Deborah Chambers

Deborah Chambers is Professor of Media and Cultural Studies in the School of Arts and Cultures at Newcastle University. She has lectured and researched in Media, Communication and Cultural Studies in Britain and Australia, with previous appointments at Nottingham Trent, Staffordshire, Western Sydney (Nepean), Glamorgan, Loughborough and Liverpool Universities. Deborah graduated from Essex University in BA (Hons) Sociology and received her Masters and PhD from Kent University, specialising in the Sociology of Culture. She joined Newcastle University in 2005 to establish collaboratively what is now a flourishing Media, Culture and Heritage subject area.

Deborah has written books on various aspects of media, society and social relationships. Her most recent book, Changing Media, Homes and Households: Cultures,Technologies and Meanings examines the central role played by media technologies in shaping ideas about home life from the early twentieth century to the present. Her previous books include: Social Media and Personal Relationships: Online Intimacies and Networked Friendship (Palgrave Macmillan 2013); A Sociology of Family Life: Change and Diversity in Intimate Relations (Polity 2012), New Social Ties (Palgrave Macmillan 2006), Women and Journalism (Chambers, Steiner and Fleming, Routledge 2004), Representing the Family (Sage 2001).

Deborah referees for British and overseas research councils and academic journals. Deborah has acted as external examiner for doctoral theses at universities in the UK, Ireland and Australia and is an experienced external examiner at undergraduate and taught postgraduate levels. She has developed links with media and cultural organizations through research and teaching, for example with regard to the recruitment and retention of ethnic minority journalists in the news media industry and the development of the MA in International Multi -Media Journalism in collaboration with the Press Association.

Deborah is a member of the ESRC and AHRC Peer Review College. She is an invited speaker at international conferences and seminars in a number of countries including Austria, the Netherlands, Australia, the Cezch Republic, Belgium and the USA on changing intimacies and new media technologies, women and media, and representations of ‘family’.

Deborah has engaged with professionals within the media and culture sectors. For example, she has been a guest speaker on radio including BBC Radio 4's ‘Thinking Allowed’ and has provided academic advice for various media projects as well as an ESRC funded project on the representation of ethnic minority journalists in the newspaper industry.