Ranjana Das

Professor Ranjana Das

Professor in Media and Communication
PhD, MSc, MA, BSc, FHEA
+44 (0)1483 683766
38 AD 03

Academic and research departments

Department of Sociology.

Biography

Areas of specialism

Digital societies and users/uses of technology; Families and relationships; Motherhood, maternity, fatherhood; emerging technologies; Mental health; Digital sociology; Migration and parenthood

My qualifications

2011
PhD in Media and Communications
London School of Economics (LSE)
2008
MSc in Media and Communications (Research)
London School of Economics (LSE)
2007
MA in Mass Communication
AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, New Delhi
2005
BSc in Geography
University of Calcutta, India

Affiliations and memberships

International Communication Association
Member
European Communication Research and Education Association
Former Chair and Vice-Chair Audience Studies Division; Member
British Sociological Association
Member

Business, industry and community links

Institute of Health Visiting
The Institute of Health Visiting is a UK Centre of Excellence supporting the development of universally high-quality health visiting practice.
National Childbirth Trust
NCT’s mission is to support parents through the first 1,000 days, to have the best possible experience of pregnancy, birth and early parenthood.

My new book with Paul Hodkinson is now on sale at Palgrave. See here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030664817

New Fathers, Mental Health and Digital Communication

Research

Research interests

Research projects

Supervision

Postgraduate research supervision

My teaching

My publications

Highlights

Books

Das, R. (Contracted, in prep). Motherhood, platformed: From mediation to datafication. Rowman and Littlefield Publishing Group, Lanham: Maryland.

Series: Studies in New Media.

My new monograph, contracted with Rowman and Littlefield sits at the intersections of sociology and communication studies, and takes stock of transformations to motherhood as they have unfolded in contemporary platform societies - unequally, across the globe. The monograph draws a line between the early days of researching motherhood and the digital in the context of social media through to the contemporary wave of datafication, dataism and dataveillance which reshapes maternal labour and motherhood itself, in ways which are fundamentally uneven, and unequal in numerous cross-cutting ways. 

Hodkinson, P. & Das, R. (2021). New Fathers, Mental Health and Digital Communication. London: Palgrave

This book analyses in-depth, qualitative material on new fathers’ experiences of mental health difficulties after having a baby and, in particular, their use of online communications as part of their coping practices. Arising out of a project funded by the Faculty of Arts and Social Science at the University of Surrey that centred on in depth interviews with 15 fathers, at the heart of the book are the ways discourses of masculinity and fatherhood can exacerbate fathers’ difficulties and prevent them from communicating with others, and the extent to which social media may provide opportunities to negotiate, escape from or contest such discourses through engaging with information and others, disclosing struggles and seeking support. We examine the digital mediation of emotions around paternal mental health, the emergence of new, networked paternal intimacies, and new forms of connection and disconnection which shape, resource, and potentially empower fathers communicating about mental health.

Das, R. (2019). Early Motherhood in Digital Societies: Ideals, anxieties and ties of the perinatal. London: Routledge

Early Motherhood in Digital Societies offers a nuanced understanding of what the digital turn has meant for new mothers in an intense and critical period before and after they have a baby, often called the ‘perinatal’ period. The book looks at an array of digital communication and content by drawing on an extensive research project involving in-depth interviews with new mothers in the United Kingdom and online case studies. The book asks: what does the use of technology mean in the perinatal context and what implications might it have for maternal wellbeing? The book argues for a balanced and context-sensitive approach to the digital in the context of perinatality and maternal wellbeing in the critical perinatal period.

Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (2018). The future of audiences: A foresight analysis of interfaces and engagement. London: Palgrave Macmillan

This book brings together contributions from scholars across Europe to present findings from a foresight analysis exercise on audiences and audience analysis, looking towards an increasingly datafied world. The book uses knowledge emerging out of three foresight exercises, produced in cooperation with more than 50 stake-holding organisations and building on systematic reviews of audience research, to arrive at a renewed agenda for audience studies.

Das, R. & Graefer, A. (2017).Provocative Screens. Offended Audiences in Britain and Germany. Palgrave Macmillan (Pivot)

This book offers a nuanced understanding of ‘offensive’ television content by drawing on an extensive research project, involving in-depth interviews and focus groups with audiences in Britain and Germany. Provocative Screens asks: what makes something really offensive and to whom in what context? Why it offence felt so differently? And how does offensive content matter in public life, regulation, and institutional understandings?

