Professor Jenny Kitzinger - BA (Cambridge), PhD (Glasgow)
Overview
Position:
Director of Research
Email:
KitzingerJ@cardiff.ac.ukTelephone: +44 (0)29 208 74571
Fax: N/A
Extension: 74571
Location: Room 0.55A, Bute Building
Research Interests
Jenny Kitzinger's work examines power struggles in media production processes and is particularly concerned with questions of media influence and audience reception. She has also written extensively about focus group research methods. Her empirical research focus on two main areas.
- Sexual violence. Jenny has examined the emergence of child sexual abuse as a public issue, the representation of social work intervention scandals, the discovery of 'false memory syndrome', responses to a feminist social awareness advertising campaign and the development of anti-violence initiatives in schools.
- Risk, science and health. Her work in this area includes studies on: the media’s role in the AIDS crisis; representations of cancer; media advocacy strategies; the portrayal of breast feeding; digital science TV; controversies about GM food; the reporting of ethical debates about human genetic research; risk and emerging technologies; the media framing of human cloning.
Teaching
BA Module:
- Researching Media Audiences
Previously taught modules include: 'Understanding Media Audiences', 'Risk and Health Reporting', 'Communication Research Methods', 'Feminist Theory and Media Studies'.
Other Roles
Director - 'Risk, Science, Health and Media Research Group'
Publications
Books
Human Cloning in the Media: from science fiction to science practice, Routledge (2008) (co-author).
Framing Abuse: media influence and public understandings of sexual violence against children’ , Pluto (2004).
'Mass Media and Power in Modern Britain', Oxford University Press (1997) (co-author).
'The Circuit of Mass Communication: media strategies, representation and audience reception in the AIDS crisis', Sage (1998) (co-author).
Developing Focus Group Research: politics, theory and practice, Sage (co-edited) (1999).
'Great Expectations’, Hochland & Hochland press (1998) (co-author)
Selected publications by theme
Jenny has published over a hundred chapters and articles, contributing to journals such as The European Journal of Communication, Media, Culture and Society, Feminism and Psychology and Sociology of Health and Illness.
Research
Research Grants
Jenny's recent grant funded awards explore the following areas:
- 'Media framing of risk' (A three year project examining emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, GM crops and cloning).
- 'The production, consumption and circuits of meanings around genomics' (ESRC, CESAGen, 3 years).
- 'Explanations in genetics: causality and accountability' (Wellcome Trust, Department of Medical Genetics / ENCAP, 3 years)
- 'Media coverage and audience reception of people with disfigurement or visible loss of function' (Healing Foundation, 2 years)
- 'An analysis of trends in the coverage of Science and Technology' (Office of Science and Technology, 1 year)
- 'Public Discourses, and discourses about 'publics', in stem cell research' (ESRC, 2 years)
- 'Representation of women scientists in the UK media' (UKRC, 1 year)
Postgraduate Students
PhD Supervision
Recent or current supervision includes theses on:
- audience responses to human genetic research debates,
- cultural discourses about breast feeding,
- the BSE crisis and the role of information management,
- the media’s role in the MMR vaccination crisis,
- the development of media policies on disability,
- news coverage of health inequalities and government health policies,
- the representation of social problems in soap opera,
- the use of creative writing by incest survivors,
- representations of rape and murder.
Biography
Professor of Media and Communications Research. Formerly Reader in Sociology at Brunel. Previously worked at the Glasgow Media Group and, before that, in Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University.