large-scale course, driven by effective collaboration, care, and a shared commitment to over 460 students success”.

I would like to congratulate the rest of the team for all their hard work last year. I want to especially acknowledge Harvey and Lluis for their work convening this course. The full list of recipients is below- congratulations to all!:

Lluis de Nadal Alsina, Harvey Humphrey, Kirstie Ken English, Catriona Forrest, Catherine Happer, Isaac Hoff, Hayes Mabweazara, Ida Norberg, Galina Oustinova-Stjepanovic, Paul Reilly, Cairsti Russell, Lito Tsitsou, Erdem Avsar, Emma Flynn, Adnan Hossain, Caroline Leicht, Ashli Mullen, Yu Sun, Kenneth Ward

Interview on Nicosia’s Green Line for 10DaysofConflictMemory series 2

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Paul Reilly

UN Watchtower, Green Line. — UN Watchtower, Nicosia

John Coster (Documentary Media Centre) interviewed me last week for series 2 of #10DaysofConflictMemory.

We discussed my experiences walking the Green Line in Nicosia, Europe’s last divided capital city. Last year, I wrote a piece on this topic. It contained some reflections on walking across the buffer zone, between the Greek Cypriot south and Turkish north of the city.

We discussed the origins of the Green Line before the 1974 invasion. We also compared it to other divided cities like Belfast and Berlin. Additionally, we talked about the dark tourism linked to abandoned settlements.

Thanks to John as always for the invitation. Please do check out the other videos in the series here.

Vacancy: Vice-Chair, IAMCR CRI Working Group

Posted on March 31, 2025 by Paul Reilly

I will soon be stepping down from my position as Vice-Chair of the IAMCR Crisis Security and Conflict Communication Working Group.

It’s been a pleasure to work with Virpi and the CRI WG over the past four years. Despite a global pandemic, these years were enormously rewarding and saw a significant growth in group membership and activity. It’s been lovely to get to know members of the WG. I’ve also seen colleagues progress their careers since 2021.

Two Vice-Chair roles are among those to be up for election this month. It’s a great opportunity to work with a diverse group of scholars interested in crisis and conflict communication.

Interested candidates should send their name, institutional position, a statement of no more than 500 words and a photograph to elections@iamcr.org by Friday 4 April, with a copy to the S/WG elections coordinator Andrea Medrado (A.Medrado@exeter.ac.uk) and to Virpi and I as current leaders of the WG.

If you have any questions about the role then I please feel free to drop me a line (paul.reilly@glasgow.ac.uk).

Recognised as Outstanding Mentor at University of Glasgow

Posted on March 17, 2025 by Paul Reilly

Graphic promoting Research Culture and Researcher Development at the University of Glasgow. — Research Culture & Researcher Development, University of Glasgow

I have been recognised as an Outstanding Mentor by the University of Glasgow’s Research Culture and Researcher Development (RCRD) team. One of my mentees (very kindly!) wrote this about my mentoring skills:

“The mentorship has helped me to take think about the priorities in my career and has facilitated taking important career decisions. My mentor has given me insights on different dimensions to consider when planning to move to the next career stage and has helped me to reflect over those dimensions in very productive way..”

Thanks to all of my mentees and Dr. Elaine Gourlay of the RCRD team for their very positive feedback and support- very much appreciated!

Participant in UNOCHA Debate: Enhancing Crisis Communication Strategies

Posted on March 13, 2025 by Paul Reilly

Debate on social media and crisis communication, UNOCHA HNPW, 21 March

Next Friday (21 March) I will be an invited participant in a debate on social media and crisis communication. This event is organised by Asad Tahir from the University of Leicester and the Avoidable Deaths Network. It is part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) #HumanitarianWeek.

Jamie Wardman (University of Leicester), Christian Morgner (University of Sheffield), and I will explore the opportunities of using online platforms. We will also evaluate the challenges that arise during crisis situations.

A synopsis of the event is below:

The objectives of this session include: 1) To maximize the visibility of crisis communication as an anticipatory action for reducing avoidable deaths by employing effective and proactive communication strategies; 2) To enhance awareness about avoidable disaster deaths among the audience as well as the organizers. The innovative idea of an engaging debate offers a unique opportunity for the audience and the organizers to learn from each other; 3) To provide a vibrant platform for communication experts, crisis leaders, NGOs, students, academics and researchers to share their informed insights about disaster deaths and crisis communication; 4) To discuss and deliberate about the scope and significance of crisis communication as an effective component of crisis preparedness to significantly reduce the number of avoidable deaths and people affected by disasters by 2030; 5) It is pertinent to highlight that ADN is part of the Sendai Framework’s Voluntary Commitments (SFVC) Platform. Our Voluntary Commitments to the UNDRR are inked until 2030, especially focusing on the first two targets of the Sendai Framework. Therefore, this session promises an opportunity to not only manifest our commitments to the UNDRR but also maximize the visibility of our continued endeavors at the UNOCHA’s Summit in Geneva; and 6) Above all, this interesting and innovative debate seeks to promote awareness and enhance knowledge about the theory and practice related to avoidable deaths and crisis communication strategies as an effective tool for crisis preparedness

There is still time to register for this event here

New Article Reveals Geographic Disparities in Digital Activism

Posted on December 10, 2024 by Paul Reilly

New article out in Social Media + Society

Suay Özkula and I have published an article in Social Media + Society. Entitled ‘Where is the Global South? Northern Visibilities in Digital Activism Research’, this paper draws on the results of a review of 315 articles published between 1994 and 2018.

The abstract can be read below:

The seemingly global nature of English-language hashtags often obscures activism from outside the Global North (GN). This systematic review explores geographic representation in this field (N = 315 articles) through an investigation of case study location, author affiliation, methods of data collection and analysis, and researched social media platforms. The results show a preponderance of GN/Majority cases and non-region-specific social media groupings such as hashtag publics, particularly in research employing digital methods. As such, extant research in the field has disproportionately produced what we term Northern Visibilities—groups and movements based in GN countries (above all the United States) and platforms popular within them. We use the findings of the review to critically interrogate notions of the Global South in digital social research and provide recommendations for rectifying geopolitical underrepresentation and promoting more inclusive research practice.

Many thanks to the editors, reviewers, and the SM+S team for their help in getting this out. We would also like to thank Jenny Hayes for her earlier work on this project.

The article can be downloaded and read for free here.

Look out for further details on the study in the New Year!

Dr Paul Reilly

Communication expert, researcher and lecturer

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