     

    Papers

    GUEST-EDITED SPECIAL ISSUES

    1. Das, R. Eds. (2018). A field in flux: The intriguing pasts and the promising future of audience analysis. Special issue of Television and New Media
    2. Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. Eds. (2016). Emerging directions in audience research: Lessons from the Consortium on Emerging Directions in Audience Research. Special Issue of Participations, 13(1).
    3. Das, R. Eds (2013). Audiences: A cross-generational dialogue. A special issue of The Communication Review 16 (1)

     

    JOURNAL ARTICLES

    1. Das, R.; Chimirri, N; Jorge, A; Trueltzsch-Wijnen, C. (Under Review). Mediated parent networks: Explorations on the digital shaping of parents’ support networks in Austria, Denmark, Portugal and England. 
    2. Das, R. (2022). Approximately in-person in the locked-down home: Approximation, digital ties and maternity amidst the COVID19 lockdown. New Media & Society 
    3. Das, R. & Beszlag, D. (2021). Migrant mothers' experiences of perinatal mental ill health in the UK and their expectations of healthcare. Journal of Health Visiting Online First.
    4. Das, R. (2021). Women's experiences of maternity and perinatal mental health services during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Journal of Health Visiting.
    5. Ytre-Arne, B.; & Das, R. (2020). Audiences’ communicative agency in a datafied age: Interpretative, relational and increasingly prospective. Communication Theory 
    6. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2020). Affective coding: Strategies of online steganography in fathers’ mental health disclosure. New Media and Society
    7. Das, R., & Hodkinson, P. (2019). Tapestries of intimacy: Networked intimacies and new fathers’ emotional self-disclosure of mental health struggles. Social Media+ Society, 5(2), 2056305119846488.
    8. Das, R. (2018). Temporally inexpensive, affectively expensive: Digitally mediated maternal interpersonal ties in the perinatal months. Communication, Culture and Critique 
    9. Das, R. (2018). A Field in Flux: The Intriguing Past and the Promising Future of Audience Analysis. Television and New Media
    10. Ytre-Arne, B. &; Das, R. (2018). An agenda in the interest of audiences: Facing the challenges of intrusive media technologies. Television and New Media
    11. Das, R. (2018). Populist discourse on a British social media patient-support community: The case of the Charlie Gard support campaign on Facebook. Discourse Context and Media
    12. Das, R. (2018). The mediated subjectivities of the maternal: A critique of childbirth videos on YouTube. Communication Review.
    13. Zsubori, A. & Das, R. (2018). Twenty years of Pottermania: Youthful experiences of fantasy at the intersections of the fictive and ‘real’. Journal of Children and Media 12 (4). 
    14. Das, R. & Graefer, A. (2017). Regulatory expectations of offended audiences: The citizen interest in audience discourse. Communication, Culture and Critique. Online First.
    15. Das, R. (2017). Speaking about birth: Visible and silenced narratives in online discussions of childbirth. Social Media + Society.
    16. Das, R & Ytre-Arne, B. (2017). Critical, Agentic, Transmedia: Frameworks and Findings from a Foresight Analysis exercise on audience research. European Journal of Communication.*Gold Open Access*
    17. Das, R. (2017). The mediation of childbirth: Joyful birthing and strategies of silencing on a Facebook advice and support group. European Journal of Cultural Studies, Online First
    18. Das, R. (2017). Audiences: A decade of transformations: Reflections from the CEDAR network on emerging directions in audience analysis. Media, culture and society. Online First.
    19. Das, R. (2017). Stories about a queen: Viewing Bengali television drama in urban India. Critical Studies in Television 12(3).
    20. Graefer, A. & Das, R. (2017). Towards a contextual approach: Audiences, television, and 'offensive' humour. European Journal of Cultural Studies.
    21. Das, R. (2016). “I've walked this street”: Readings of reality in British children's reception of the Harry Potter series. Journal of Children and Media 10(3)
    22. Das, R. & Ytre-Arne. B. (2016). After the excitement: An introduction to the work of CEDAR. Participations 13(1). pp 280-288
    23. Das, R. and Pavlickova, T (2014). Is there as author behind this text? A literary aesthetic driven understanding of trust in interactive media. New Media and Society 16 (3)
    24. Das, R. (2014) An appropriate inheritance: On being and not being an audience researcher. International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics 10 (2)
    25. Das, R. (2013). Introduction. In - Audiences: A cross-generational dialogue. A special issue of The Communication Review 16 (1)
    26. Das, R (2013). “To be number one in someone's eyes…” Children's introspections about close relationships in reading Harry Potter.European Journal of Communication 28 (5)
    27. Das, R. (2012). Children reading an online genre: Heterogeneity in interpretive work. Popular Communication 10 (4)
    28. Das, R (2012). The task of interpretation. Participations: The international journal of audience and reception studies. 9 (1)
    29. Das, R (2011). Converging perspectives in audience studies and digital literacies: youthful interpretations of an online genre. European Journal of Communication, 26: 4, 343-360
    30. Das, R (2010). Meaning at the Interface: new genres, new modes of interpretative engagement? Communication Review13 (2), 140-159
    31. Das, R (2010). Digital youth, heterogeneity and diversity. Journal of Media Practice 11: 3

