Anna Feigenbaum

Professor Anna Feigenbaum

  • 01202 961238
  • afeigenbaum at bournemouth dot ac dot uk
  • Professor In Digital Storytelling
  • Weymouth House W309, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, BH12 5BB
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Biography

I am a Professor in Digital Storytelling here at BU where I also co-head the Science, Health and Data Communications Research Centre. My research spans these fields of communication. I am the author of Tear Gas (Verso Books 2017) and an author of Protest Camps (Zed/Bloomsbury 2013), Protest Camps in International Context (Policy Press 2017) and The Data Storytelling Workbook (Routledge 2020). I am currently working on a monograph for Verso about infertility and the IVF marketplace and publishing findings from my UKRI/AHRC COVID-19 Rapid Response research project that investigated the use of webcomics on social media to share public health messages: https://www.covidcomics.org/

I regularly publish my interdisciplinary work in peer review journals and edited collections that span the fields of Media Studies, Geography, Architecture, Art History and Design, International Relations and Science and Technology Studies. In addition, I am an active science communicator and work regularly with journalists and producers to share my research across a wide diversity of national and international outlets...

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Research

Engaging with the history of digital media, I investigate how technological practices shape political and social action. My work is concerned with how communication is mediated in spaces of struggle, contestation and controversy–be it by bar charts or barbed wire fences.

I am an author of the Data Storytelling Workbook (Routledge 2020). This interdisciplinary workbook offers practitioners and researchers evidence-based techniques for telling factual stories in emotive and effective ways. A visualisation project in itself, the workbook is being designed in collaboration with Minute Works creative studio, research illustrator Alexandra Alberda and journalist Aria Alamalhodaei..

My first monograph Tear Gas: From the Battlefields of WWI to the Streets of Today came out with Verso in 2017. This research was funded by a Wellcome Trust Medical Humanities grant. It uses digital humanities and data storytelling methods to track the movement of tear gas from the trenches of WW1 to the streets of today, asking ‘How did it become normal to police communication with poison’? The monograph is translated into French and Italian (forthcoming), its content has appeared in media outlets around the world from a Radiolab podcast to a Le Monde documentary video. The research has informed journalistic reporting, NGO strategy and a US Congressional Investigation in the public health impacts of tear gas at protests.

I am also co-author of the book Protest Camps (Zed 2013), which explores the media, governance and social practices of over 50 protest camps across the span of 50 years...

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Favourites

Journal Articles

  • Zhao, X., Feigenbaum, A. and Demirkol Tönnesen, Ö., 2024. Between Comments and Collective Action: The Potential of TikTok in Endometriosis Advocacy. International Journal of Communication, 18, 3611-3633.
  • Zhao, X., Feigenbaum, A. and McDavitt, S., 2022. Feasibility of comics in health communication: Public responses to graphic medicine on Instagram during the Covid-19 pandemic. Journal of Visual Political Communication, 9 (1), 9-28.
  • Ashencaen Crabtree, S. et al., 2020. Donning the “slow professor”: A feminist action research project. Radical Teacher, 116, 55-65.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Weissmann, D.G.B., 2020. What counts as police violence? A case study of data in the CATO Institute's police misconduct reporting project. Canadian Journal of Communication, 45 (1), 91-100.
  • FEIGENBAUM, A. and MCCURDY, P., 2018. Activist Reflexivity and Mediated Violence: Putting the Policing of Nuit Debout in Context. International Journal of Communication, 12, 1887-1907.
  • Feigenbaum, A., Thorsen, E., Weissmann, D. and Demirkol, O., 2016. Visualising data stories together: Reflections on data journalism education from the Bournemouth University Datalabs Project. Journalism Education, 5 (2), 59-74.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Weissmann, D., 2016. Vulnerable warriors: the atmospheric marketing of military and policing equipment before and after 9/11. Critical Studies on Terrorism, 9 (3), 482-498.
  • McCurdy, P., Feigenbaum, A. and Frenzel, F., 2016. Protest Camps and Repertoires of Contention. Social Movement Studies, 15 (1), 97-104.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2015. From cyborg feminism to drone feminism: Remembering women’s anti-nuclear activisms. Feminist Theory, 16 (3), 265-288.
  • Iqani, M. and Feigenbaum, A., 2015. The (Inter)disciplinarity of media studies: Pedagogical challenges and opportunities from the perspective of teaching staff. Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, 70 (3), 286-306.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Kanngieser, A., 2015. For a politics of atmospheric governance. Dialogues in Human Geography, 5 (1), 80-84.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Iqani, M., 2015. Quality after the cuts? Higher education practitioners’ accounts of systemic challenges to teaching quality in times of ‘austerity’. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 39 (1), 46-66.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2015. Riot control agents: The case for regulation. Sur, 12 (22), 101-113.
  • Frenzel, F., Feigenbaum, A. and Mccurdy, P., 2014. Protest camps: An emerging field of social movement research. Sociological Review, 62 (3), 457-474.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2014. Resistant Matters: Tents, Tear Gas and the "Other Media" of Occupy. Communication and Critical/ Cultural Studies, 11 (1), 15-24.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2013. Gameful pedagogy and collaborative learning: A case study of the Netsx Project. 2013 5th International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications, VS-GAMES 2013.
  • Feigenbaum, A., McCurdy, P. and Frenzel, F., 2013. Towards a Method for studying Affect in (micro)Politics: The Campfire Chats Project and the Occupy Movement. Parallax, 19 (2), 21-37.
  • Frenzel, F., Feigenbaum, A. and McCurdy, P., 2013. 'A research framework for the study of protest camps’. The Sociological Review.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Iqani, M., 2013. Quality after the cuts? Higher education practitioners' accounts of systemic challenges to teaching quality in times of 'austerity'. Journal of Further and Higher Education.
  • Dowling, E., Feigenbaum, A., Pell, S. and Stanley, K., 2012. Occupy london. South Atlantic Quarterly, 111 (3), 608-615.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2012. Security for sale! The visual rhetoric of marketing counter-terrorism technologies. The Poster, Volume 2 (Number 1), 75-92.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2012. Written in the Mud: (Proto)Zine-making and autonomous media at the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp. Feminist Media Studies.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2012. We-Thinking the Classroom. Media Education Research Journal, 2 (2).
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2012. Occupy!: Scenes from Occupied America n+1. SOCIAL MOVEMENT STUDIES, 11 (3-4), 454-456.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2010. "Now I'm a Happy Dyke!": Creating collective identity and queer community in Greenham women's songs. Journal of Popular Music Studies, 22 (4), 367-388.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2010. Concrete needs no metaphor: Globalized fences as sites of political struggle. ephemera theory & politics in organization, 10 (2), 119-133.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2007. The teachable moment: Feminist pedagogy and the neoliberal classroom. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 29 (4), 337-349.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2005. 'Some guy designed this room I'm standing in': Marking gender in press coverage of Ani DiFranco. Popular Music, 24 (1), 37-56.

