Dr Sophie Knowles is a Senior Lecturer in Journalism, and Programme Leader on the MSc Digital Journalism, and Director for Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Media Department.
She has previously held research and teaching posts at: Murdoch University, Australia; City University, London; and the University of Cambridge.
She is author of Mediating Financial Crises: Watchdogs, Lapdogs or Canaries in the Coalmine? (Peter Lang 2020), co-editor of the multidisciplinary book volumes Media and Austerity (Routledge 2018) and Media and Inequality (Routledge Forthcoming 2022). Her latest book, under contract, focuses on the mediation of the economy through a feminist lens.
Sophie teaches a number of different modules, including:
She focuses on bridging theory and practice and experiential learning is a core concept in her pedagogy.
She established the Journalism Conversation Series, which allow students to apply theory and encourages students to learn through practice and critical reflection. This Series has welcomed guests such as BBC's Laura Kuenssberg and Huw Edwards, Ch 4's Jon Snow, and Nobel Prize Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
See Orcid page here.
Sophie's research focuses on the way political economy is being shaped and represented by media and understood by the general public, particularly during crises.
Her publication "The Reporting of the GFC and the Declining Quality in Mainstream Financial Journalism: A Longitudinal Tri-Nation Study" was nominated for best paper at the ICA.
Her book, Mediating Financial Crisis: Watchdogs, Lapdogs or Canaries in the Coalmine? explores the role of journalists in mediating finance and the economy during times of crisis.
She also explores the implications of gender in the newsroom and in news content, and the ways inequality is being represented by the media.
In 2019 Sophie was a ZeMKI reseearch fellow at the University of Bremen, Germany.
