About Us About Us

Paul McDonald is Professor of Media Industries at King’s College London. Recent publications include editing The Routledge Companion to Media Industries (2022) and co-editing Digital Media Distribution: Portals, Platforms, Pipelines (2021). Beyond his personal research, he’s led a number of initiatives advancing the critical analysis of media industries, including establishing the Media Industries conferences (2018, 2024), co-editing the International Screen Industries (2000- ) book series from the British Film Institute, founding specialised media industries research networks within the Society for Cinema and Media Studies and the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies, and participating in the Editorial Collective for the journal Media Industries.

Sarah Atkinson is Professor of Screen Media at King's College London, Editor of Routledge Resources Online: Screen Studies and co-editor of Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. She is currently an AHRC Research, Development and Engagement Fellow (2023-2024). Sarah has published widely on the film, cinema and screen industries including extensive work into the Live Cinema and Immersive Experience industry. She has led numerous funded projects examining the impacts of emerging technologies on these domains. Sarah adopts practice-based methodologies through the creation of her own original works which include video essays, an interactive documentary, immersive experiences, and short films.

Orçun Can is a writer and lecturer in Digital Economy at King’s College London. His research focuses on narrative forms in television in the age of streaming and interactive television. He has developed a formal analytical tool, the STNA Model that allows to map out narrative structure in multiple episodes or seasons of television shows together. He is currently developing the MSc Digital Economies programme at KCL.

Virginia Crisp is Reader in Media Industries and Cultures, and Head of the Department of Culture, Media, and Creative Industries, at King's College London. She is the author of numerous publications about formal and informal media circulation. She is also the co-founder and director (with Gabriel Menotti) of the Besides the Screen Network (www.besidesthescreen.com) and the co-editor (also with Menotti) of Practices of Projection: Histories and Technologies (2020) and Besides the Screen: Moving Images Through Promotion, Distribution and Curation (2015).

Matthew Hilborn is Research Associate in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. His monograph, Film Comedy and Spain: Humour, Genre, and the Nation (2024), will shortly be published by Legenda (Oxford), as will his co-authored book on the history of visual representations of Ophelia, Misleading Ophelia: Transferrals from Literature, Painting, and Film, published by Cambridge Scholars (Newcastle-upon-Tyne). He is currently postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC project Screen Encounters with Britain: What Do Young Europeans Make of Britain and its Digital Screen Culture? (2022-24).

Nessa Keddo is a Senior Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. Her research explores the experiences of Black and racialised workers in the promotional industries, and more recently how algorithmic tools are manipulated by the sector for commercial gain. She is co-author of Race and Racism in the Cultural and Creative Industries (2024) and is co-investigator for the AHRC funded project Transforming the Gap: Inclusive Digital Arts and Humanities Research Skills. Dr Keddo has run several events bringing policy makers, academics and industry experts together to critically interrogate diversity practice across the creative industries.

Leung Wing-Fai is Reader in Cultural and Media Industries at King’s College London. Her research on East Asian film and media, gender and sexual identities, and cultural and creative labour has been published in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas and the Canadian Journal of Film Studies. Her monographs include Migration and Identity in British East and Southeast Asian Cinema (2023) and Multimedia Stardom in Hong Kong: Image, Performance and Identity (2014). Fai has co-edited East Asian Cinemas (2008), East Asian Film Stars (2014) and a special issue ‘Transformations of the Chinese Film Industries’ (2019) for the Journal of Chinese Cinemas.

Lisa Lin is Lecturer in Screen Industries and Cultures at King’s College London. She is the author of Convergent Chinese Television Industries (2022). Previously, Lisa worked as a documentary producer in the UK, Singapore and China, and her credits include Matter Patterns (2014), I Wouldn’t Go in There season 2 (2015), G-Force (2016), Last Breath (2017), The Truth About Fake News (2018), and Frontline Medics Diaries (2020). She has taught at Royal Holloway - University of London, University of Kent and Anglia Ruskin University, and was the principal investigator for the GCRF-funded project Environmental Documentary as Visual Evidence on Social Injustice Behind Air Pollution (2019-2020).

Jeanette Steemers is Professor of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London. After working for London research company, CIT Research, and international children’s content distributor HIT Entertainment (Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine), she rejoined academia in 1993. Her research interests include media industries, media policy, international distribution, public service media and children’s media. Her work has been funded by the AHRC, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust. Her many publications include Selling Television (2004), Creating Preschool Television (2010) and Screen Media for Arab and European Children (2019 with Naomi Sakr).

Jaap Verheul is a Senior Teaching Fellow in Film at the University of Southampton. His research focuses on transnational flows of film and television in European media industries, and how these affect the cultural politics on the screen. Among other topics, he has written on the monolingualism of Flemish cinema, the co-production of a European heritage brand, and the failed construction of star personas. Jaap recently edited a collection on The Cultural Life of James Bond: Specters of 007 (2020), and is currently completing his monograph on the regulation of European screen industries after 1989.