Miss Ivy Parker
(she/her)

Research student

I am a full-time PhD student researching how the emotions and affect of mediated discourses on transgender issues have changed since 2016. My studies are supported by the Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences.

Media coverage of transgender communities has been my area of interest since I started my undergraduate degree in 2018. In 2021, my work championing transgender equality led to the Solent brand of the National Union of Journalists awarding me the Bob Norris Certificate of Achievement.

Thesis

Working thesis title: How the emotions and affect in right-wing mediated UK discourses on transgender topics have changed over the Brexit era.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore and explain how transgender equality went from being a fringe issue of little interest to mainstream politics to an emotionally charged front in an ongoing culture war. Through this research, I hope to show how media coverage uses emotionality to demonise minority groups and create moral panics in the modern, social media-enhanced context.