Research-informed Teaching

Research in the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre (CCM) isn't a private or elite activity undertaken only for and between ourselves, other academics, and PhD students. We strongly believe in the validity of research-informed teaching.

All undergraduates we teach on our degree modules regularly benefit from our research expertise, whether in a first-year lecture or a third-year dissertation or project tutorial. Here, some of us explain how our research informs our teaching.

Dr Ben Halligan

My research interests centre on the analysis of aesthetics from ideological perspectives—covering book chapters on Andrei Tarkovsky, Battlestar Galactica and New Hollywood, journal articles on Socialist Realism, Modernism and eroticism and the Sarajevo School of Documentaries, a critical biography of director Michael Reeves and a co-edited collection on legendary Manchester band The Fall. I draw on this on-going work for modules such as Film Analysis, British Contemporary Cinema, Performance Analysis, and Performance and Culture.

Dr Chris Lee

Media, Culture and Society: my regular experiences as a broadcaster for the BBC keeps me up-to-date about the protocols of broadcasting and the intricacies of commissioning, plus the physical and practical necessities of studio based production.

British Film Comedy: this module draws extensively on my research. I have contributed to many TV and radio programmes as an expert, and I run a website www.itsahotun.com dedicated to the Northern comedy producers The Mancunian Film Company. The site receives an average of a million hits a year and is an open resource for knowledge transfer as well as an on-line archive for researchers.

Dr Michael Goddard

My research into media histories and theory and more specifically the fields of media ecologies and media archaeologies directly informs my teaching, especially of Media Studies and Digital Culture modules. My work on European cinemas and film theory informs my Film Studies teaching of modules such as Critical Approaches to Film, Film and Theory, and Research Methods.

Professor George McKay

I teach a third-year module for Media, English, Sociology and other students called Alternative Media. In it we look at the history and theory of ways in which different lifestyles, social movements, and political identities have used or reformulated the media in order to express different or non-mainstream views. The case studies we look at range from the underground magazines of the 1960s counterculture to video activism in today’s Indymedia movement, from magazines published by the women’s movement to punk or football fanzines to ‘subvertisements’. I have written extensively over the years about radical cultures and alternative lifestyles, and try to bring some of that knowledge to the class room in ways that are engaging and informing. Sometimes there is nothing worse than someone boring on about a topic they know more than you about, and I really do try to avoid that!