New chapter out in De Gruyter handbook of Digital Political Communication

Posted on July 22, 2026 by Paul Reilly

De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Political Communication, published July 2026

I have a chapter in the recently published De Gruyter Handbook of Digital Political Communication. Many thanks to the fantastic editors, Mark Wheeler and & Petros Iosifidis for the invitation, and for pulling together such an excellent volume.

My chapter is entitled ‘Ethical Dilemmas in Researching Sousveillance on YouTube Revisited’.

The abstract can be read below:

The socio-technical affordances of online platforms like YouTube enable citizens to distribute sousveillance (or inverse surveillance) footage, focusing attention on police brutality, to a potential global audience. This undoubtedly creates new opportunities for qualitative researchers exploring the role of social media in contemporary protest and social movements, but it also presents a series of ethical dilemmas to be addressed. Most notably, scholars must consider the feasibility and desirability of seeking informed consent from those uploading and commenting on these videos. This requires some engagement with the merits of the so-called ‘fair game’ defence, namely that publicly available social media data can be used without ethical considerations due to the fact that users should be aware of such data collection courtesy of the terms of service of each platform. In this paper, I consider what measures, if any, should be taken to protect those who comment on social media sousveillance. I do so by revisiting the ethical approach taken during a previous study of how YouTube was used to share sousveillance footage, namely the 2011 ‘Battle of Stokes Croft’ in Bristol, England. I reflect on whether a different stance might be taken if this research was to be conducted in the contemporary era. I argue that sousveillance researchers should focus on what is said online rather than who says it.

The book can be purchased online and you can read a preprint of my chapter here.

Cost of living crisis book launch- 24 June

Posted on June 8, 2026 by Paul Reilly

The launch event for Bad News on the Cost of Living Crisis will be held in a few weeks’ time. It will be jointly sponsored by the Glasgow University Media Group and Red Pepper Magazine.

Please see below for details on the speakers and venue. Details on how to register can be found here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/redpepper/2233237

GUMG and RPM invite you to join them for the launch of a new book, Bad News on the Cost of Living Crisis and to discuss questions of media power, resistance, and the future of journalism in a rapidly evolving digital media landscape with special guest Laura Webster.

Both the book and magazine will be available for purchase at the event – to ensure you get a copy of the Red Pepper issue, you can purchase in advance for a discounted rate when registering for the event!

Join us from 5:30pm in the Reading Room, Glasgow University Union – the discussion will run between 6:00 and 7:30pm, with drinks and further conversation in the Reading Room bar afterwards.

Chair:

Darcy White is a co-editor of Red Pepper Media and Emeritus Fellow of Visual Culture (Sheffield Hallam University).

Panellists:

Laura Webster is the Editor of The National.
Catherine Happer is a Professor of Media Sociology (University of Glasgow) and Director of The Glasgow University Media Group.
Lluis De Nadal is a Lecturer in Media, Culture & Society (University of Glasgow) and a researcher at The Glasgow University Media Group.
Paula Lacey is a co-editor of Red Pepper Media and a PhD candidate in Sociology (University of Cambridge)

Location

Reading Room, Glasgow University Union (GUU), University Avenue, G12 8LX

Bad news on the cost of living crisis published

Posted on May 11, 2026 by Paul Reilly

I am a contributor to a Glasgow University Media Group book published last week. Bad news on the cost of living crisis explores media representations and audience responses to the COLC in the United Kingdom over the past few years.

The blurb of the book is below:

In this book, the Glasgow University Media Group bring their innovative and forensic three-dimensional methodological approach to understanding the role of media in shaping Britain’s cost of living crisis. In the context of neoliberal austerity, welfare cuts and the corporate capture of media platforms, it provides evidence of an increasing disconnect between the narratives promoted by the mainstream media and the interests, priorities and lived experiences of audiences – whilst charting the parallel emergence of new models of trust which leave them vulnerable to bad faith actors promoting disinformation online.

Big thanks to GUMG colleagues Alison Eldridge, Catherine Happer, Gavin Hawkton, Isaac Hoff, Lluis de Nadal Alsina, Cairsti Russell and Yu Sun for their hard work in bringing this to fruition. I would also like to thank the Palgrave team (especially Richard Woolley) and the reviewers for their assistance in publishing this important work.

The book can now be ordered here.

I will share details of the book launch and other promotional activities in due course.

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).

Dr Paul Reilly

Communication expert, researcher and lecturer

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