Promotional culture

Our research explores advertising, the cultural influence of brands on consumer behaviour and the role of the media in lobbying and policy change.

Previous strategies in this area have focused on public relations and our new strategy is to broaden the scope of research to produce a leading presence in the research of digital advertising, applied public relations and social media marketing. These areas interlink across our other research agendas in digital media and case studies with a Scottish base.

This area enables us to diversify research through collaboration in a wide spectrum of social, cultural and economic areas, exemplified by Alenka Jelen-Sanchez’s co-investigator role on the ESRC/MRC-funded Right to Health in Prison project with partners in Brazil, Iain MacRury’s psycho-social analysis of a range of commercial and public brands, Steven Buchanan’s research on health communications, Chiara Bernardi’s research on women’s human rights groups and the media and Will Dinan’s research on lobbying transparency.