Books

Chapters

  • Feigenbaum, A., McDougall, J. and Tonnesen, O.D., 2024. Infocomics vs Infodemics: How Comics Utilise Health, Data and Media Literacies. In: Yates, S. and Carmi, E., eds. Digital Inclusion, Policy and Research.. Palgrave.
  • Alberda, A.P. and Feigenbaum, A., 2023. Politics of (comics) representation: Visualising embodied research and data. Research Handbook on Visual Politics. 55-68.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Alberda, A., 2023. Covid-19 Comics and the Data Visualization of Everyday Life. In: Ramírez-Blanco, J. and Spampinato, F., eds. The Pandemic Visual Regime Visuality and Performativity in the COVID-19 Crisis. Punctam Books, 117-148.
  • Alamalhodaei, A., Feigenbaum, A. and Alberda, A., 2020. Humanizing data through 'data comics': An introduction to graphic medicine and graphic social science. In: Kennedy, H. and Engebretsen, M., eds. Data Visualization in Society. Amsterdam University Press.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2019. Tear Gas: Design and Dissent. Design and Activism Perspectives on Design As Activism and Activism As Design. mimesis international.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2018. CAN THE WOMEN’S PEACE CAMP BE TELEVISED?: Challenging mainstream media coverage of Greenham Common. The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism. 47-56.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and Frenzel, F., 2016. Austerity and the post-capitalist politics of protest camps: Experiments in autonomy at Occupy London. Popular Culture and the Austerity Myth: Hard Times Today. 123-138.
  • Feigenbaum, A. and McCurdy, P., 2015. Protest camps as media stages: A case study of activist media practices across three British social movements. Beyond the Internet: Unplugging the Protest Movement Wave. 31-52.
  • Hintz, A., 2015. Protest Camps. 843-845.
  • Adi, A. and Feigenbaum, A., 2014. Communicating the Occupation: how protest groups shape dissent PR. In: L'Etang, J., McKie, D., Snow, N. and Xifra, J., eds. Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations. Routledge.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2007. Remapping the resonances of riot Grrrl: feminisms, postfeminisms, and" processes" of punk. In: Tasker, Y. and Negra, D., eds. Interrogating Postfeminism: Gender and the Politics of Popular Culture. Duke University Press.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2007. SUICIDE GIRLS. Girl Culture: An Encyclopedia: Volume 1. 560-562.

Conferences

  • Feigenbaum, A., 2017. Feminist Data Visualisation Practices. In: Association of Internet Researchers 5-8 October 2016 Berlin, Germany.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2017. Using Social Media to Monitor Police Use of Force: A Case Study of the RiotID Project. In: International Association of Media and Communications Reserach 27-31 July 2016 Leicester, UK.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2016. Vulnerable Warriors: Space, Place and Control in the Marketing of Police Militarization? In: American Association of Geographers 28 March-2 April 2016 San Francisco.
  • Feigenbaum, A., Thorsen, E. and Jackson, D., 2015. Data Stories: Visualising Sensitive Subjects. In: Data Power 22-23 June 2015 University of Sheffield.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2014. The Atmospheric Geographies of Tear Gas. In: Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting (AAG) 8-12 April 2014 USA Florida.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2014. Mediating Tear Gas. In: MECCSA Annual Conference 8-10 January 2014 Bournemouth.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2013. Gameful Pedagogy and Collaborative play. In: CEMP Media Education Summit 19-20 September 2013 Sheffield.
  • Feigenbaum, A., 2013. Gameful Pedagogy and Collaborative Learning: a case study of the NetsX project. In: VS Games 11-13 September 2013 Bournemouth.

