• Criminology
• Sociology of emotions
• Social psychology
• Symbolic interaction
• Ethnography
• Qualitative research methods
• Current research and teaching

I am currently working on my Forte-funded research project entitled "Direct from the Courtroom: The emotional challenges linked with live-reporting trials".

This project looks at the impact of a new digital technology in the courtroom and explores how it shapes the work of legal professionals and journalists. It focuses on the recent emergence of digital live-reporting which enables journalists to cover trials by writing updates in real-time from inside the courtroom to be instantly published on news websites – reports that detail the gestures, facial expressions and emotions of legal professionals in order to grab the readers’ attention. This new practice thus highlights the clash between the media’s emotionality and the courtroom’s rationality.

How this clash is negotiated will be explored by showing the dilemmas faced by legal professionals and journalists, and the ways in which these professional roles are accomplished in relation to this new digital practice. Furthermore, as live-reporting can be seen as a form of surveillance it may increase performance demands on legal professionals stemming from the widening of the trial’s immediate audience beyond the walls of the courtroom. These demands may also be heightened by the format’s immediacy, an immediacy that also leads to journalistic dilemmas. This study will therefore answer the following questions in order to understand the impact of this digital technology on the courtroom:

• How do legal professionals relate to live-reporting?
• How do reporters accomplish this digital practice?
• How are legal professionals emotionalised in live-reports?

The empirical material consists of qualitative material comprising ethnographic observations of three high-profile trials which are live-reported and interviews with the legal professionals and journalists involved in the trial. Transcripts of the live-news reports published online will also be included. This material will then be analysed using NVivo to draw out analytical themes. 

The goal is to contribute knowledge on how digitalisation impacts a workplace and the professional roles within.

course coordinator for SOCA74: Sociology: Criminology.