MIC Lunchtime Talk: Nadia Haq, Cardiff University

Challenging Systemic Media Inequalities in the UK: Contesting Islamophobia and Racism in Mainstream News Journalism

About the Talk

MIC Visiting Scholar and Research Fellow at Cardiff University Dr. Nadia Haq will discuss how Islamophobia and racism are systematically embedded in British news journalism. Her research further addresses how media professionals and communities act to challenge these long-standing systemic biases through different forms of activism including digital activism.

Lunch is first come, first served at 12:00pm

About the Speaker

Nadia Haq is a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow. Her multi-method, interdisciplinary research investigates how British media audiences hold the media to account for discriminatory and divisive coverage against marginalized, minority communities through digital activism. This work fills a critical void in audience studies by exploring the motivations and methods of everyday individuals challenging influential media institutions that shape their socio-political realities in today's digital era of disinformation and polarization.   

Before this, her doctoral research examined the enduring reproduction of negative Muslim representations in British press coverage and how spaces for challenging these representations were made possible. She is the author of the upcoming monograph based on this research entitled ‘Media Bias and Muslims in Britain’ and is presently designing an online toolkit for both local journalists and Muslim communities with practical advice for navigating the complexities of reporting on stories involving Muslims and Islam within the local context.

Nadia’s research interests meet at the intersection between sociology and media studies, including journalism and audience studies, race, ethnicity and religion, social movements, ideology, political and social contestation and social research methods. Her next project will explore wider questions about the contestation of belonging, identity and citizenship across digital media.

Before joining academia, she worked as an international business journalist based in the Middle East for nearly a decade and has held senior positions in the fields of political communications and equality policy.