Dr Catherine Happer
- Senior Lecturer (Sociological & Cultural Studies)
telephone:
0141 330 6387
email:
Catherine.Happer@glasgow.ac.uk
College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences, Adam Smith Building, 1016
Biography
Dr Catherine Happer is Director of the Glasgow University Media Group. She is a sociologist who examines the role of the media in the construction of public understanding and belief with particular focus on media accounts of climate change and environmentalism. She is currently also acting co-chair of Climate Psychology Alliance (CPA) Scotland. She previously worked as an Audience Researcher and later Factual programme-maker at the BBC.
Catherine graduated with a First in Sociology from the University of Glasgow, winning the Adam Smith Prize and then a teaching scholarship within the Sociology Department at Lancaster University to study towards a PhD. In 2011, she returned to Glasgow University. Since then she has worked on three major research projects most recently collaborating with Chatham House on an international research study investigating the potential role of the public in reducing GHG emissions through dietary choices, and how the media might foster this change. More recently she has received funding from the EPSRC to explore the role of online content moderation in shaping perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable discourse and hate speech.
Catherine has given evidence at the House of Commons Select Committee on Climate, Policy and Public Understanding, presented to the Scottish Government and at national and international conferences and appeared on the BBC Radio Scotland’s GMS and Call Kay, FiveLive’s Richard Bacon show, BBC World Service’s The Inquiry and The Food Chain and Al Jazeera. She has written for a number of blogs including The Conversation, Bella Caledonia and Open Democracy. She is published in international journals and is co-author of Communicating Climate Change and Energy Security: New Methods in Understanding Audiences (Routledge) and co-editor of Trump’s Media War (Palgrave).
In 2015, Catherine launched a new Masters in Media, Communications and International Journalism and is currently Convenor of elements of the programme. She also contributes to Honours courses in Sociology.
Research interests
- Climate change and environmental communication
- Audience reception theory
- Media and behaviour change
- Digital media and public opinion
- AI and content moderation
Grants
Principal Investigator: Human Data Interaction Network: EPSRC Network Plus
Public trust and understanding of online content moderation, and its impacts on public discourse (£7,257.00) July 2019
Co-Investigator: Avatar Alliance Foundation International Research
Public Understanding and Behaviour, and the Impact of Diet for Climate Change and Food Security Policies: Case studies in Brazil, China, UK and US (£155,289.56). Principal Investigator: Professor Greg Philo. August 2014
Co- Investigator: TSB/Future City, Glasgow City Council
Public attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and the role of social media in relation to energy efficiency (£90,975.80). Principal Investigator: Professor Greg Philo. October 2013
Principal Investigator: Knowledge Exchange Fund, University of Glasgow
Public engagEment with energy efficiency: extending the Future City work (£21,044.77). November 2013
Named Researcher/co-bid-writer: British Academy Small Research Grants
Probation, media representations and public understanding of justice (£9,859.68). Principal Investigator: Professor Fergus McNeill, Co-Investigator: Professor Greg Philo. March 2013
Supervision
I am interested in supervising projects in any of the following areas:
- Climate change and environmental communications
- Audience reception theory
- Media and behaviour change
- Digital media and public opinion
- AI and content moderation
I am currently supervising doctoral projects in:
- Re-integration of former prisoners
- Cyber commemorations and public support for warfare
- Government policy, media coverage and public understanding of climate change in China
- Media coverage of deaths in custody
- China Daily’s coverage of climate change and environmentalism
I have supervised to completion PhDs in:
- Western media framing of events in Venezuela
- Vegetarianism in China
- Clapp, Robb
Media consumption and Environmentalist identity
Teaching
Undergraduate
- Sociology of Media 1: Issues of Production, Information Supply and Content (Honours level)
- Sociology of Media 2: Audiences, New Media and the Future of Public Broadcasting (Honours level)