Martin Conboy

tel: (+44)0114 2222505

Martin joined the Department in March 2005. He is Professor of Journalism History.

He read French and English at Durham University and received his MA and PhD from the Institute of Education, University of London.

He lectured in the Institute for English and American Studies at the University of Potsdam, Germany for five years before moving back to Britain to develop critical linguistic and historical approaches to Journalism Studies.

He has acted as external examiner and validator for journalism degrees at eight British universities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, has contributed to the work of the British Council abroad and is an active member of the Association for Journalism Education.

His research interests include historical aspects of journalism, national identity and the media, popular journalism and critical approaches to the language of journalism.

Widely published in refereed journals and edited volumes, he is also the author of six single-authored books: The Press and Popular Culture (2002), Journalism: A Critical History (2004) Tabloid Britain: Constructing a Community Through Language (2006) The Language of the News (2007) The Language of Newspapers: Socio-historical Perspectives (2010) and Journalism in Britain: A Historical Introduction (2011).

He is the co-editor of a series of books entitled Journalism Studies: Key Texts.

Starting in September 2010 he is the Principal Investigator on the £38,000 AHRC-funded research project `Exploring the language of the popular in Anglo-American newspapers 1833-1988´. With Dr Adrian Bingham of the History Department he shares responsibility for the Centre for the Study of Journalism and History at the University of Sheffield.

He is a member of the international editorial boards of the three main journals in the field: Journalism Studies; Media History; Journalism: Theory Practice and Criticism. In addition, is a regular contributor to broadcast debates on popular culture and tabloid journalism.

He was recently invited to deliver the keynote address at the 6th Biennial Conference `Australian Media Traditions´ University of Sydney 23-25 November 2009 and a keynote lecture at `Celebrity news: an oxymoron?´ University of Geneva 16-17 September 2010.

Teaching

Teaching at university, of course, depends upon a direct relationship with the research undertaken by academics. Martin Conboy is keen to stress the links between his teaching and his widely published research.

He is Professor of Journalism History but his teaching and his research are more extensive than his title might imply. Unusually for a professor, he is a qualified teacher (PGCE) and worked for over ten years in comprehensive schools in south London before developing a career as an academic. He even received an award for an aspect of his performance in one particular school but modesty prevents him revealing what precisely. Suffice to say he still has the certificate and is happy to reveal further details on request.

He qualified to teach English as a Foreign Language and has taught this both at home and in Germany and Sudan. All his teaching emerges from his published work on the news media especially his interests in national identity, language and tabloid and celebrity culture.

He is fully engaged with teaching and assessment on a national level having been external examiner on journalism courses at five universities in England, Scotland and Wales.

In addition he is an active member of the Association of Journalism education and has served on its committee. He currently teaches two large first year modules and a second year option all of which are popular with students in Journalism Studies as well with students from a wide variety of other subject areas at the university.

He is also very involved in the teaching and supervision of postgraduate research students in Journalism Studies.