University of Sheffield

The Department of Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield is pleased to advertise a AHRC-funded PhD opportunity with the School of Law (University of Leeds) and NHS Blood and Transplant. The student will be supervised by Dr Ros Williams (Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield) and Prof Marie-Andrée Jacob (School of Law, University of Leeds), along with the Assistant Director of Communications at NHSBT

PhD project description

During the COVID pandemic, NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT), the body responsible for blood provision in England, has continued operating, reminding people: ‘giving blood is essential travel’. Whilst past Public Health Messaging (PHM) featured familiar appeals (eat 5-a-day, Stoptober) alongside blood donation campaigns, from early 2020 the UK public was exposed to unprecedented amounts of PHM about pandemic safety. Arguably these different yet equally important PHM appeals were now “competing” for audience attention: “Save Lives”, used to encourage blood donation, and then for recovered COVID patients to donate convalescent plasma, was now linked with calls to stay home to stop spreading the virus. So too emerged public debate about which PHM messages and messengers to trust.

This studentship explores how NHSBT seeks to ensure blood and convalescent plasma supply for patients through PHM in this context. The successful applicant will carry on cutting-edge humanities and social sciences research on media ecology, including the study of local actors, practices and materials that produce and consume media, content producers and the content itself. The study will also consider how emergent issues and technologies prompt changes in media practice and content of PHM and beyond.

“Trust” forms a perennial concern for producers of PHM (Henderson and Hilton 2018). For example, NHSBT undertakes focused recruitment of racially minoritised communities more likely to have certain in-demand blood subtypes, but lesslikely to engage with donation, a fact often attributed to mistrust of health institutions. Trust is a prominent concern for COVID too. From officials breaking laws, to vaccine hesitancy, whether people trust COVID PHM is a central issue which stands to effect NHSBT’s PHM, which exists in the same media ecology. As such, the studentship will explore questions such as:

• How can we use media ecologies theory to understand increasing PHM in the contemporary media landscape?
• How is NHSBT’s own work inflected by other proliferating PHM at national and local scales?
• How does NHSBT understand the relationship between trust and PHM in the media ecology, and how does this figure in their PHM material?

Research methodologies will be developed according to the successful student's experience and supervisor guidance, but could include qualitative methods such as visual analysis of PHM content, interviews with and observation of content production, and digital methods to collate NHSBT’s social media activity for analysis.

Applications are invited from students with a good first degree in an appropriate subject (media studies, sociology, anthropology, social policy or related areas in humanities and social sciences) as well as a Master’s degree appropriate to the topic (or be working towards one). We are also happy to consider applications from students with relevant experience in cognate areas.

Further details:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dzVn7tHHkcnUbc7UUYJu6vL5HArzRbKpkkvGu_XoNts

To apply: https://tinyurl.com/xxkf2d4w

The academic supervisors will hold a virtual information session on 1st April 3-4pm https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/6028f6d71b4347da904c7ea5cd39aebc . Attendance is not required to submit an application.

Please email Dr Ros Williams r.g.williams@sheffield.ac.uk and Prof Marie-Andrée Jacob M.A.Jacob@leeds.ac.uk for any queries.