Dr Abi Rhodes

• PhD Critical Theory and Cultural Studies, University of Nottingham
• MA Critical Theory and Politics, University of Nottingham
• BA English and Philosophy, University of Keele

I am currently an Assistant Professor co-producing and delivering on the Digital Media and Communications Program for which I am also the Admissions and Recruitment Lead. 

Prior to becoming an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham I was an ESRC funded postdoctoral Impact and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Nottingham, where I also completed my Midlands4Cities/AHRC funded PhD and an MA in Critical Theory and Politics.  

Since 2017, I have taught on multiple undergraduate and postgraduate modules in areas such as media (digital, legacy, social), communication and cultural studies, and critical theory.

From 2020-22, I was also a project coordinator with the human rights education Journey to Justice, co-creating and delivering a major national resource and education programme on economic justice. I started my working life as a publishing executive with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, where I am still a member of the Board.

Alongside colleagues in the School, I am teaching on the Digital Media and Communications UG programme. I am responsible for convening core first and second year modules: Researching Digital Cultures, Media History and Technologies modules and Global Media. I have also produced a third year module, Movements Media and Society.

I also provide dissertation support to Undergraduates and Postgraduates across the department.

I am a Fellow of the HEA and hold a PGCHE with distinction.

I specialise in social movement communication and grassroots storytelling. My main areas of research are the political and social role of digital, new and legacy media and content and discourse analysis in the digital environment. My new study analyses the communicative tactics of the environmental movement during the 2024 election in the UK. It aims to focus on pro- and anti-climate groups and influencers on TikTok to gauge the ecology of grassroots environmental electoral communication in this digital sphere.

During 2022, I was the PI on an ESRC funded postdoctoral Impact and Knowledge Exchange Fellow at the University of Nottingham. My project considered the role of storytelling for economic justice and continued my relationship with the human rights education charity Journey to Justice.

My doctoral research, funded by Midlands4Cities/AHRC, analysed the campaigning strategies, tactics and arguments around the National Health Service (NHS) that were employed by the social movement People’s Assembly Against Austerity and the manifestos of two main political parties during the 2015 and 2017 UK general elections.  Using NVivo and Critical and Political Discourse Analysis, I analysed the language of online and offline communication, including tweets, activist websites, podcasts, visual performances on the street and other social media video messaging. This research was expanded to include Extinction Rebellion and the 2019 general election in my monograph Social Movements in Elections (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).