Dr Rob McPherson

I am Lead Lecturer on the Arts and Humanities Foundation Year at CCCU, where I teach students from the schools of Humanities, Creative Arts and Industries, and Languages and Applied Linguistics in our core modules. I also specialise in our media-related module, where I tutor students from these undergraduate pathways: Film Production; Film, Radio and Television; Digital Media; Photography; Media and Communications; Games Design; Graphic Design.

I previously studied here at CCCU, where I gained my BA (Hons) in Media and Cultural Studies in 2009. I then completed my PhD here in the same discipline, graduating in January 2019. My specialisms and interests are in the field of media representations of young people and intoxication, where I took a sociological approach to methodology in my PhD research which developed my specialism in qualitative methodology and specifically the use of ethnographic methods and the development of a map of the Canterbury night-time economy.

Currently teaching on Arts and Humanities Foundation Year

Semester One

• Understanding Arts and Humanities (Module Leader)
• Life and Study (Seminar Leader)
• Foundation Media and Viusal Communications (Module Leader)

Semester Two

• Being Human (Module Leader)
• Foundation Introduction to Media, Art and Design (Module Leader)
• Ways of Seeing Aesthetics (Module Leader)

I am currently engaged in a collaborative research project around pub and drinking histories of Canterbury, based around an original historical source document of a pub survey written in 1939. This will lead to a further developed map of the Canterbury night-time economy, showcasing the cartographic, social and cultural changes over the last three-quarters of a century. Also, I am currently collaborating on a journal article on the American sociologist David Matza, to feature in the American journal Symbolic Interaction which is forthcoming in 2020.

• “Walking in the night-time economy: Drinking destination or Destination drinking?” poster presentation with Dr. Andrew M. Butler: ‘Drinking Spaces and Places Symposium’ University of Bristol 23^rd April 2016
• “Chicago school rules in the 21^st Century: methods of research into communities of hard drinking/hard grafting young adult men in the Canterbury night-time economy” conference paper: MeCCSA Annual Conference 6-8 January 2016
• “Sites of protest and the state: The Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) and the British rave scene” conference paper: ‘Sites of Protest’ MeCCSA Social Movements Network 29^th October 2014
• “Innovations in Ethnographic Research: The Barman and the Researcher” conference paper: ‘Where now for social justice? The Marginalisation of Young People in the UK’ 12-13^th June 2014
• “Binge drinking or calculated hedonism” conference paper: Symposium of Media and Crime, University of Winchester May 2013
• “Social media in small non-profit Organisations” conference paper with Dr. Agnes Gulyas: ‘Communities in the Digital Age’ symposium Canterbury Christ Church University June 2013