Tag Archives: MeCCSA

MeCCSA and ECREA conference presentations

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Last week I presented at the annual Media, Communication and Cultural Studies (MeCCSA) conference at the University of Leicester. I thoroughly enjoyed the panels I attended, catching up with folk (including several from when I worked at Leicester over ten years ago!), and participated in my first MeCCSA pub quiz (‘The Team With No Name’ held their own ;). Many congratulations to Julian Matthews and the team for organising a great conference.

The Sir Bob Burgess building is primed and ready for delegates. MeCCSA 2026 begins tomorrow at the University of Leicester … #meccsa2026@meccsa.bsky.social @deptmedialeic.bsky.social

— Julian Matthews (@julianmatthews1.bsky.social) 2026-09-01T18:50:39.326Z

The abstract for my paper is below:

Social media, entangled conflict memories, and peacebuilding in post-violence societies

Social media are increasingly integral to how we both remember and forget conflict. These highly personalised newsfeeds present a challenge to peacebuilding initiatives in ‘post-violence’ societies. While online platforms provide the architecture for a more inclusive and pluralistic conflict memory politics, they also algorithmically amplify hate speech and mis-and disinformation, that undermines community relations. The durability of collective conflict memories, previously synonymous with physical archives and legacy media coverage, is undermined by the sheer number of agents and platforms involved in its production today. In this paper, I focus on how these entanglements between mnemonic agents and platforms produce conflict memories in post-violence societies like Cyprus and Northern Ireland. I argue that the role of legacy media in providing materials for the public remembrance of conflict has been usurped by digital technologies, which enable users to bear witness to atrocities by searching for and sharing survivor testimonies. What was once a shared reality experienced through ‘mainstream’ media has been replaced by personalized war feeds accessible via apps like TikTok, where the legitimacy of conflicts is contested and their legacies debated. This undoubtedly raises questions about the role of online platforms in curating conflict memory materials, especially when many appear to hide behind ‘free speech’ whilst refusing to remove online hate and misinformation. However, it is expedient for political elites to blame platforms for the persistence of antagonistic modes of remembering conflict rather than address the structural factors and conflict legacy issues that divide communities in post-violence societies.

The slides from my presentation are here

ECREA

This week I am attending the 11th European Communication Conference (ECC2026) in Brno, Czechia. My paper, co-authored with Suay Özkula, draws on our previous systematic review of empirical Digital Activism research. This paper explores how ethics is narrated in DA research to date. We will present some preliminary insights from our systematic review of the literature.

The abstract can be read below:

Non-maleficence without institutional gatekeeping? How ethical issues are addressed in empirical digital activism research

While early studies played down ethical concerns about online research, there has been a shift towards more formal systems governing social media research over the past decade. Institutional regulatory structures like Research Ethics Boards have increasingly scrutinised these projects, with ethics forms becoming ‘gatekeepers’ for how universities organise research culture. There has been a concurrent growth in ethical guidelines for online research from organisations like the Association of Internet Researchers. Yet, there remain doubts as to how seriously ethics is treated in research, above all in studies employing data mining techniques. This is particularly salient for Digital Activism (DA) studies, where activists might be exposed to harm through their identification in publications. In response to this issue, our paper provides a critical discussion of how ethical issues are addressed in empirical DA research. We draw on data gathered from a systematic review of journal articles published between 2009 and 2024. In the first instance, mentions of research ethics were searched in protest literature more broadly (N= 264) and then in DA articles specifically (N=59). Coding categories included how ethics were narrated (e.g., popular approaches or the mention of formal procedures) as well as what attributes characterised articles discussing research ethics, for example the platform(s) studied, method(s) of data collection and analysis, authors’ institutional affiliations and their respective disciplines. We tested specifically whether empirical DA research included ethics statements i.e. outlining whether ethics approval had been obtained prior to the study beginning and what measures were taken to protect participants, and whether articles were more likely to address ethical issues if they drew on traditional rather than digital data sources. Results indicate that very few DA articles published during this period included ethics statements. Nevertheless, there was much evidence of non-maleficence in the corpus, including those studies using digital methods. These are often rendered opaque by the submission requirements of journals and the norms of certain disciplines.

Our paper is scheduled for Thursday 10th (11:15), in room K2:200.

If you are at the conference this week please do say hi – looks like a great programme!

Presentations at MeCCSA 2025

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This week I was at Edinburgh Napier University to attend the annual MeCCSA conference. The theme this year was ‘Identity and Belonging’, with a specific focus on how identities are mediated and mediate themselves.

First, I was part of a Glasgow University Media Group panel on the Cost of Living Crisis. I presented an overview of the key findings with Cairsti Russell and Gavin Hawkton (unfortunately Catherine Happer was unable to join us due to ill-health).

