Dr Abigail Wincott

Senior Lecturer Journalism and Communications

Abigail Wincott has over 20 years' experience as a journalist in print, broadcast and online, including 15 years at BBC Radio 4 and the World Service. At the BBC she produced and presented a range of output across current affairs, arts, science and education for UK and international audiences. In 2007 she went part-time at the BBC to teach media production and journalism at the University of Brighton, where she completed a PhD part-time in 2017. She joined Falmouth University's School of Writing and Journalism in 2019, where she teaches journalism and communication theory and practice, specialising in radio/audio production.

External websites

Blog

Qualifications

Year	Qualification	Awarding body
2017	PhD	University of Brighton
2011	PgCert	University of Brighton
1994	BA(Hons)	University of Kent

Research Interests

Research interests and expertise

Abigail Wincott's particular areas of knowledge and interest are in audio production and in how professional cultures adapt to changes in technology and wider society. For example how new forms of expertise are negotiated through alternative food discourses online and changing expectations of editorial compliance and media ethics.
She has worked extensively on heritage discourses in the media, investigating the role 'heritage' plays in framing debates about food poverty and thrifty living, and issues like biodiversity and food justice.

Recently she has used location based media to work with museums, archives and community groups to create new kinds of heritage space where many heritage visions can take shape, and many different pasts be remembered through stories, images and sound. Sound is often a neglected sense in the media and in heritage and Wincott is now developing new work is concentrating on the potential for acoustic modelling and historic soundscapes on mobile phones.

At the same time, she is developing new projects on immersive and spatial media for audio journalism, where it offers new creative potential, but can be in tension with established values of impartiality and expert knowledge.

Abigail Wincott is interested in supervising students in media, journalism and cultural studies, particularly in the following areas:
- New technology and changing professional cultures in journalism and heritage sector
- Audio/radio journalism and sound studies
- Discourse approaches to researching journalism and popular culture
- Practice-based journalism research projects
- Spatial media (location-based or locative media, immersive and mobile media)
- Heritage and new technology
- Heritage, space and place
- Heritage and popular culture

Research topics

Journalism Studies
Immersive Media
Sound
Heritage

Research Outputs

Publications and research outputs

Article

Wincott, Abigail (2017) Treasure in the vault: the guardianship of 'heritage' seeds, fruit and vegetables. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 21 (6). pp. 627-642. ISSN 13678779

Wincott, Abigail (2015) Heritage in danger or mission accomplished? Diverging accounts of endangerment, conservation and 'heritage' vegetables in print and online. Food, Culture and Society, 18 (4). pp. 569-588. ISSN 1552-8014

Book Chapter

Wincott, Abigail (2018) When Carrots Become Posh: Untangling the Relationship Between 'Heritage' Foods and Social Distinction. In: Alternative Food Politics: From the margins to the mainstream. Critical Food Studies . Routledge, London and New York. ISBN 978-1-138-30080-4 Item availability may be restricted.

Wincott, Abigail (2016) The allotment in the restaurant: the paradox of foodie austerity and changing food values. In: Hard Times Today: Austerity, Myth and Popular Culture. Research in Cultural and Media Studies . Routledge, Abingdon, pp. 28-41. ISBN 978-1138942943

Wincott, Abigail and Griffin, Kathleen (2013) Interactivity beyond the Newsroom: a study of the interactive relationship in two BBC radio productions. In: Public Service Media in the Digital Age. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Cambridge, pp. 69-88. ISBN 9781443853033

Teaching

Courses taught

Journalism BA(Hons)
Journalism and Communications BA(Hons)
Journalism and Creative Writing BA(Hons)
Sports Journalism BA(Hons)