What area of study explores the relationship between media, popular culture, and geopolitics? Popular geopolitics.
That’s the focus of my latest chapter in the newly published ‘Elgar Concise Encyclopaedia of Geopolitics’ (2026).
📚: www.elgaronline.com/display/book...
"It is the irrepressible warmth and optimism of its storytelling that draws so many back to Call the Midwife each and every year."
A wonderfully festive piece from Geography Lecturer @aliceewatson.bsky.social to get you excited for Christmas... 🎄
@stjohnsox.bsky.social @oxfordgeography.bsky.social @ox.ac.uk @socsci.ox.ac.uk
Happy to share this festive article I’ve written for the BBC about the magic, storytelling, and enduring popularity of the Call the Midwife Christmas specials - filled with clips of memorable moments and standout scenes from the programme archive 📺🎄
www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthe...
Great to share my research on the power of Call the Midwife and popular culture at this year’s RGS conference in Birmingham. So pleased to get a copy of ‘The Promise of Cultural Geography’ too 📚 #RGSIBG25
@stjohnsox.bsky.social | @oxfordgeography.bsky.social | @ox.ac.uk | @socsci.ox.ac.uk | @ukri.org
🚨📝 Delighted my latest article has been published online in Social & Cultural Geography today!
‘The power of representations to affect and effect: podcasting, popular culture, and audience stories behind Call the Midwife’.
It’s free to access and read here: tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
A new co-produced video series from the BBC and Dr Alice Watson, from the School of Geography and the Environment, explores how the acclaimed television drama Call the Midwife inspires audiences to engage, create, and connect.
Read more: bit.ly/43gCrIO
Contrary to being trivial or unworthy of academic interest, popular culture is revealed to be deeply meaningful to audiences who take ownership of Call the Midwife and through their own meticulous, uplifting, and identity-defining activities, breathe added life into it.
Our co-produced video series features interviews with 6 devoted fans from across the UK. Collectively, it illustrates how audiences express their passion for media and popular culture in interesting, innovative, and obsessive ways and become creators, storytellers, and artists in their own right.
Happy to share my latest project with the BBC exploring how audiences have been inspired by Call the Midwife to engage in a whole range of creative practices, from recording podcasts and collecting memorabilia to designing intricate cross-stitch patterns and knitting nuns and midwives! 🍰 🚲 🏥
Now out and #openaccess in issue 30(2): Reporting on Europe’s Migration ‘Crisis’ for BBC Radio 4: Journalists and the Geopolitics of Storytelling by Alice Watson @aliceewatson.bsky.social
Download and read for free:
