Dr Nadia Haq

Overview

I am a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow. 

My current multi-method, multidisciplinary research investigates how British media audiences in the guise of active publics hold the media to account for discriminatory and divisive coverage against marginalised, minority communities through digital activism. This work fills a critical void in audience studies by exploring the motivations and methods of everyday individuals challenging influential media institutions that shape their socio-political realities in today's digital era of disinformation and polarisation.  The research is interdisciplinary between the fields of journalism and public sociology to provide a ‘real-life’ investigation of the interplay between individual agency and power structures.  

Before this, my doctoral research sought to understand the enduring reproduction of negative Muslim representations in British press coverage and how spaces for challenging these representations were made possible. Using qualitative interviews with journalists, my thesis uncovered the contradictions journalists faced when powerfully embedded ideas about their own ideological role in an egalitarian, liberal society were confronted with the anti-Muslim bias in the press industry they worked for. I was awarded a prestigious ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship to publish this research, including my upcoming monograph ‘Systemic Media Bias and Muslims in Britain’ as part of the Routledge Research in Journalism series.

I am in the process of developing an online toolkit for local journalism—a resource designed to offer guidance and support for both local journalists and Muslim communities in navigating the complexities of reporting on stories involving Muslims and Islam within the local context.

I am an international visiting scholar at the Media Inequality & Change Center based in the Anneberg School for Communication (University of Pennslyvania). 

My research interests are interdisciplinary and take place at the intersection between sociology and media studies. My broader research interests include journalism (legacy and digital); audiences; media discourse; multiculturalism and citizenship; race, ethnicity and religion; social movements; ideology; political and social contestation; social research methods.

I am also interested in exploring wider questions about the contestation of belonging, identity and citizenship across both legacy and digital media.

I have worked as an international business journalist based in the Middle East for nearly a decade and also for several years in political communications and equality policy.