My Research

My research examines how inequality is produced and contested across culture, media, digital platforms, and sport. Working at the intersection of sociology, media and cultural studies, psychoanalysis, and critical theory, I am particularly interested in race and racism, gendered inequality, nationalism, online harms, artificial intelligence, and the affective organisation of public life. Sport provides an especially revealing cultural and institutional setting for this work, allowing me to examine how broader social antagonisms are mediated through highly visible forms of identity, representation, belonging, and exclusion.

A defining feature of my research is the development of a psychoanalytic approach to social and cultural inequality. Drawing principally on Lacanian theory, I examine how unconscious attachments, fantasies, and forms of enjoyment contribute to the persistence of racialised and gendered hierarchies. This approach moves beyond explanations centred exclusively on individual prejudice or material interest by considering how inequality becomes embedded within forms of collective belonging. My books on racism, racialisation, comedy, and sport develop this perspective across political discourses, media representations, popular culture, and sporting practices.

This theoretical work is closely connected to an empirically grounded programme of research on digital media and online harms. Here, I examine how hostility is produced and circulated through platform infrastructures and algorithmic amplification. My research has addressed online racism, antisemitism, sexism and misogyny, conspiratorial discourse, sportswashing, and the abuse experienced by athletes, journalists, and supporters. Rather than approaching online abuse solely as the conduct of individual users, I analyse the technological, commercial, cultural, and institutional conditions through which online hate is intensified and sustained.

My work on artificial intelligence extends these concerns into questions of authority and subjectivity. Through a series of publications on generative AI and chatbot technologies, I have explored whether AI can lie, how AI systems simulate knowledge and authority, and how human interaction with these technologies is shaped by unconscious desires and investments. This research contributes to critical debates concerning the social consequences of AI, including algorithmic governance and the production of knowledge, as well as changing understandings of the human subject.

Collaboration and public engagement form an integral part of my research. I have worked with media organisations, football clubs, governing bodies, anti-discrimination organisations, and policy stakeholders to translate research into training, reports, educational resources, and practical guidance. This has included contributing evidence to the United Nations Human Rights Council, UK parliamentary inquiries, and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Football, alongside the development of research and training with Sky Sports News and professional football organisations.

Across these activities, my research seeks to connect conceptual innovation with empirical analysis and socially engaged practice. Its central concern is how contemporary inequalities acquire cultural meaning, particularly within digital environments where hostility and public participation are increasingly organised through platformed communication.