Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Current Research

Journalism Safety

With Amy Luther (PhD); Professor Richard Tait; Dr Cynthia Carter

An ongoing project at JOMEC, in collaboration with the International News Safety Institute (INSI), looking at the deaths of media workers over the past ten years. This work considers all media workers, journalists and also support staff, and has built a database of reports of deaths, including details of the circumstances, and the perpetrators and any legal outcomes as a result of their identification. In March 2007 this data contributed significantly to the global inquiry launched by Rodney Pinder of INSI and Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC’s Global News division.

View details of the final report for the inquiry, Killing the Messenger

Recent Research

Media Coverage of the 2003 Iraq War

With Professor Terry Threadgold; Professor Justin Lewis; Dr Rod Brookes

A BBC funded research project investigating the role of embedded reporters (those travelling with Coalition troops) on the UK television coverage of the war. This project involved a large-scale audience survey, focus groups with members of the public (including British Muslims), content analysis of UK television news coverage of the three weeks of official combat operations, and interviews with news chiefs, editors and journalists from UK news organisations, as well as with military media operations personnel at both the Ministry of Defence and at the Pentagon.

Outcomes

• Brookes, R., Lewis, J., Threadgold, T. and Mosdell, N. (2004) Too Close for Comfort? The Role of Embedded Reporting in the 2003 Iraq War: Summary Report, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies. ISBN 0-9540884-1-7
• Threadgold, T. and Mosdell, N. (2004) Embedded Reporting in War and Peace, Defence Management Journal, 25 (1) 12 – 15. ISSN 1464-2646
• Lewis, J., Brookes, R., Mosdell, N. and Threadgold, T, (2006) Shoot First, Ask Questions Later: Media Coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. Peter Lang, North America. ISBN 0-8204-7418-5

Asylum and Refugees

With Professor Terry Threadgold

A content analysis of three months of UK television coverage concerning the closure of the Red Cross camp at Sangatte, near Calais in France, in 2003. This contributed to several seminars held by the Global Campaign for Free Expression – Article 19 – and the full report, What’s The Story? Results from research into the media coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

The report can be viewed at What's the story?

 

Children and Television

With Professor Máire Messenger Davies

A study funded by the Broadcasting Standards Commission (now Ofcom) that considered the role of children in non-fictional television programmes on UK television, using extended quasi-focus groups with families to explore issues of consent to participate and the regulatory framework in which children participate in television shows.

Findings were presented at various international conferences and UK forums and the final report can be viewed at Consenting Children

Outcomes

• Messenger Davies, M. and Mosdell, N. (2001) Consenting Children? The Use of Children in Non-Fiction Television Programmes  Broadcasting Standards Commission, London. ISBN 1-872521-46-0
• Messenger Davies, M. and Mosdell, N. (2004) The Representation of Childhood in the Media: Aspects of Agency and Literacy, in The Politics of Childhood, (Editors Goddard, J., McNamee, S., James, A. and James, A.), Palgrave MacMillan, Basingstoke, 208 – 225. ISBN 1-4039-3551-3