Dr Lara Herring
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Current positions
Lecturer in Media Production
Biography
Dr Lara Herring is a Lecturer in Media and Performance in the School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies at the University of Salford, UK. She holds a PhD in Media and Communication from Edge Hill University and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Before entering academia, she worked as a videographer and video editor, experience that continues to inform her teaching and research in film and television production.
Lara’s research explores the intersections of media industries, global film production, and activism, with particular expertise in the relationship between Hollywood and China. Her work bridges macro-level studies of industrial systems with micro-level production analysis, examining how technological, political, and cultural shifts shape screen industries and their creative practices. Her research interests include film and television production, Sino–U.S. cinematic relations, adaptation studies, and critical animal studies.
Her recent scholarship examines transnational cinema and global industry dynamics, including studies of Christopher Nolan’s reception in the Chinese market and the global interdependence between Hollywood and China in the twenty-first century. Her interest in ethics and activism in screen cultures is reflected in work analysing the media response to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar speech on animal rights and in her co-edited volume Animal Activism On and Off Screen (Sydney University Press, 2024), which investigates how activism and animal advocacy are represented across media.
Lara’s forthcoming monograph, 21st Century Hollywood: Industry, Style and Ideology in the Post-postclassical Era, identifies and defines a new era in Hollywood history. The book explores how digital technology, streaming platforms, globalisation, and socio-political movements such as #MeToo and #OscarsSoWhite have reshaped Hollywood’s industrial structures, visual style, and ideological frameworks. By analysing case studies ranging from Avatar and the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Netflix and Amazon’s rise and the impact of COVID-19, the book offers a groundbreaking framework for understanding the transformations of contemporary Hollywood.
Dr Herring’s scholarship is distinguished by its ability to connect the creative, industrial, and ideological dimensions of contemporary screen culture. Her conceptualisation of the “post-postclassical” era marks an original contribution to film studies, providing a new theoretical and historical lens for understanding twenty-first-century Hollywood. Through her integration of film analysis, industry research, and cultural critique, she brings together empirical evidence and theoretical insight to reveal how global media industries reflect and shape the ethical, political, and technological conditions of modern life. Her work offers both scholars and practitioners a critical framework for understanding how cinema evolves in response to the digital age, globalisation, and cultural change.
Areas of Research
Lara Herring’s research bridges macro-level analyses of the film industry with micro-level investigations of production practices. Her scholarly interests span a wide range of interconnected fields, including film and media industry studies, Sino–U.S. cinematic relations, film and television production, textual analysis, critical animal studies, and adaptation studies. She has published on the evolving relationship between Hollywood and China, as well as on the reception of Christopher Nolan’s films within the Chinese market. Additionally, her work examines media responses to awards-speech activism—most notably the public and critical reactions to Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar speech on animal rights. She is also the co-editor of Animal Activism On and Off Screen, a collection exploring the intersections of media, activism, and representations of animals.
Areas of Supervision
Relationship between China and Hollywood.
Film industry analysis.
Production studies.
- Production Workshop
- Directing and Producing
- Production Skills
- Video Project
- Video Drama Project
- Literature, Adaptation and the Screen
- Performance in Context
- Documentary to Mockumentary
- Practice Research Project