     

    BOOK CHAPTERS

    1. Ong. J. & Das, R. ( 2019). The contributions of television audience studies in the networked age: Looking back to look forward. In Shimpach, S. Eds (2019). The Routledge Companion to Global Television
    2. Das, R. (2018) Childbirth online: The mediation of contrasting discourses. In Mascheroni, G, Ponte, C. & Jorge, A. (Eds). Digital parenting: the challenges for families in the digital age. Gothenburg: Nordicom.
    3. Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (2018). A new crossroads for audiences and audience analysis. In Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (Eds). The Future of Audiences: A foresight analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Das, R. (2018). From implications to responsibilities. In Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (Eds). The Future of Audiences: A foresight analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    5. Das, R., Ytre-Arne, B. Mathieu, D., & Stehling, M. (2018) Our methodological approach: The intuitive-analytical balance. In Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (Eds). The Future of Audiences: A foresight analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Vesnic-Alejevic, L., Seddighi, G., Mathieu, D., & Das, R. (2018). Drivers and scenarios for 2030. In Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (Eds). The Future of Audiences: A foresight analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    7. Ytre-Arne, B. & Das, R.( 2018). Where next for audiences in communication? An emergent research agenda. In Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (Eds). The Future of Audiences: A foresight analysis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
    8. Das, R., Kleut, J., & Bolin, G. (2014). New Genres-New Roles for the Audience?. Audience Transformations Shifting Audience Positions in Late Modernity, 30-46.
    9. Livingstone, S & Das, R. (2012). The End of Audiences? Theoretical echoes of reception amidst the uncertainties of use. Chapter for the Blackwell Companion to New Media Dynamics, edited by John Hartley, Jean Burgess and Axel Bruns
    10. Das, R (2010). The task of interpretation: converging perspectives in audience research and digital literacies? In Nico Carpentier, et. Al. (Eds.)Media and Communication Studies Intersections and Interventions. Tartu: University of Tartu Press

    *New*: Latest Research Reports

    RESEARCH REPORTS

    1. Das, R. (2020). COVID19, Perinatal Mental Health and the Digital Pivot. Guildford, Surrey.
    2. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2019). New Fathers, Mental Health and Social Media. Guildford, Surrey. 
    3. Das, R. (Eds.) (2019). Migrant mothers' mental health communication in the perinatal period. Guildford, Surrey. 
    4. Das, R. & Ytre-Arne, B. (2017). Audiences 2030: CEDAR Final Report. Surrey: CEDAR.
    5. Livingstone, S., & Das, R. (2010) Media, communication and information technologies for the European family: a Report for Family Platform.
    6. Livingstone, S., & Das, R. (2010) POLIS Family and Media Report. POLIS, LSE, UK
    7. Das, R. & Beckett, C. Eds. (2010) Digital Natives: A Myth? A POLIS Paper from the Silverstone Panel on Digital Natives at the LSE, 2009.
    8. Livingstone, S., Witschge, T., Das, R., Hill, A., Kavada, A., Hallett, L., Starkey, G., Lunt, P. (2010). Existing and emerging audience research in the UK: A review for the Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies COST Action, August 2010
    9. Livingstone, S., & Das, R. (2009) Public Attitudes, Tastes and Standards: A Review of the Available Empirical Research: A Report for the BBC.
    10. Das, R. (2009): Researching Youthful Literacies: Concepts, boundaries, questions. First report as Silverstone Scholar 2009-2010 for POLIS, the Media and Society think-tank, Summer 2009. Available at POLIS Papers:http://www.polismedia.org/workingpapers.aspx

