PhD Film, screen and popular culture

The University of Brighton has a research culture in film and screen studies that has fostered national archives and given critical insight across practice, theory and history. It supports PhD research projects across many aspects of film, screen and popular culture.

Our approach incorporates text (in the widest sense), technology, industry and audience. Academic specialisms incorporate the study of early cinema, British television history, convergence culture, screen culture, digital media, political activism and identity politics.

Recent, successful Film, screen and popular culture PhD projects have covered a range of areas, including the relationships between food and heritage culture, structures in Hollywood scriptwriting, convergence across transnational children’s franchises, urban architecture and science-fiction cinema, documentary filmmaking and autobiography, and LGBTQ online cultures.

Based in the university's School of Media, multidisciplinary researchers interrogate contemporary developments in media cultures, drawing on critical approaches to literature, theatre, popular spectacle, photography, sociology and the public sphere.

Our PhD students have gone on to a variety of different roles following the successful completion of their research. These include academic posts as lecturers and postdoctoral research assistants at Brighton and elsewhere. Others have returned into media from taking their PhD mid-career - studying in either part and full-time modes - or have begun careers in the creative industries, for example in script consultancy for major film producers or in advertising.