Reports

PhD Students

  • Daniel Weissmann, 2020. Political Engagement in Post-Trust Communication Environments
  • Paul Bradshaw

Profile of Teaching PG

  • Youth Culture and Media
  • Contemporary Perspective in Media and Communication

Profile of Teaching UG

  • Digital Communication Strategies; Media and Popular Culture; Critical Debates in Contemporary Politics; Social Communications; Online Culture and Behaviour
  • Digital Communication Strategies
  • Critical Debates in Politics and Media
  • Social Communications
  • Media, Journalism and Society
  • Popular Culture and Media
  • Online Culture and Behaviour
  • Social Media Strategy

Grants

  • Comics in the time of COVID-19: Tracking data on web-based comics and evaluating their potential for communicating public health messages (UKRI/AHRC, 31 Oct 2021). In Progress
  • Media Literacy versus Fake News: Critical Thinking, Resilience and Civic Engagement (US Embassy, 01 Jan 2019). Completed
  • Interactive Data Forecasting and Modelling for NHS England's 'prevention at scale' initiative (MRes) (Public Health Dorset, 02 Apr 2018). In Progress
  • RiotID The Boardgame (UNODC: Education 4 Justice, 01 Jul 2017). Completed
  • BU Datalabs (Fusion Fund CCP, 15 Dec 2014). Completed
  • Communicating Medical Knowledge in the HIstory of Tear Gas (Wellcome Trust, 01 Aug 2014). In Progress
  • Fusing an International Research Network on Tear Gas (Bournemouth University Fusion Fund, 01 Sep 2013). In Progress
  • “More than Just a Mud Hole: Protest Camps and the Legacies of Resurrection City” (Emory University, MARBL, Meardis Cannon Fellowship, 01 Jul 2012). Completed
  • “Quality Enhancement and Prospective Quality Assurance through Teaching Exchange workshops in Media and Communications” (Higher Education Academy - Arts, Design and Media, 01 Mar 2010). Completed
  • “Tactics and technology: Cultural resistance at the Greenham Women's Peace Camp” (The Beaverbrook Fund for Media@McGill, 01 Sep 2007). Completed
  • “Tactics and technology: Cultural resistance at the Greenham Women's Peace Camp” (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Travel Grant, 01 Jan 2006). Completed
  • “Feminist Cultural Activism in the 1980s” (Institute for Historical Research - Mellon Fellowship, 01 Jun 2005). Completed
  • “Canadian Cultural Citizenship” (Max Bell Foundation Grant, 01 Jan 2005). Completed
  • “Feminist Cultural Activism in the 1980s” (Margaret Gillett Research Grant, 01 Jan 2005). Completed

Conference Presentations

  • Games for Change, Playtesting for Social Justice: Ten Takeaways from Developing RiotID: The Board Game, 17 Jun 2019, New York City
  • American Association of Geographers, Tear Gas and the 'Benevolent' British Empire: The Geopolitics of Lethal Lethality in Interwar Colonial Management, 04 Apr 2017, Boston, United States
  • Media Education Summit, Data Visualisation and Media Education: Reflections from the Bournemouth University Datalabs project, 20 Nov 2015, Emerson University
  • Data Power, “Data Stories: Visualising Sensitive Subjects”, 21 Jun 2015, Sheffield
  • WITS University Teaching Exchange, Teaching Exchange Workshop, 05 Nov 2014, WITS University
  • Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association Annual Conference, Media Education Research Journal Roundtable, 07 Jan 2014, Bournemouth University
  • Media Education Summit, ‘Gameful Pedagogy and Collaborative Play,’, 19 Sep 2013, Sheffield Hallam University
  • VS Games Conference, ‘Gameful Pedagogy and Collaborative Learning: A Case Study of the NetsX project,’, 12 Sep 2013, Bournemouth University

Qualifications

  • PhD in Communication Studies (McGill University, 2008)
  • MA in Culture and Communication (University of East Anglia, 2003)
  • BA (Hons) in Philosophy, Politics and Law (Binghamton University, SUNY, 2002)

Honours

  • AAG Enrichment Grant (Association of American Geographers, 2018)
  • AAG Enrichment Grant (American Association of Geographers, 2014)
  • HEA/MeCCSA Award for Best Pedagogy Paper (Higher Education Academy, 2013)
  • Arts Insights Dissertation Award (McGill University, 2008)

Memberships

  • Higher Education Association, Fellow (2013-),
  • MeCCSA Media and Social Movements Network, Member (2013-),
  • Higher Education Academy, Associate (2012-),

Networks

  • Media, Communications and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA); Steering Committee, Social Movements & Media Network (MeCCSA); Feminist History Network; Political Science Association (Anarchist Studies Network); Creative Resistance Research Network; Protest Camp Research Network; Network for Social Innovation and Civic Engagement

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