    SHORT PIECES

    1. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P (2020). Building Resources for Maternal and Paternal Perinatal Support. https://ihv.org.uk/news-and-views/voices/building-resources-for-maternal-and-paternal-perinatal-support/
    2. Das, R. (2020).‘Down will come baby, cradle and all’: Maternal anxiety in giving birth and raising infants amidst COVID19. BSA Everyday Society. 
    3. Das, R. (2020).Birth and beyond in a pandemic: Findings from a project with mothers in the England lockdown of spring 2020 . Centre for Research on Families and Relationships.
    4. Das, R.  & Hodkinson, P. (2020).Dad, distanced: The turbulence of new fatherhood amidst a pandemic. Discover Society.
    5. Das, R. (2020).Covid19, new motherhood and the digital pivot. Discover Society.
    6. New Book: Key Conclusions from Early Motherhood in Digital Societies – Ideals, Anxieties and Ties of the Perinatal. Surrey Sociology Blog.
    7. Das, R. (2019). New Book: Key Conclusions from Early Motherhood in Digital Societies – Ideals, Anxieties and Ties of the Perinatal. Surrey Sociology Blog.
    8. Das, R. (2019). Showcasing Mental Health Research at Surrey Sociology: At the Intersections of Sociology, Criminology and Media and Communications. Surrey Sociology Blog.
    9. Das, R. (2019). New Report: Migrant Mothers’ Mental Health Communication in the Perinatal Period. Surrey Sociology Blog.
    10. Das, R. (2019). UK Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week: Mums Matter in Digital Societies. Surrey Sociology Blog.
    11. Das, R. (2019). Mothers’ Day: Ambivalences, Fractures and Ambiguities of ‘Mother’ . Surrey Sociology Blog.
    12. Das, R. (2019). The Web is 30 at Surrey Sociology: A Grand and Glorious Trajectory. Surrey Sociology Blog. 
    13. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2019). Rescinding the ‘Rock’: Masculine imperatives to support and mental health struggles among new fathers. Surrey Sociology Blog. 
    14. Das, R. (2019). Going online for maternal mental health? A balanced, context-sensitive approach to placing maternal mental health on the digital health roadmap. Surrey Sociology Blog. 
    15. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2019).  Evidence to the Womens and Equalities Select Committee on the Mental Health of Men and Boys.
    16. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2019). Is Dad OK?. Blog for NCT.
    17. Das, R. (2018). Data-walking in Guildford: Final year forays into the sociology of datafication. Surrey Sociology Blog. Das, R. (2018). Data-walking in Guildford: Final year forays into the sociology of datafication. Surrey Sociology Blog. 
    18. Das, R. (2018). Social media and maternal perinatal wellbeing: Findings from fieldwork with new mothers. Surrey Sociology Blog. 
    19. Das, R & Hodkinson, P. (2018). Paternal mental health and social media: Early fieldwork reflections on disclosure, affective coding and disconnection. Blog for Surrey Sociology.
    20. Das, R. (2018). Alfie’s Army, misinformation and propaganda: The need for critical media literacy in a mediated world. Blog for Surrey Sociology.
    21. Das, R. (2018). Maternal wellbeing and the internet: Balancing optimism and caution. Blog for Parenting for Digital Futures, LSE.
    22. Das, R. & Hodkinson, P. (2018). Fathers in the spotlight: Why this matters and why we are researching new fathers’ mental health. Blog for Surrey Sociology.
    23. Das, R. & Graefer, A. (2017). Offended audiences and regulatory expectations: Of red flags and red herrings. Article for Think Leicester, January 2017.
    24. Das, R. (2017). Mothers, parenting and online networks. Interview aired on BBC Three Counties Radio.
    25. Das, R. (2016). Peer to peer forums for mums. Interview given to GEM Radio Leicestershire.
    26. Das, R. (2016). Why we need to pay attention to online peer to peer support forums for new mothers. Think Leicester.
    27. Das, R. & Graefer, A. (2016). What really makes something offensive? The Conversation.
    28. Das, R. (2016). Mediated parenting wars. Parenting for digital futures. LSE. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2016/08/10/mediated-parenting-wars-a-new-mums-account/
    29. Das, R. (2016). 5 reasons why we need to study childbirth and the media. Think Leicester. July 2016.
    30. Das, R. (2013) LSE POLIS blog. Entry for the Raped! The Indian polity in shamblesDas, R. (2013).
    31. Livingstone, S. & Das, R (2013) Interpretation/reception. Oxford Bibliographies
    32. Das, R (2011): Soap Opera and Telenovelas. Entry for the Encyclopaedia of Consumer Culture, Sage Publications.
    33. Das, R. (2011). Parents Trust, but Kids not Critical Enough Online. Invited entry for the LSE Media Policy Blog.
    34. Das, R. (2011). Teenagers and the Internet: new research on the reality of social media and youth. Invited entry for theLSE POLIS blog.