Greyscale image of Andrew Branch

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 
Greyscale image of Andrew Branch

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

MA Media and Communication Industries

Explore media and marketing communications industries from political-economic aspects to the creation of media practitioners and users.

Find out more about this course

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

Research repository