Dr Scott Rodgers — Birkbeck, University of London

Overview

Biography

Scott Rodgers joined Birkbeck in 2010. His research specialises in the relationships of media and cities and the geographies of communication. Scott also has broad interests in media production practices, digital and networked technologies, urban politics and ethnographic methodologies.

His publications have appeared in journals such as Media, Culture and Society, Society and Space, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, City and Community, International Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Space and Culture and Journalism: Theory Practice and Criticism. With Tim Markham, he is co-editor of Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspectives on Media (Peter Lang, 2017).

Scott is currently Audio Editor for Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture, an experiment in 'small-gauge' online scholarship, and is Chair of the ECREA Media, Cities and Space Section.

Qualifications

PhD, King's College London, 2007
PGCE, Birkbeck, University of London, 2012
MSc, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2002
BAA, Toronto Metropolitan University, 1999

Web profiles

Administrative responsibilities

Programme Director, BA Digital Media and Culture / BA Digital Media and Creative Practice
Chair, College Programmes Committee
Co-Lead, BISR Urban Intersections Working Group

Professional activities

Audio Editor, Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture

Chair, ECREA Media, Cities and Space Section

Professional memberships

Fellow, Higher Education Academy

Honours and awards

Birkbeck Excellence in Teaching Award, Birkbeck, University of London, November 2016

ORCID

0000-0002-1544-8743

Research

Research overview

My research explores the politics of place in a mediated world. Currently I am focusing on the intersections of digital platforms, data and the making of contemporary locality and urbanism.

Some of my recent projects include:

Research on the relationships of social media, political participation and urban planning in East London
A study into the local politics of content moderation in neighbourhood Facebook groups across Greater London
UNECE/GSPI funded research on the local data cultures of urban housing policy and sustainability
An exploration of how location-based technologies and hyperlocal media interconnect with philanthropic localism in Britain
An early stage project exploring the aesthetics of urban redevelopment projects hosting digital media companies (focusing on King's Cross in London)
My in progress monograph, Journalistic Urbanity, which focuses on genealogies, infrastructures, architectures and lived spaces of journalism in and through the city

You can read more about my publications and research projects (and other things besides) at my personal website.

Research Centres and Institutes

Member, Birkbeck Media and Democracy Working Group
Member, Birkbeck Interdisciplinary Research in Media and Culture (BIRMaC)
Co-Lead, Birkbeck Urban Intersections Working Group
Member, Steering Committee, Vasari Research Centre

Supervision and teaching

Supervision

Enquiries are welcome for doctoral projects involving any combination of research on:

Relationships of media and cities
Geographies of media, communication and culture
Media production practices (e.g. journalism, creative industries) and their spatial environments
Social media, including both qualitative methods as well as mixed quali-quant approaches
Spatialities of software, code, data and platforms
Urban publicness, politics, participation and planning
The phenomenology of media, technology and communication
Ethnographic methodologies, especially those informed by theories of social practices, actor-network theory or phenomenology

I would be more than happy to discuss your ideas for doctoral research if they touch on the above areas, however please visit my Department's guidance for prospective MPhil/PhD students before you get in touch.

A list of my current and completed PhD students is available on my personal website.

Teaching

In recent years I have developed and delivered three main modules: Introduction to Digital Culture (Level 4, with Dr Robert Topinka), which offers an accessible introduction to key concepts such as interface, data, connection and labour; Media, Technology and Culture (Level 5), which takes a thematic look at the ambiguous relationships of media technology and media culture via historical and contemporary examples; and Media, Digitalisation and the City (Level 6/7), which encourages students to examine some comparatively unconventional forms of ‘media’ as they appear across urban spaces and city life.

I also currently convene my School's Level 6 module Industry Placement, which offers students a chance to develop their professional skills in the arts and cultural sectors.

In the past, I led the initial design of Doing Film, Media and Cultural Studies (Level 4), both an introduction to academic techniques as well as the interface between media theory and practice. For some years, I co-taught Theoretical Perspectives on Media with Prof Tim Markham, an interdisciplinary postgraduate module bringing together politics, sociology, geography and philosophy to think about how media is ‘lived’. I have also taught or contributed to undergraduate modules including Journalism in British Life, Media Analysis, Journalism and Politics, Globalisation and Media Cultures, Research Methods in Media Studies, and Thinking Through Digital Media, alongside postgraduate modules such as Understanding the City, Creative Industries: Theory and Context, Cultures of Globalisation; History, Theory, Methods, Teaching the Arts in Higher Education and Understanding the City. In 2011, Dr Sophie Hope, Dr Lorraine Lim and I co-organized a special postgraduate workshop series titled Doing Research Amongst Technologies: Multimedia, Mulitple Methods and Research Practice Today.

