Current research

Tim is a political sociologist whose recent work has focused on war reporting and issues of authority, authenticity and morality in journalism. His most recent book draws on interviews with war correspondents and the political phenomenology of Pierre Bourdieu to explore journalistic identity, experience and instinct. Ongoing research questions the democratising potential of new media practices, asks what audiences are doing when they participate in media, and assesses emerging discourses of journalism in the Middle East.

Tim previously worked on the Media Consumption and the Future of Public Connection research project at the London School of Economics. This research sought to challenge two commonly held assumptions: that we share an orientation to a public world, however defined, and that the media either supports or undermines this orientation. The project focussed on the phenomenological aspect of media consumption and people’s sense of connection or disconnection, investigating how public engagement or its absence is experienced in everyday life.