My research is situated in the fields of critical sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, contact linguistics, media studies, and cultural studies. I am generally interested in language mobility in times of accelerated globalisation and in how the media use language to reach their target audiences.

My PhD thesis presents the first in-depth investigation of the use of English in German radio production. I investigated the use of English linguistic resources on German public service and private adult contemporary radio and the societal and cultural factors shaping this use by journalists. I undertook a quantitative and qualitative linguistic analysis of a self-compiled corpus of radio morning shows (60h) and a qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with 19 journalists. In my interdisciplinary methodological approach, I combined theories of mobility and hybridity in critical sociolinguistics and cultural studies with media studies models describing the influences that shape media content.

For my MSCA postdoctoral fellowship, I examined how German youth radio journalists, who are young adults themselves, construct and negotiate a collective youth identity with their increasingly diverse audience and thereby strive to create a sense of community through their on-air and online communication. As evaluative voices of the public responding to current challenges, German mass media have frequently been subject to criticism for their unbalanced and negative portrayal of ethnic diversity. My project “Community, Identity and Diversity in German Youth Radio” (CIDoRa) therefore explored the issues that lead to such negative representations of ethnic and linguistic diversity and enhanced our understanding of the importance of professional media in fostering acceptance of diversity in society. For the project, I conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork at one of the largest youth radio stations in Germany to develop an understanding of processes of media content production for on-air and online communication (Instagram) and trace how discourses on ethnic diversity and youth identity are framed. In addition, I undertook a multimodal critical discourse analysis of broadcasts and social media content, which gave insights into journalists’ representations of ethnic diversity and youth identity in their messages and how the target audience responds to these representations. My results show that youth radio journalists try to overcome the dilemma between underrepresenting or potentially misrepresenting ethnic and linguistic diversity. However, several factors including segmentation of the media market, the imagined audience and ethical challenges make this rather difficult. To support a more meaningful engagement of journalists with diversity, I am currently organising workshops for journalists and journalism students.

For further information on the CIDoRa project please visit the project website: https://www.cidoraproject.eu/

I am currently PI of my research project titled “Posthumanist Sociolinguistics and Journalistic Practices: Reporting on Climate Change in Irish and German Media”, which is funded by Research Ireland and the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. In the light of the global climate emergency, the way professional media portray climate change has implications for societies’ ambitions in climate action. Against this background, there is a pressing need to understand how problematic human-centred discourses, often resulting in one-sided and insufficient coverage of the climate crisis, emerge in climate reporting. Through a comparative ethnographic study of journalists’ reporting practices in Germany and Ireland and a diachronic corpus linguistic study of media coverage, the project will also increase journalists' language awareness regarding climate communication in a posthumanist-sense (i.e. their awareness of the spatial ecology in and beyond the newsroom in which media content is produced—including human and other-than-human actors and factors). By developing approaches for posthumanism-oriented climate communication for Irish and German media practitioners and fostering collaborations and networks between German and Irish media industries, the project will also foster intercultural exchange between different journalism cultures.

I am experienced in teaching modules in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, contact linguistics, general linguistics, media studies and cultural studies as well as in translation studies and German language modules.

I currently work as a Research Ireland Pathway Fellow at the School of Modern Languages and Applied Linguistics. I hold a PhD in English and an MA in Journalism from the University of Galway.  I am also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a former Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow.