Professor Charlie Beckett

Professor Charlie Beckett

Professor of Practice, Director of Polis and the Polis/LSE JournalismAI project

Department of Media and Communications

Telephone
07808 786573
Room No
Room FAW.7.01L
Office Hours
By appointment on Student Hub
Connect with me

Languages
English
Key Expertise
Journalism

About me

Please note Professor Beckett will be on sabbatical leave during Autumn Term 2024. See term dates.

Professor Charlie Beckett is the founding director of Polis, the think-tank for research and debate around international journalism and society in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. Polis runs events for journalists and the public as well as a programme of fellowships and research. It has a Summer School, holds conferences and publishes reports. Charlie is leading the Polis JournalismAI project and was Lead Commissioner for the LSE Truth, Trust & Technology Commission (T3). As well as being spokesperson for Polis, Media Policy Project and T3, and a regular blogger, Charlie Beckett is a regular commentator on journalism and politics for the UK and International media.

Charlie is the author of SuperMedia: Saving Journalism So It Can Save The World (Blackwell, 2008) and WikiLeaks: News In The Networked Era (Polity, 2012). He also published research on journalism and emotions, journalism and Artificial Intelligence, and reporting on terrorism.

Prior to joining LSE, Charlie was a programme editor at ITN's Channel 4 News. Before that he was a senior producer and programme editor at BBC News and Current affairs for ten years. He started his career on local newspapers in his native South London before starting in TV at LWT.

Charlie specialises in how journalism around the world is changing and its relationship to society and politics.

Expertise Details

Artificial Intelligence; broadcasting; digital; emotions; ethics; future of news; governance; international media; media economics; networked journalism; newspapers; social media; start-ups; terror reporting; US media; WikiLeaks; political communication

Research

Research interests

  • News media change, social media, media economics and networked journalism
  • Journalism and politics in the UK and internationally in the digital age
  • Journalism and terrorism, strategic communications

Current research projects and initiatives

Publications

Books


Other publications

View a comprehensive list of Charlie's pubilcations

View a collection of Charlie's Polis blog posts

Teaching

Charlie convenes and teaches on the postgraduate course Critical Studies in Media and Journalism and the Summer School short course International Journalism and Society - The Role of the Media in the Modern World.

He also runs the popular Media and Communications in Action talks, a speaker series combining theory and practice, hosted as part of the core postgraduate course Theories and Concepts in Media and Communications. Speakers include a mixture of practitioners, regulators, journalists, and other media professionals.