Dr Bernadine Jones

I am a visual analyst, specialising in social semiotics, multimodal discourse methodology, and television news. I am Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Stirling, and my scholarship spans four degrees on two continents, intersecting media, politics, and representation.

My Masters thesis (2010-2012, UCT) annotated the (local and global) television news coverage of the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa, focusing on visual and social semiotics, critical discourse analysis, and post-colonial theory. Continuing with the research of television news, my PhD (2018, UCT) investigated the broadcast coverage of the first five South African democratic elections (1994 - 2014). African narratives, political communication, post-colonial theory, the role of media in political discourse, and journalism ethics amongst others form the theoretical basis.

My current research transforms my PhD thesis into a chronology of six South African elections on television news, providing a deep analysis of media and democracy in the country.

My research areas cover the intersection between Media and politics, particularly South African and non-Western news. I am a news social semiotician, and analyse visual rhetoric through multimodal discourse analyses. My specific research interest is television, or convergence, news.

I currently teach on the following modules: Introduction to Journalism, Magazine Journalism, Journalism and Society, and Ethical Issues in Journalism. I am also undergraduate and postgraduate supervisor on topics throughout media, journalism, and culture.