Matthew Alford

Matthew Alford's PhD thesis applied Noam Chomsky's Propaganda Model to contemporary Hollywood and his subsequent research similarly concerns the representation of Western power.

He has taught a wide range of subjects - Film & Media, International Relations, and British & American politics - and is a Fellow of the HEA.

Dr. Alford's first documentary feature film, The Writer with No Hands (2014), examined a conspiracy theory about the death of a Hollywood screenwriter. It premiered at Hot Docs, Toronto and won three awards at major festivals worldwide. The stage adaptation of the eponymous novel was livestreamed at the 2020 Edinburgh Fringe.

Alford's second documentary, Theaters of War (2021) is distributed worldwide by the Media Education Foundation. The film is based on his co-authored book National Security Cinema: The Shocking New Evidence of Government Control in Hollywood (2017) and draws on archival and interview-gathering trips to Los Angeles and Washington, DC.

His books have been translated into Turkish, Chinese, and French.