Culture, Media & Creative Industries PhD

Culture, Media & Creative Industries at King's carries out world-leading research across the field of culture, media and the analysis of particular creative industries. Specialisms include cultural work, creative cities, visual cultures, popular culture, cultural and creative industries policy, cultural management, museums and heritage, entrepreneurship and cultural production, cultural regeneration, cultural history, culture and identity, and inter-sectionally and culture. CMCI is also developing, in concert with Digital Humanities, research into digital cultures, particularly into social networks, digital identities and digital activism. Our approach is international in perspective, interdisciplinary in nature, and is characterised by a productive engagement of the theoretical, historical and empirical.

The PhD in Culture, Media & Creative Industries is a programme for those seeking an academic career or who wish to become professionals in the cultural, media or creative sectors.

• Latest Research Excellence Framework rankings: CMCI was ranked third in the UK for research power. Our Faculty of Arts & Humanities is one of the most prestigious of its kind, ranked sixth in Europe (QS World University Rankings, 2023).
• Current staff: 47
• Current PhDs: 50

External Funding Sources

Our current and former PhD students have successfully received funding from the following external sources:

• London Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership (ESRC)
• London Arts and Humanities Research Council (LAHP)
• National and regional governments and funding bodies.

Selected books written by CMCI PhD supervisors

• Beyond the Screen: Emerging Cinema and Engaging Audiences by Sarah Atkinson
• Duke Ellington's America by Harvey G Cohen
• Besides the Screen: Moving Images through Distribution, Promotion and Curation by Virginia Crisp
• The Aesthetic Economy: Markets in Clothing and Fashion Modelling by Joanne Entwistle
• Work That Body: Male Bodies in Digital Culture by Jamie Hakim
• Cultural Policy in South Korea: Making a New Patron State by Hye-Kyung Lee
• Migration and Identity in British East and Southeast Asian Cinema by Wing-Fai Leung
• Convergent Chinese Television Industries by Lisa Lin
• Hollywood Stardom by Paul McDonald
• Manifestations of Queerness in Video Games by Gaspard Pelurson
• Topographies of Suffering: Buchenwald, Babi Yar, Lidice by Jessica Rapson
• Gender and Memory in the Globital Age by Amza Reading
• Repudiating Feminism by Christina Scharff
• Creating Preschool Television: A Story of Commerce, Creativity and Curriculum by Jeanette Steemers
• The Space that Separates: A Realist Theory of Art by Nick Wilson
• Emotion, Care and Enthusiasm in “Unloved” Museum Collections, by Anna Woodham et al.

Head of group/division

Dr Virginia Crisp

• (Please direct any queries to the contact named in the 'How to Apply' section below)

Next Steps

• Identify a potential supervisor who you would like to work with
• Contact the potential supervisor to establish if they might be interested in taking your enquiry any further.
• If yes, please email them a 1500-word proposal (max) setting out:
• the topic/issue they propose to research,
• the rationale for doing so (including its importance and originality, as well as any gaps in the literature),
• the proposed methodology (i.e. what, why and how?),
• a prospective chapter outline, and
• a concluding section showing why this research should be conducted at CMCI.

Please also send a latest CV with your proposal. Your prospective supervisor will review the proposal and if they would like to take it further, they will invite you to a short interview (online or offline). A final decision will be taken at departmental level, subject to review by the CMCI PGR recruitment panel.

Please ensure that you read this essential guide from the department before applying to this PhD.

For further information, contact Anna Woodham - anna.woodham@kcl.ac.uk

Joint PhDs - Benefits of collaboration

Our joint PhD programme with the Humboldt University Berlin offers students the opportunity to enjoy full supervision at both institutions. The Joint-PhD also organises international colloquia and workshops at which students can present and discuss their work with peers and academic staff across the institutions involved. The programme builds on an extensive network of existing institutional links, joint teaching experience and collaborative graduate programmes between King’s and the partners universities.

Applications are welcome from across a whole range of areas in culture, media and creative industries with a substantial German element.