Dr
Preeti
Raghunath
(she/her)
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Lecturer in Digital Media and Society
International Officer, Sociological Studies
Full contact details
Floor C
The Wave
- Profile
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Preeti Raghunath joined the Department of Sociological Studies in May 2023 as a Lecturer in Digital Media and Society. Prior to joining the University of Sheffield, she was a Lecturer in Communication and Media at Monash University, Malaysia. Preeti holds a PhD in Communication from the University of Hyderabad and a Masters in International Relations and Politics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She has worked as a print and broadcast journalist, and in communications and research.
- Qualifications
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PhD Communication
MA International Relations and Politics
BA Communication & Journalism, Literature, Political Science
- Research interests
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Preeti’s multidisciplinary research focuses on histories and lived experiences of communication technology policies. Her doctoral research was an expansive ethnography of policymaking for community radio in South Asia, now available as Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
Preeti has carried out funded research on ‘Hated’ Speech, AI Policies, gender and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in Southeast Asia, sustainability and digital transformation, sociotechnical AI Safety, and the impacts of AI data infrastructures in the Global South. Preeti’s current research is on AI data centres and their socio-ecological impacts, and the politics of clean energy and the AI economy in India.
Her work has been published in Global Media and Communication, Journal of Communication, Technology and Regulation, International Journal of Communication, with forthcoming papers to be published in Media, Culture and Society, Convergence, and Communication, Culture, Critique. She is currently working on her second monograph under contract with Bristol University Press.
- Publications
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Books
- Community radio policies in South Asia: a deliberative policy ecology approach. Palgrave Macmillan Singapore. View this article in WRRO
Journal articles
- Data in India's Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI): A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMMUNICATION, 20, 417-434.
- Exploring datafied practices, imaginaries and digital state assemblages in South and South East Asia. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 15(3), 309-324.
- Critical data governance: A southern standpoint to the study and practice of data. Technology and Regulation, 2024, 37-46. View this article in WRRO
- (Re)Iterations, transgressions, recognition: politics and practices of media policies in South Asia. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 13(1), 3-8. View this article in WRRO
- Editorial. Revue Neurologique, 178(1-2), 3-3.
- Airing imperium: a historiography of radio governance in South Asia. Global Media and Communication, 18(1), 49-66. View this article in WRRO
- Decolonizing open science: Southern interventions. Journal of Communication, 71(5), 803-826. View this article in WRRO
- Book review: Hilde Van den Bulck, Manuel Puppis, Karen Donders, Leo Van Audenhove (eds). The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 30(1), 131-135.
- The unfinished business of Nepal’s community radio policy. Media Asia, 41(1), 22-23. View this article in WRRO
Book chapters
- Conversing Across Incommensurables?: Critical Political Economy and Southern Approaches to Artificial Intelligence, Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business (pp. 1-26). Springer Nature Switzerland
- Epilogue: From Frontier Technologies to Frontier Lives, Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business (pp. 173-179). Springer Nature Switzerland
- “Hated Speech”: the communicative dimension of progressive politics and (un)democracy in India, Handbook of Progressive Politics (pp. 434-447). Edward Elgar Publishing
- Opening up the black box of communication governance in South Asia: critical policy ethnography as methodology In Padovani C, Wavre V, Hintz A, Goggin G & Iosifidis P (Ed.), Global Communication Governance at the Crossroads (pp. 389-410). Palgrave Macmillan View this article in WRRO
- Deliberation as pedagogy: gender, intersectionality, and journalism Education in India In Mutsvairo B, Bebawi S & Borges-Rey E (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South (pp. 111-120). Routledge View this article in WRRO
- Deliberation as Pedagogy, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South (pp. 111-120). Routledge
- DELIBERATION AS PEDAGOGY: Gender, Intersectionality, and Journalism Education in India, Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South (pp. 111-120).
- Deliberative policy ecology approach: media policy studies from South Asia In Ganter SA & Badr H (Ed.), Media Governance: A Cosmopolitan Critique (pp. 261-281). Palgrave Macmillan Cham View this article in WRRO
- Deliberating Community Radio in India: A policy ethnography, Community Radio in South Asia Reclaiming the Airwaves (pp. 21-43).
Reports
- Unpacking the Interrelationships between the Global Digitalization Index and Human Development
- Artificial intelligence and the women, peace and security agenda in South-east Asia View this article in WRRO
- Gender-sensitive AI Policy in Southeast Asia View this article in WRRO
Other
- Translating experience into enunciation: on conducting a policy ethnography in South Asia: A researcher reflects on what it means to translate policy ethnography into action.. Economic and Political Weekly, 56(22), 63-64. View this article in WRRO
Preprints
- Community radio policies in South Asia: a deliberative policy ecology approach. Palgrave Macmillan Singapore. View this article in WRRO
- Research group
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Preeti is part of the Governance and Public Policy research theme/cluster at SPIR.
She is a Fellow and ECR rep at the IGSD, co-leads the CIRCLE Tech and Care research group and is involved with Shef.AI at Sheffield.
Preeti co-runs the AI Policy Clinic with colleagues at Sheffield, where students sign up to carry out research on topics exploring the societal impacts of AI, respond to policy consultations, and undertake advocacy and wider engagement.
- Grants
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Preeti has secured grants from IDRC-funded FemFirst Research Observatory (IT for Change), Sheffield’s Faculty of Social Sciences Research Stimulation Fund, Grantham Centre for Sustainable Futures, UKRI-SSHRC, Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC).
She was shortlisted for the UKRI Policy Fellowship in 2025-26. She has held consultancies with UNU-Macau (for ITU and UN Women).
She was the recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Communication Technology and Policy section at IAMCR 2018.
- Teaching interests
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Postgraduate supervision
Preeti welcomes enquiries from prospective PhD candidates exploring the situated and lived experiences of AI and data policies, infrastructures and practices. She is particularly interested in bridging elemental media theory and technology policy.
- Teaching activities
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Preeti teaches the following modules:
- SPR421 Perspectives on Digital Society (MA DMS)
- SPR316 Digital Media Work Placement (BA DMS)
- SPR227 Social Research Design and Methods (BA DMS)
- SPR324 Global Data Industries (BA DMS)
- Professional activities and memberships
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Preeti is the Editor of Critical Policy Studies (Taylor and Francis) and the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business Series. She is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Digital Media and Policy. She is a member of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA), where she co-leads the Global South research network.
Preeti is an External Examiner, BA (Radio and Television) for the British University in Egypt, Cairo. She has served as an interview panelist for EPSRC’s Turing AI Pioneer Interdisciplinary Fellowship, on the annual awards committees of the Labor Tech Research Network, and is a reviewer for Oxford and Bristol University Presses, Routledge, Sage, Palgrave Macmillan, and various journals.
- Partnerships, engagement and impact
Preeti is part of the AI+Planetary Justice Alliance. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Utopia Theatre, Sheffield. She was instrumental in developing inter-institutional partnerships for research cooperation between Monash University, Malaysia and United Nations University, Macau. Her research report on Hated Speech features in Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression curriculum. Based on her PhD research, she was part of a national consultation with the Government of India on media policy in 2017.