Andrew Robert Branch
Senior Lecturer in Media Communications
Senior Lecturer
Media and Communication
Department of Media, Fashion & Communications , 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.
TEACHING
Publications
The last four years of publications can be viewed below.
Full publications list
Visit the research repository to view a full list of publications
- Suburban breakout: Nomadic reverie in British pop in: Stahl, G. and Percival, J. M. (ed.) The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place. UK: Bloomsbury Academic, pp.257-270
- Global Glam and Popular Music: Style and Spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s. Edited by Ian Chapman and Henry Johnson. London: Routledge, 2016. 300pp. ISBN 978-1-138-82176-7 (Review) Popular Music. 37 (2), pp. 299-302. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0261143018000107
- Space Invaders and the Value of Art Conway Actants. Leeds: Conway Hall, pp.18-19