The University of Sheffield (TUOS) is amongst the top universities within the UK and has an international reputation for excellence in research and teaching. Its excellence is reflected in national assessments of university academic performance. A member of the Russell Group of leading UK research universities, the University of Sheffield is rated 95th in the world in the 2022 QS World University Rankings. TUOS is also among the top 50 most international universities in the world, according to the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The university has close links with industry, commerce and the professions, and it achieves consistent success in attracting research grants and funding from regional, national and international organisations, including the EU. As part of its overall strategy, the university is committed to maintaining its strong involvement in European programmes and enhancing the European dimension of its work. In the Horizon 2020 Programme, TUOS has been involved in 266 projects with a value to Sheffield of over €118m. Within this, TUOS has involvement in 33 ITNs, 44 Marie Curie Fellowships, 19 ERC grants (including one synergy grant) and is a partner with over 1,800 organisations. Over the last 5 years, the average value of all new research awards to the University has been in excess of £165m per annum. The University of Sheffield’s Faculty of Social Sciences is one of the larger and longer established social science departments in the UK, where the department of sociological studies is based. TUOS sociological studies co-leads WP5 as part of the DRad project.
Dr Ozge Ozduzen is a lecturer in digital media and society at the University of Sheffield. She was previously a lecturer in sociology and communications at Brunel University London, British Academy Newton International Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute for Diplomacy and International Governance at Loughborough University London and a postdoc at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Lund University, funded by the Swedish Institute. Completing her PhD in media at Edge Hill University (2016), Ozge’s research is in the broad area of media sociology. So far, Ozge has studied urban communication, media activism, visual politics, digital hate and polarisation, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Other than publishing in prestigious academic journals such as the New Media & Society, International Journal of Communication or Political Geography, Ozge has regularly shared her findings in semi-academic platforms such as The Conversation or the blog of Political Studies Association (PSA). As part of D.Rad, Ozge co-leads the WP5 entitled “mainstreaming, media literacy and patterns of mass media communication”. WP5 assesses the everyday level and the “mainstreaming” of radical ideologies through media and popular culture, drawing on cultural studies, visual cultures, critical digital studies and qualitative digital methods. It captures the digital traces and patterns of radicalised online interactions of individuals on different social media platforms whilst generating media literacy tools for the purposes of deradicalisation across partner countries. The methods of WP5 will establish networked frameworks of othering and mythmaking; of grievance; and of alternative sources of legitimation and authority for pursuing justice.
Dr Hannah Guy is a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield. She recently completed her PhD at Manchester Metropolitan University, examining the role of images in the spread of disinformation on social media. This project was funded through an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Collaborative Doctoral Award in partnership with First Draft. Her research interests include visual social media, online mis- and disinformation, and the Alt-Right movement. Hannah is also a member of the Visual Social Media Lab, which brings together a group of internationally leading interdisciplinary researchers from academia and industry interested in analysing social media images. Her current projects explore images shared on Twitter during the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, and visual media literacy education in the UK and Canada.
Dr Henry Staples is a Research Associate at the University of Sheffield and supports the D.Rad Work Package 9:Spatial Aspects of Deradicalisation Processes. His research interests cut across urban geography and peace and conflict studies. His masters (University of Amsterdam, 2015) and PhD projects (University of Sheffield, 2021) centred on community responses to urban violence and securitization policies in Brazil, and the spatial dynamics of combatant reintegration in Colombia. Henry was previously Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the project Improbable Dialogues: Participatory Research as a Strategy for Reconciliation, winner of the ESRC Outstanding Societal Impact Prize (2021). He also currently works on the ESRC/Nordforsk-funded project Life at the Frontier, which is exploring the dynamics of migrant integration across the UK, Norway and Sweden.