Maxwell Modell

(he/him)

Overview

My research focuses on the interplay between journalism and politics, with a specific focus on the way news media is reimagining itself in response to digital technologies and narratives of declining trust in journalism.

I am a Research Associate working on the AHRC-funded project ‘Enhancing the Impartiality of Political News’ led by Professor Stephen Cushion and Dr Matt Walsh. The project critically assesses how different broadcasters implement impartiality and how audiences perceive impartiality. It examines the production, content and reception of broadcast, online and social media in the UK and internationally. The aim is to provide new empirical evidence to inform professional and public discussions about enhancing the impartiality of political news.

My PhD project ‘Reinventing the News? The Discourse of UK News Podcasts’, examined the rise of news podcasts in the UK and their role in reimagining journalism, focusing on evolving norms of news presentation and how they are discursively legitimated. The project was motivated by a desire to understand how legacy and digital-native news producers are using podcasts as a medium to repackage broadcast practices for a rapidly changing digital media landscape and as a way to better engage audiences.

My research has been published in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, the edited collection Pandering to Populism, and The Conversation.