You can read more about my learning and teaching activities on my personal website.

Teaching modules

Industry Placement/Career Development Report (ARAR010S6)
ETCW Research Student Skills Sessions (AREN060Z8)
Introduction to Digital Culture (ARMC157S4)
Media, Technology and Culture (FFME017S5)
Urban Sustainability (SSGE126S7)

Publications

Article

Rodgers, Scott (2021) The duality of platforms as infrastructures for urban politics. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 18 (4), pp. 404-412. ISSN 1479-1420.
Rodgers, Scott and McLoughlin, Liam and Ballatore, Andrea and Moore, S. (2021) Localizing content moderation: approaching the orientational spaces of Facebook group admins and mods. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research 2021, ISSN 2162-3317.
Rodgers, Scott and Moore, Susan (2018) The horizons of platformed urban politics. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture 23 (4),
Rodgers, Scott and Moore, Susan (2018) Platform urbanism: An introduction. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture 23 (4),
Rodgers, Scott (2018) Digitizing localism: anticipating, assembling and animating a ‘space’ for UK hyperlocal media production. International Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (1), pp. 73-89. ISSN 1367-8779.
Rodgers, Scott (2017) Roots and fields: excursions through place, space and local in hyperlocal media. Media, Culture & Society 40 (6), pp. 856-887. ISSN 0163-4437.
Rodgers, Scott (2016) Doubly displacing media and the city. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture (5),
Rodgers, Scott (2016) Theorizing media after the urban revolution. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture (5),
Rodgers, Scott (2015) Foreign objects? Web content management systems, journalistic cultures and the ontology of software. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 16 (1), pp. 10-26. ISSN 1464-8849.
Rodgers, Scott and Barnett, C. and Cochrane, A. (2014) Media practices and urban politics: conceptualizing the powers of the media-urban nexus. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32 (6), pp. 1054-1070. ISSN 1472-3433.
Rodgers, Scott and Barnett, C. and Cochrane, A. (2014) Where is urban politics?. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38 (5), pp. 1551-1560. ISSN 1468-2427.
Rodgers, Scott (2014) The architectures of media power: editing, the newsroom, and urban public space. Space and Culture 17 (1), pp. 69-94. ISSN 1206-3312.
Rodgers, Scott (2013) Circulating cities of difference: assembling geographical imaginations of Toronto’s diversity in the newsroom. JOMEC Journal 1 (3), ISSN 2049-2340.
Rodgers, Scott (2013) The journalistic field and the city: some practical and organizational tales about the Toronto Star’s New Deal for Cities. City & Community 12 (1), pp. 56-77. ISSN 1540-6040.
Rodgers, Scott and Barnett, C. and Cochrane, A. (2009) Mediating urban politics. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33 (1), pp. 246-249. ISSN 1468-2427.
Rodgers, Scott and Barnett, C. and Cochrane, A. (2009) Re-engaging the intersections of media, politics and cities. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33 (1), pp. 231-232. ISSN 1468-2427.

Book

Markham, Tim and Rodgers, Scott, eds. (2017) Conditions of mediation: phenomenological perspectives on media. New York, U.S.: Peter Lang. ISBN 9781433134692.

Book Review

Rodgers, Scott (2006) 'The Imaginative Structure of the City'.

