Dr David Patrick

I have a variety of research interests, though they all speak to larger themes of media framing of political, social, and historical phenomena. My PhD thesis analysed Anglo-American newspaper coverage of specific instances of exposure to genocidal events – these being: The liberation of Nazi concentration camps by Allied forces in April and May 1945; the four months surrounding the Rwandan genocide of 1994; major instances of violence in the Balkans War, including discovery of camps in 1992 and the events of Srebrenica in 1995. Beyond providing statistical findings concerning the press coverage of these events, my work also provided evidence to suggest that the Western world may have become somewhat desensitised to most instances of mass violence. My thesis ultimately formed the basis of my first monograph – Reporting Genocide: Media, Mass Violence and Human Rights – was published in 2018 by I.B. Tauris.

The main focus of my research from 2014 – 2019 was an in-depth analysis of Scottish/British press coverage of the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence. Issues considered during this project included: the tendency of the press to associate political ideas with specific individuals; debates concerning nationalism in a Scottish and UK context; discussion over healthcare and foreign policy; the role of Labour in the dissemination of particular Unionist messages. Front-Page Scotland: Newspapers and the Scottish Independence Referendum, my second monograph, was published by Routledge in 2021. Through this focus on contemporary Scottish politics, I have also engaged with issues of gender representation in the Scottish press, and the framing of female politicians in such coverage.

Since 2017 I have also developed an interest in professional boxing, particularly those aspects of the sport which intersect with issues of race and/or masculinity. The main output of this project has been a biographical study of Ted Carroll, a Black journalist and cartoonist who worked at The Ring magazine from the mid-1930s to the early 1970s. Co-edited with Prof Ian Phimister, a collection of Carroll’s best works is due to be released in early February (A Boxing Legacy: The Life and Works of Writer and Cartoonist Ted Carroll, Littlefield & Rowman, 2023). I plan to develop this interest in professional boxing and am currently working on a history looking at the social relevance of the heavyweight championship.