Dr Dmitry Chernobrov

BA (MGIMO); MPhil (Cambridge); PhD (MGIMO); PhD (St Andrews); SFHEA

School of Journalism, Media and Communication

Senior Lecturer in Media and International Politics

Director of Research and Innovation

A profile picture of Dr Dmitry Chernobrov.
Profile picture of A profile picture of Dr Dmitry Chernobrov.
d.chernobrov@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 2542

Full contact details

Dr Dmitry Chernobrov
School of Journalism, Media and Communication
C643
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
Profile

Dmitry joined the department in 2015 and is currently Senior Lecturer in media and international politics and the department's Director of Research and Innovation. He is also Co-Director of the Digital Society Network, Research Fellow at the Sheffield Institute for International Development, and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA). His work focuses on international crises and public opinion, public diplomacy and humour, diasporas and conflict, and digital technology in humanitarian response. Dmitry is the author of Public Perception of International Crises, which received the Furniss Book Award for an ‘exceptional contribution to the study of international security’. His has secured research funding
from the British Academy, Fulbright, University of Southern California, and Scottish Funding Council.

Dmitry discusses what he loves about teaching, why he joined the University of Sheffield, his new book, his next research projects, and how history can help us understand political communication.
Research interests

Dmitry's research focuses on four interconnected strands: public perception of international crises, public diplomacy and humour, diasporas and conflict, and digital technology and humanitarian communication. Dmitry specialises in research on public perception of international politics. In his work, Dmitry explores how societies idealise themselves in imagining distant crises and argues that public attitudes to international events are based primarily on local anxieties, memories, and hopes. His award-winning monograph explores British and Russian public attitudes to the Arab uprisings and asks three principal questions: How do people make sense of international crises? Why are some representations more appealing than others? And most importantly, what do the resulting opinions mean for how societies imagine themselves? This research offers an interdisciplinary integration of international relations, political psychology, memory and media studies. An overview of the book is available here, and Dmitry has also published an article on ontological security and public perception of crises in Political Psychology.

Currently Dmitry is leading a British Academy-funded project that develops the concept of strategic humour in foreign policy and explores audience reception of humour about contested international events. He is particularly interested in the persuasive applications of humour in public diplomacy and its connection to post-truth politics. Dmitry recently completed two research projects on diasporas and conflict, exploring the transmission of war memories to new generations and diaspora involvement in online information warfare when their homeland is at war. Dmitry has advised and held knowledge exchange activities with a range of diaspora organisations and conflict resolution NGOs such as the Armenian Institute and International Alert. Dmitry has also written about the use of digital communication in humanitarian crisis response, interviewing and collaborating with major international humanitarian agencies for this project.

Publications

Books

  • Chernobrov D (2019) Public Perception of International Crises: Identity, Ontological Security and Self-Affirmation. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Website content

  • Chernobrov D (2021) No laughing matter? How states use humour in public diplomacy. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2021/07/09/no-laughing-matter-how-states-use-humour-in-public-diplomacy/. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D & Briant E (2021) Why language matters in the ‘Disinformation’ Age. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D (2018) Digital humanitarians: a new source for crisis reporting? https://blogs.city.ac.uk/humnews/2018/06/19/digital-humanitarians-a-new-source-for-crisis-reporting/. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D (2018) Traitors List: ‘traitors’ in political and media rhetoric today. http://politicsblog.ac.uk/2018/06/21/traitors-list-traitors-political-media-rhetoric-today/. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D Strategic humor and post-truth public diplomacy. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D Public Perception of International Crises. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chernobrov D Aid organisations and media: a new look at the problem of ‘branding’. Retrieved from http://siid.group.shef.ac.uk/blog/aid-organisationblem-of-branding/ View this article in WRRO RIS download Bibtex download
Teaching activities

Dmitry’s teaching situates media representations into the wider political and societal contexts. He encourages students to be critical and reflexive about perception and representation of global issues and teaches using interactive formats such as debates, crisis modelling, film discussions, and student-led research projects.

Dmitry is the module leader for:

  • JNL6041 Media, Society and International Crises (core on MA IPPC)
  • JNL6027 Journalism, Globalisation and Development (core on MA Global Journalism)

He also supervises undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations and contributes to a range of other modules.

PhD supervision

Dmitry is interested in supervising doctoral students in the following areas:

  • Media representations, identity, and public opinion
  • Humour, public diplomacy, and foreign policy
  • Emotion and collective memory
  • Diasporas and conflict
  • Participatory warfare and conflict infopolitics
  • Humanitarian crisis communication
  • Critical conceptions of security/insecurity in media and politics

Current PhD students

  • Zhong Zhang: The Civil Power of Nonprofit Journalism in China

PhD study in journalism, media and communication