Professor Peter Golding

Peter Golding is Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University.  From 1990-2006 he was the Head of the Department of Social Sciences, and from 2006-2009 was Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research). He is co-director of the university’s Communication Research Centre. He was a member of the national Research Assessment Exercise panel for the field in 1996 and 2001, and Chair of the communications, media and cultural studies sub-panel for 2008. He was Vice-Chair of the ESRC postgraduate Recognition Panel for sociology and media and cultural studies, and chair of the HEFCE Media Studies Advisory Committee. He is an editor of the European Journal of Communication, Hon. Chair of the European Sociological Association Media Research Network, and was Co-Chair of the European Science Foundation Programme 'Changing Media, Changing Europe'. He was founder Chair of the subject association for his field, the Standing Conference on Cultural, Communications and Media Studies from 1993-1999, since when he has been Hon. Sec. of its successor body. Professor Golding is on the Executive Committee of the Council of Heads of Sociology Departments.

Professor Golding has been a Visiting Professor at universities in Switzerland, New Zealand, Japan, and Brazil and has lectured and taught in over 20 countries. His research interests are in media sociology generally, journalism, media political economy, social inequality, international communications, new media, and media constructs of public and social policy. His books include The Mass Media;  Making The News;  Images of Welfare:  Press and Public Attitudes to Poverty; Excluding the Poor; Communicating Politics:  Mass Communications and the Political Process;  The Politics of the Urban Crisis;  Taxation and Representation:  The Media, Political Communication and the Poll Tax; The Political Economy of the Mass Media; Cultural Studies in Question; Beyond Cultural Imperialism, Researching Communications: a practical guide to methods in media and cultural analysis; European Culture and the Media; Unpacking Digital Divides (in press).