School of Communications - Research

Postgraduate Research Students

Name: Claire English
email: claire.english3@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisor: Dr. Barbara O’Connor

Project Title: The role of media in Irish citizenship practices: A study into the use of online social media among 18 to 30 year olds

Summary of Research Topic:
The objective of this research is to gain an insight into the everyday use of online social media in Ireland, examining how 18 to 30 year olds utilise these sites to engage in practices of citizenship. Online social media have come into sharp focus within debates surrounding public engagement and citizenship as possible elixirs to the perceived democratic deficit in contemporary society.
Drawing on research carried out in the field of Audience Studies this work will examine how online social media are enmeshed into the overall media consumption practices of this group, providing an analysis of the use of these sites in the lives of this group of citizens.

Name: Gloria Macri
email: gloria.macri2@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisor: Dr. Barbara O’Connor

Project Title: Romanians in Ireland and their online diasporic identities

Summary of Research Topic:
My PhD thesis focuses on the study of migration, media and identity. Focusing on identity as a dynamic process, this research investigates the way members of the Romanian community in Ireland narrate and perform their diasporic identities.
Media are often attributed key roles in shaping, maintaining, reflecting and performing identities. This study places an emphasis on the role of media (as an integral part of the public sphere) in the process of identity construction. I have focused my attention on the online discussion Forum of the Romanian Community (Ireland).
This ethnographic study highlights the emergence of multiple and competing identity discourses online. Interesting findings emerge in relation to the many aspects of the "Us" vs. "Them" dichotomy, as Romanians in Ireland build their identification narratives in relation to being European, or Irish, diasporic etc. This project is funded by the Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Name: Jeneen Naji
Email: jeneen.naji2@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisor: Dr. Bill Dorris

Project Title: Do Humans Dream of Electric Poetry
Poetry in the Electronic Age

Summary of Research Topic:
This research considers the recent development both in relation to poetry and to eMedia: The Translation of Poetry into ePoetry. To consider what has traditionally constituted poetry and ask the questions: How has such poetry traditionally been translated between various languages? What are the characteristics of the new language and technologies of eMedia, into which traditional poetry is now being translated? What are the characteristics of the poetry, which is now being written in this language, i.e. ePoetry? And what impact have the eMedia had on poetry and translation itself?

Name: Barbara Pięta
email: barbara.pieta2@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisor: Dr. Barbara O’Connor

Project Title: Representing Women: Discourses, Images,
and Realities in Irish Political Life

Summary of Research Topic:
This research is a part of an interdisciplinary project entitled Representing Women: Discourses, Images, and Realities in Irish Political Life, which sets out to investigate the factors contributing to the atypically low number of women in Dáil Éireann. The PhD in question aims to approach this topic from the media studies perspective. The main research objective is to examine the extent and nature of media coverage of women in Irish politics at local and national level with a view to establishing
(a) the key frames used for representing women in politics;
(b) whether, and to what extent, media coverage reflects political representation and;
(c) whether women are portrayed in the same or different way then men;
(d) the extent and nature of gender stereotyping in the representations.
A dual methodological approach is planned for the work package on media representations. A purposive sample of press and television representations will be selected and studied by means of
(a) quantitative content analysis techniques and
(b) qualitative techniques in the form of critical discourse analysis, as well a semiotic analysis of the visual images in both press and TV coverage.
Barbara is currently involved in the Representing Women Project

Name: Fergal Quinn
email: fergal.quinn6@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisors: Steven Knowlton and Paschal Preston

Project Title: Models of media encouragement in the developing world:
How Cambodia offers an example and a warning

Summary of Research Topic:
The 2008 national elections in Cambodia offered a fourth chance to assess the progress of the international community’s rebuilding project that has been engaged in the country since the disastrous Khmer Rouge regime.
Chief among the findings of numerous international observers was that the media had failed to keep the electorate fully informed in a balanced and fair manner in the pre-election period.
My study explores how and why this could happen in a country in which the most modern thinking on media development theory has been in full effect for the past 20 years.

Name: Henry Silke
Email: henry.silke2@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisors: Farrel Corcoran

Project Title: Media and Political Power: the Role of the Independent News and Media Group in Representing Economic Crisis and Social Conflict in Ireland: 2008-2011.

Summary of Research Topic:
This project is concerned with the structure, content and political role of the Irish press during the current economic crisis. To do so the research will fuse the methodology of political economy (Castells 2009, Chakravartty and Schiller 2010, Fuchs 2009, Garnham 2004, McChesney 2007, Mosco 2009, Curran 2002) with that of critical content and discourse analysis (Fowler 1991, Garnham 2000, Hartley 1982, Philo 2007, Fairclough 2007, Richardson 2007). From political economy the project draws on theories of political structure, economic structure, power, ideology, and hegemony (Arrighi 2005, Wallerstein 1974a, Foucault 2000, Held 1989, Marx 2010, Miliband 1969, Lukes 1974, Althusser 1971, Eagleton 1991, Gramsci 1971/2003, Hall 1986). The study will develop a method of contextual discourse analysis drawing from Glasgow Media Group and Critical Discourse Analysis scholars. To explore the relationship between structure and content the study will perform a case study of the content of the Independent News and Media group. Independent News and Media is the dominant print media group in Ireland, its major shareholder Tony O’Reilly has extensive business interests, it is alleged by some that O’Reilly has used his media empire to leverage the state in favour of his interests, specifically in the granting of communication and hydrocarbon exploration licences (Connolly 2006, Cooper 2009).

Name: Melanie Stilz
email: melanie.stilz2@mail.dcu.ie

Supervisors: Paschal Preston and Barbara O’Connor

Project Title: ICTs in Afghan Higher Education&


Summary of Research Topic:
I concentrate in my research on the process of negotiating ICT projects in Afghan higher education.
When working in Kabul, Herat and Mazaar-e Sharif between 2007 - today I had the chance to talk to different actors involved in this process, ranging from members of the World Bank, university presidents, administrative personnel of universities, representatives of the Ministry of Higher Education and most of all young professionals and students. The very different (technological) backgrounds and expectations of members of each of these groups, but also the differences in how decisions are made and how work is planned and conducted is what interests me most.