Andrew Branch

Senior Lecturer

Media and Communication

Department of Media , School Of Arts And Creative Industries

Programme Development and Enhancement Lead, Department of Media

Co-director Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG)

Course Leader MA Media and Communication Industries

Qualifications

PhD in Cultural Studies (bursary funded), University of East London, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2010. Thesis title: Social Mobility, Masculinity and Popular Music, Supervisors: Prof Mica Nava, Dr Jeremy Gilbert, Dr Tim Lawrence
MA Media and Communication, with distinction, Goldsmiths College, University of London, 2005
BA(Hons) Communication Studies, 1st class, Nottingham Polytechnic, CNAA, 1992

Areas Of Interest

Pierre Bourdieu’s relational sociology
communication industries/creative industries/media industries
popular music studies
social class and educational experience

OVERVIEW

My teaching and research are invested in making sense of the workings of the creative industries, held up as drivers of progressive social and economic change by successive governments intent on superintending them.

Drawing primarily on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, I’m interested in how workers in these industries negotiate the complex relations between commercial imperatives and creative practice. I situate this interest in the wider context of examining how subjectivities are formed, embodied, negotiated, and captured in media discourses.

This research informs my postgraduate teaching. I welcome enquiries from prospective doctoral research candidates.

RESEARCH AND IMPACT

The impact of this research is realised via the public-facing work I do as a member of the Cultural Engine Research Group (CERG), which I co-founded with Dr Tony Sampson (Reader in Digital Communications, Essex) and Giles Tofield (Cultural Engine).

CERG works with marginalised communities and groups, securing funding to study how specific sites of incubation frame social reproduction.

PUBLICATIONS

Suburban breakout: nomadic reverie in British pop
Branch, A. 2022. G. Stahl and M. Percival (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place, London: Bloomsbury. 257-270.
Space invaders and the value of art.
Branch, A. 2016. Conway Actants. Arts Council England/University of Leeds.
"It's where you come from that makes you who you are": suburban youth and social class
Branch, A. 2014. The Subcultures Network (ed.) Subcultures, Popular Music and Social Change, Cambridge Scholars.
'Stop flexing your roots, man': Reconversion strategies, consecrated heretics and the violence of UK first-wave punk
Branch, A. 2014. Punk and Post Punk, Intellect . 21-39.
All the young dudes: educational capital, masculinity and the uses of popular music
Branch, A. 2012. Popular Music, Cambridge University Press. 25-44.

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