Key themes included the debate over the use of the word ‘crisis’. There was also a focus on the impact of austerity and cuts in public services on low-income households. Our results suggest that media coverage of the COLC prioritised business perspectives over those of civil society. Citizens are increasingly attracted to alternative news sources. The slides from the session can be viewed below:

These findings are from the GUMG’s forthcoming book ‘Bad News for the Cost of Living Crisis’. The book, edited by Catherine Happer, Alison Eldridge and me, will be published with Palgrave Pivot in December 2025.

My second paper was on my ongoing research on social media, parades and protests in Northern Ireland. I drew on my book Digital Contention in a Divided Society and article on #Brexitriots in my presentation. It explored hashtags as affective ritualised responses to contentious events in Northern Ireland. I examined who was behind these discursive formations online, and who benefited from this activity. The slides can be viewed below:

Thanks to everyone who attended the sessions. asked questions, and provided important feedback on the work.

MeCCSA 2020 presentation

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I attended the annual MeCCSA conference  at the University of Brighton last week, which brought together a very diverse group of Media, Communication and Cultural Studies researchers to discuss its core theme ‘Media Interactions and Environments.’

My paper, ‘Peace on Facebook? Problematising social media as spaces for intergroup contact in divided societies’, critically evaluated the cyber optimist notion that ICTs might facilitate more associative models of peacebuilding in contemporary societies. Using examples such as Peace on Facebook, I argued that the corporate logic of social media has significant implications for efforts to foster positive intergroup contact in deeply-divided societies. Online platforms are not benign actors and they turbocharge mis-and disinformation that contributes to sectarian violence in countries such as India and Northern Ireland.  The slides can be found below:

 

Presenting two papers at MeCCSA 2018

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This week I will be presenting two papers at the MeCCSA conference , which will be held at London South Bank University (10-12 January). The first one builds on my research on social media and contentious politics in Northern Ireland, with the second based on data collected as part of the Horizon 2020 project IMPROVER.

The programme for the conference can be found here and the abstracts of my two talks can be found below:

1)Reilly, P. Loyalists against Democracy: Assessing the role of social media parody accounts in contentious Northern Irish politics

Abstract:

Parody accounts on social media have emerged as one of the key focal points for the debate of contentious political issues in Northern Ireland over the past five years. Some commentators have praised these accounts for providing a voice for the ‘silent majority,’ while others have condemned what they view as their crude stereotyping of working-class loyalist communities. Yet, there remains little empirical research exploring the contribution of these accounts to political discourses. This paper sets out to address this issue by exploring the social media presence of the most prominent parody group, Loyalists Against Democracy (or LADFLEG). A thematic analysis of posts taken from its Facebook (N=35,721) and Twitter accounts (N=3,587) was conducted between December 2012 and October 2013. This covered contentious episodes such as the protests and rioting prompted by the decision to alter the protocol on the flying of the union flag over Belfast City Hall and the campaign to sack Health Minister Edwin Poots due to his refusal to overturn the ban on blood donation from gay and bisexual men. Results suggest LADFLEG used social media for a variety of purposes, ranging from the shaming of loyalists for posting offensive hate speech online to holding elected representatives to account. By October 2013 the group was playing a prominent role in factchecking politicians such as Poots and increasing the response rate for the petition to remove him from office. In this respect, LADFLEG had evolved from being an observer of contentious politics into a more active participant.

2)Reilly, P., Serafinelli, E., Petersen, L., Fallou, L. & Havarneanu, G. Terrorism, Twitter and Vernacular Creativity: #PorteOuverte and the November 2015 Paris Terror Attacks

Abstract:

Twitter has emerged as a key platform for citizens during terrorist attacks, not only as a
source of information but also as an outlet for providing support for victims. Citizen
responses to such incidents on the microblogging site often demonstrate what Burgess
(2008) refers to as ‘vernacular creativity’, with hashtags and memes used to express
solidarity with those directly affected. This paper explores one such incident, namely the
terror attacks by ISIS militants in Paris on 13 November 2015, which resulted in 130 fatalities and left several hundred wounded. The saturation of mobile phone networks left many citizens stranded and unable to tell their families and loved ones that they were safe. It was in this context that journalists such as Sylvain Lapoix urged citizens to use the hashtag#PorteOuverte if they were looking for shelter or able to offer refuge to others. This study explores the efficacy of this initiative by presenting a review of the literature on social media and disaster response, an overview of the role of Twitter during the Paris attacks, and a thematic analysis of eight interviews conducted with key stakeholders who were actively involved in the response to the atrocities. Results indicate that professional journalists played a key role in raising public awareness of #PorteOuverte and connecting people affected by the terror attacks. While the site may encourage vernacular creativity amongst citizens, the participation of public figures in these campaigns appears essential if they are to bring support to those directly affected by crises.