Book Section

Rodgers, Scott (2022) Visualizing locality now: objects, practices and environments of social media imagery around urban change. In: Rose, G. (ed.) Seeing the City Digitally: Processing Urban Space and Time. Cities and Cultures. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Amsterdam University Press. ISBN 9789463727037. (In Press)
Rodgers, Scott and Moore, S. (2021) #saveourcinema / On Our Way! / Hi, My Name is Charlotte / Solidarity and Samosas / I Will Delete You. In: Mörtenböck, P. and Mooshammer, H. (eds.) Platform Urbanism and Its Discontents. Rotterdam, Netherlands: nai010 Publishers. pp. 131-140. ISBN 9789462086159.
Rodgers, Scott and Moore, S. (2020) Platform phenomenologies: social media as experiential infrastructures of urban public life. In: Stehlin, J. and Hodson, M. and Kasmire, J. and Mcmeekin, A. and Ward, K. (eds.) Urban Platforms and the Future City: Transformations in Infrastructure, Governance, Knowledge and Everyday Life. London, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780367334185.
Rodgers, Scott and Moore, S. (2020) Researching urban life through social media. In: Ward, Kevin (ed.) Researching the City: A Guide for Students (Second Edition). London, UK: Sage. ISBN 9781529700954. (In Press)
Rodgers, Scott (2019) Urban growth machine (2nd Edition version). In: Kobayashi, A. (ed.) International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd Edition. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. ISBN 9780081022955. (In Press)
Rodgers, Scott (2019) Journalism: an urban affair. In: Krajina, Z. and Stevenson, D. (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Urban Media and Communication. London, UK: Routledge. pp. 66-75. ISBN 9780415792554.
Morgan Parmett, H. and Rodgers, Scott (2017) Space, place and circulation: Three conceptual lenses into the spatialities of media production practices. In: Fast, K. and Jansson, A. and Ryan Bengtsson, L. and Tesfahuney, M. (eds.) Geomedia Studies: Spaces and mobilities in mediatised worlds. Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9781138221529.
Markham, Tim and Rodgers, Scott (2017) Theorizing media phenomenologically. In: Markham, Tim and Rodgers, Scott (eds.) Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspectives On Media. New York, U.S.: Peter Lang. pp. 1-18. ISBN 9781433137297.
McKim, Joel (2016) Structures of experience: media, phenomenology, architecture. In: Rodgers, Scott and Markham, Tim (eds.) Conditions of Mediation. Peter Lang. pp. 149-159. ISBN 9781433137297.
Rodgers, Scott (2010) Digitising and visualising: old media, new media and the pursuit of emerging urban publics. In: Mahony, N. and Newman, J. and Barnett, C. (eds.) Rethinking The Public: Innovations In Research, Theory and Politics. Bristol, UK: Policy Press. pp. 43-59. ISBN 9781847424167.
Rodgers, Scott (2009) Urban growth machine. In: Kitchin, R. and Thrift, N. (eds.) The International Encylopedia of Human Geography. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier. pp. 40-45. ISBN 9780080449111.

Conference Item

Havemann, Leo and Charles, Elizabeth and Sherman, S. and Rodgers, Scott and Barros, Joana (2018) From under the radar to under review: digital learning in a ‘face-to-face university’. ALT-C 2018: 25th Annual Conference, 2018, Manchester, UK
Rodgers, Scott (2008) Media change, urban publics and urban politics. Mediapolis: Media Practices and the Political Spaces of Cities, 2008, Milton Keynes, UK
Rodgers, Scott and Barnett, C. and Cochrane, A. (2008) Mediapolis: an introduction. Mediapolis: Media Practices and the Political Spaces of Cities, 2008, Milton Keynes, UK
Rodgers, Scott (2006) Newspaper journalism and the changing publics of multimedia cities. Cities and Media: Cultural Perspectives On Urban Identities In A Mediatized World, 2006, Vadstena, Sweden
Havemann, Leo and Charles, Elizabeth and Sherman, S. and Rodgers, Scott and Barros, Joana A multitude of modes: considering ‘blended learning’ in context. CDE RIDE conference 2019, London, UK

Editorial

Morgan Parmett, H. and Rodgers, Scott (2018) Re-locating media production. International Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (1), pp. 3-11. Sage. ISSN 1367-8779.
Rodgers, Scott (2016) The urban as emergent key concept for media theory: an Introduction. Mediapolis: A Journal of Cities and Culture (5),

Other

Tarantino, M. and Lokot, T. and Moore, S. and Rodgers, Scott and Tosoni, S. (2019) Urban data cultures in post-socialist countries: challenges for evidence-based policy towards housing sustainability. Geneva, Switzerland: University of Geneva.

Business and community

Media

I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:

Social media, politics and participation
Journalism and news media
Urban life, culture and politics
Social, political and cultural issues related to digital technologies

Outreach

Host, Mediapolis Now podcast series

Host of Media, Technology and Culture and The Mediated City podcast series, both available on the Publicly Sited podcast channel.

Interview with Alexander Gutzmer on ‘Media houses’ for Baumeister: Das Architektur-Magazin, March 2020 German Print Version | English Preprint Version

Co-host, Data Materiality podcast series

Platform KX: A tour of the new King’s Cross: Walking tour of media/platform-related sites and phenomena in King’s Cross cultural quarter

The Mediated City: A tour of Media and Mediation in West End London Public tour of media-related sites and phenomena in collaboration with Dr Joel McKim