Professor James Stanyer

  • Director of the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC)
  • Professor of Communication and Media Analysis

James Stanyer gained a PhD in Government from the London School of Economics in 1999. His research and teaching interests lie primarily in the areas of national and transnational political communication.

James has taught at various universities. In 1997 he was appointed to a temporary lectureship in Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Cambridge University. He has also held visiting lectureships in the Department of Politics, Queen Mary, University of London, and at City University, London. After completing his ESRC funded PhD, he gained a lectureship the Centre for Mass Communication Research, University of Leicester, where he remained until he started at Loughborough in September 2005.

James has been both principal investigator and co-investigator on projects funded by the ESRC, the BBC Trust, the UK government and third sector organizations. He has served on the editorial boards of various journals, is a member of the Network of European Political Communication Scholars and a founder member of the COST Action IS1308, Populist Political Communication in Europe. He is also a member of the political communication sections of: the American Political Science Association, International Communication Association, The European Communication Research and Education Association, the Political Studies Association, and the Media.

James’ research interests lie in the field of political communication a multidisciplinary field that draws on the main social science disciplines.

He has authored 3 books, 40 journal articles and book chapters and co-edited two collections, one which has become a widely-adopted student text. His work is focused on documenting and explaining the changing nature of mediated political communication across advanced industrial democracies. He has examined:

  • News agenda formation and news coverage of politics in democratic societies. His work has focused on the struggles between journalists and politicians to control news agendas and focused on broader issues related to the development of political information environments and news output in different countries over time.
  • The personalisation of political communication in advanced industrial democracies. He has looked at the attention the personal lives of politicians receive in different countries across time and what this means for democratic political communication.
  • New technologies and the exercise of political voice. This research has documented, and sought to explain, the use of new communication technologies in politics and the emergence of a self-expressive political culture in the UK and other democracies.

His research is increasingly comparative in nature. With John Downey he has pioneered the use of fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis to aid explanation in small-N and medium-N comparative analysis in the field. He is currently examining the phenomenon of populist political communication across 28 European countries.

James teaches across a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules and supervises a number of PhD students. At the undergraduate level he is involved in teaching on the core modules of BSc Media and Communication, as well as providing options on global media, and political communication. At postgraduate level he teaches options on citizenship and communication and global communication. James is committed to excellence and innovation in teaching and is a fully accredited registered member of the Higher Education Academy.

James is interested in supervising PhDs that focus on a wide range of media and communication issues including: campaign communication; political participation and new communication technologies; transnational political movements and new communication technologies; personalisation of politics; impression and issue management; political public relations.

  • Mihelj, S. & Stanyer, J. (2018) Theorising Change and Communication: From Modernization to MediatizationMedia, Culture and Society, 40, 
  • de Vreese, C., Esser, F., Aalberg, T., Reinemann C., & Stanyer, J. (2018) Populism as an Expression of Political Communication Content and Style: A New Perspective. International Journal of Press Politics, 23, 4: 423-438.
  • van Aelst, P., Aalberg, T., Strömbäck, J.,  de Vreese, C., Esser, F., Hopmann, D N., van Aelst, P., Berganza, R., Hube, N. Legnante, G., Reinemann, C., Salgado, S., Sheafer, T. & Stanyer, J., (2017) Political Communication in a High–Choice Media Environment:  A Challenge for Democracy? Annals of the International Communication Association, 41 (1): 3–27
  • Stanyer, J. (2017) Explaining Outcomes in Digital Journalism Research. In Tong, J., & Lo, S H. (eds), Digital Technology and Journalism: An International Comparative Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave Stanyer, J. (2017) Explaining Outcomes in Digital Journalism Research. In Tong, J., & Lo, S H. (eds), Digital Technology and Journalism: An International Comparative Perspective. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
  • Deacon, D. Downey, J., Stanyer, J. & Wring, D. (2016) The Media Campaign: the Issues and Personalities Who Defined the Election. In Wring, D. et al.,(eds)Political Communication in Britain: Polling, Campaigning and the Media in the 2015 General Election. London: Springer.
  • Mihelj, S. & Stanyer, J. (2016) Taking Time Seriously? Theorizing and Explaining Change in Communication and Media Studies. Journal of Communication, 66 (2): 266-279.
  • Deacon, D. & Stanyer, J. (2015) Mediatization of or Mediatization and: A Response to Hepp et al., Media, Culture and Society, 37 (4): 655-657.
  • Deacon, D. & Stanyer, J. (2014) Mediatization: Key Concept or Conceptual Bandwagon? Media, Culture and Society, 36 (7): 1032-1044.