Professor Kate Wright
Job Title
Personal Chair in Media and Communications
Research interests
Research interests
Prof Kate Wright’s research explores how journalism, digital media, and AI intersect with politics and IR. She specialises in comparative studies, focusing on political economy, public diplomacy, media governance, and journalism production practice. These interests arose from her previous experience of producing Scottish, UK, and international news for the BBC, as well as investigative documentaries.
Her research publications have won several awards, including from the International Studies Association, the International Communication Association, and the Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association. Her work is regularly featured in quality media, including ABC (Australia), Associated Press, Deutsche Welle, The New York Times, and Vanity Fair.
The current focus of her work is on the role of media in democratic backsliding, resistance, and resilience. This includes a UKRI-funded project, which investigates how public service media approach Responsible AI in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe, and Oceania (including AI procurement, policy, and practice). Her most recent book also analysed global patterns of media capture, before using Freedom of Information archives to conduct a detailed study of the Voice of America network under the first Trump administration. She has also published extensively on the reporting of humanitarian affairs worldwide.
She is the founder of the 80-strong interdisciplinary research cluster in Media and Communications at Edinburgh Futures Institute, a Fellow of the Generative AI Laboratory, and a research associate of the Centre for Governance and Human Rights at the University of Cambridge. She also sits on the editorial boards of two of the 'top five' communications journals, Digital Journalism and the International Journal of Press/Politics, and served on an expert research assessment panel for the Observatory on Information and Democracy, which advises policymakers in 50 countries.
PhD students
***Please note that Prof Wright is not accepting any more new PhD students for 2026-2027***
Current
Aleksandra Butkovska (new starter: Sept 2026)
Nurul Iman Muhamad Dimyati
Michael Urquhart
Background
Books
Wright, K, Scott, M, and Bunce, M. (2024) Capturing News, Capturing Democracy: Trump and the Voice of America. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Winner of the Best Book in International Communications award, given by the International Studies Association (2026) and the Outstanding Monograph of the Year award, given by the UK's Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (2025). It was also runner-up for the Best Book award, given by Journalism Studies division of the International Communication Association (2025) and for the Tankard Award, given by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (2025). Reviewed in the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Cultural Studies, Democratization, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly and Perspectives on Politics.
Scott, M, Wright, K and Bunce, M (2022) Humanitarian Journalists: Covering Crises from a Boundary Zone. London: Routledge. Reviewed in African Journalism Studies and the European Journal of Communication.
Wright, K (2018) Who's Reporting Africa Now? Non-Governmental Organizations, Journalists and Multimedia. London, New York: Peter Lang. Reviewed by Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, the International Journal of Communication and LSE's Centre for Africa.
Other selected publications
Wright, K and Porter, K. (2025) PSM and AI Part 2: Governance, Geopolitics and Procurement. Industry report, Public Media Alliance, December 11.
Wright, K and Porter, K. (2025) PSM and AI Part 1: Mapping how public service media use AI in journalism. Industry report. Public Media Alliance, July 13.
Wright, K, Madrid-Morales, D., and Barrie, C. (2025) Beyond “emergencies?" Reporting on humanitarian issues around the world. Digital Journalism. ONLINE FIRST
Observatory on Information and Democracy (2025). Information ecosystems and troubled democracy: A global synthesis of the state of knowledge on news media, AI and data governance (Published online in Jan, and as a NORDICOM book in Nov). I led one of the expert research assessment groups for this year-long project within a large, international consortium of researchers and practitioners (name listed on pp. xxxv).
Scott, M, Bunce, M and Wright, K (2022) The influence of news coverage on humanitarian aid: The bureaucrats’ perspective. Journalism Studies 23 (2): 167-186.
Scott, M, Wright, K and Bunce, M (2021) The politics of humanitarian journalism. In L. Chouliaraki and A. Vestergaard (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Humanitarian Communication. London: Routledge.
Wright, K, Scott, M, and Bunce, M (2020) Soft power, hard news: How journalists at state-funded transnational media legitimize their work. International Journal of Press/Politics 25 (4): 607-631. OPEN ACCESS.
Wright, K, Zamith, R, and Bebawi, S (2019) Commentary on Special Issue. Data Journalism in Majority World Countries: Challenges and Opportunities. Digital Journalism 7(9): 1295-1302
Mutsvairo, B and Wright, K (2019) Research trajectories in African digital spheres. In M. Dwyer and T. Molony (Eds.) Social Media and Politics in Africa. London: Zed Books
Bunce, M, Scott, M, and Wright K (2019) Humanitarian journalism. In H. Ornebring and H. Wasserman (Eds.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Wright, K (2019) NGOs as news organizations. In H. Ornebring and H. Wasserman (Eds.) Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Scott, M, Bunce, M, and Wright, K (2019) Foundation funding and the boundaries of journalism. Journalism Studies 20(14): 2034-2052. OPEN ACCESS
Wright, K., Scott, M, and Bunce, M (2019) Foundation-funded journalism, philanthrocapitalism and tainted donors. Journalism Studies. 20(5): 675-695. OPEN ACCESS.
Wright, K (2018). "Helping our beneficiaries tell their own stories?" International aid agencies and the politics of voice in news production. Global Media and Communication 14(1): 85-102
Scott, M, Bunce, M, and Wright, K (2018) Doing good and looking good in global humanitarian reporting: Is philanthrojournalism good news? In F. Enghel and J. Noske-Turner (Eds.) Communication in International Development: Doing Good or Looking Good? London: Routledge.
Bunce, M, Wright, K, and Scott, M (2018) "Our newsroom in the cloud": Slack, virtual newsrooms and journalistic practice. New Media and Society 20(9): 3381-3399. OPEN ACCESS.
Scott, M, Bunce, M, and Wright, K (2017) Donor power and the news: The influence of foundation funding on international public service journalism. International Journal of Press/ Politics 22 (2): 163-184. OPEN ACCESS.
Wright, K (2017). Public-commercial hybridity at BBC News Online: Covering non-governmental organisations in Africa. In A. Davis (Ed.) The Death of Public Knowledge? How Free Markets Destroy the General Intellect. London: Goldsmiths/MIT Press
Wright, K (2016). Moral economies: Interrogating the interactions of NGOs, journalists and freelancers. International Journal of Communication 10:1510-1529. OPEN ACCESS
Wright, K (2016) "It was a simple, positive story of African self-help" (manufactured for a Kenyan NGO by advertising multinationals). In M. Bunce, S. Franks, and C. Paterson (Eds.) Africa's Media Image in the Twenty-First Century: from the 'Heart of Darkness' to 'Africa Rising'. London: Routledge.
Wright, K (2015). "These grey areas": Freelancers and the blurring of INGOs and news organisations. Journalism Studies 17(8):989-1009
Wright, K (2014) Should journalists be 'virtuous'? Mainstream news production, complex media organisations, and the work of Nick Couldry. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism 15(3):364-381
Wright, K (2012) Educating rookies: Might guided problem-based learning help first year journalism students learn to inter-relate theory and practice? Journalism Education 1(2):8-25. OPEN ACCESS
Wright, K (2011) Listening to suffering: What does 'proper distance' have to do with radio news? Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, 13(3): 284-302
Wright, K (2011) Reality without scare quotes: Developing the case for Critical Realism in journalism research. Journalism Studies, 12(2):156-171
Works within
Staff Hours and Guidance
PhD students should make appointments by email.