Profile
After graduating from the London School of Economics with a First Class Honours in Sociology, Professor Murdock went on to graduate studies in the sociology of art and literature at the University of Sussex before joining the pioneering Centre for Mass Communication Research at Leicester University. Here, Professor Murdock played a leading role in developing the first master's degrees in communication and media studies in the British university system, and developing the doctoral programme.
Professor Murdock later moved to Loughborough University to launch the teaching and research programme in media and cultural analysis within the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Loughborough (East Midlands) campus. Professor Murdock joined the Institute for Creative Futures on Loughborough's London campus in its launch year to help establish the teaching programme.
Professor Murdock's own research focuses on the changing organisation and impact of contemporary communication systems. It ranges from studies of institutional structures to research on cultural forms and everyday practices but he is best known for his work in the critical political economy of culture and communications and explorations of the relations between the organisation of communication systems, the exercise of power and the dynamics of change.
Academic background
Professor Murdock has taught widely outside the UK, having held the Bonnier Chair at the University of Stockholm and the Teaching Chair at the Free University of Brussels and has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Auckland, Bergen, California (San Diego), Curtin Western Australia and Mexico City.
He has taught in universities across China including Beijing, Chongqing, Nanjing, Shandong, Wuhan and X'ian. He has also been a Visiting Fellow at Fudan University in Shanghai and for the last eight years, in collaboration with colleagues in the Journalism Department there, has co-directed the summer school on digital media attended by over a hundred postgraduate students and junior staff from Chinese universities.
Professor Murdock's writings are currently translated into twenty one languages. Recent books include; as co-editor, Money Talks: Media, Markets, Crisis (2015), New Media and Metropolitan Life: Connecting, Consuming, Creating (2015) (in Mandarin) and Carbon Capitalism and Communication: Confronting Climate Change (2017).
Research
Current research and collaborations
Professor Murdock's current work focuses on four main areas:
- the transformation of public space and public discourse;
- the role of communication systems in the deepening climate emergency;
- the political economy of digital media;
- and the idea of the commons as alternative principle of social and economic organisation.
Interests and activities
In 2016, Professor Murdock was elected to the Academia Europea, the leading association of European scholars and from 2016 to 2020 he served as Vice President of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) - the most internationally diverse professional association in the field.
Professor Murdock currently serves on the editorial boards of a number of professional journals including: The Political Economy of Communication, Triple-C, Open Cultural Studies, Nordicom Review and the Chinese journal, Press Circles.
Professor Murdock is a member of the European Science Foundation's Expert Panel of Research Proposal Evaluators and has reviewed research submissions for leading funding organisations in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway.