Research

In line with The Open University’s strong focus on public engagement, our film and media research community take trailblazing new approaches to equity, diversity, social justice, media participation and production across the creative industries. Our team advises internationally via industry collaborations, policymaking, film festivals and broadcast media. Our researchers are skilled in documentary filmmaking, archives, curation, participatory and practice-based methods, broadcast media and journalism.

The School’s portfolio of ‘integrated practice’ – combining traditional text-based scholarship with innovative practice-based research – sets new agendas for creative research as a holistic practice. Under the umbrella of OpenARC, our Film and Media Research Group brings together diverse researchers across the institution with specialisms in film and media, from screenwriters to economists, musicologists and filmmakers. Our research is funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, Research England, Clore Leadership, and private foundations. We are filmmakers, curators, writers and journalists, with wide agendas for impact and public engagement.

Our research team

Person seated at a news desk in a studio with blue and wood-panelled background

Dan Twist: Television, Radio and Podcast Production, practice-based pedagogy and practice informed research, British television, American television, Multiplatform and Digital Content, Global Formats, media and cultural theory.

Book cover titled “The People We Watch” by Emily Coleman, featuring abstract colourful shapes

Emily Coleman: Cultural industries and creative labour; media participation and duty of care; documentary filmmaking and theory; cultural policy and production practices.

Book cover titled “Television and the Second Screen” by James Blake, showing two people watching TV while using a tablet

James Blake: Video-based and visual disinformation and its impact on the global broadcast news agenda. Social media and online harm; audience agency, immersion and interaction. Documentary film outputs around user participation.

Person in a suit holding a notepad and microphone, standing outdoors with a group of people and cars in the background

James Mahon: Mobile journalism, digital media, mobile film, podcasting, audience consumption trends, practice-based pedagogy and practice informed research, sports journalism.

Person taking photos with camera in nature

Kaya Davies Hayon: Gender, sexuality and ethnicity in contemporary Arab film and visual cultures; film-phenomenology; participatory filmmaking in the Global South; refugee filmmaking, transnational stardom.

Entrance to BFI Reuben Library with display screen

Mark Fryers: British film and television; horror and the gothic; media and cultural history; media representation of the maritime sphere; media, identity and representation; the blue humanities; youth, ageing and gender in popular culture; television studies; media and cultural theory; interdisciplinary studies; filmmaking and theory as practice and pedagogy.