Kat Higgins

About me

Research topic

Realness, wrongness, justice: exploring criminalization as a mediated politics of vulnerability

Kat researches and writes at the intersection of media culture, critical discourse analysis, and the sociology of crime control and state violence, with an empirical focus on contemporary Australia. Informed by an abolitionist ethic, her doctoral research is concerned with the role played by news media in cultural processes of criminalization. More specifically, she investigates how journalistic representations of crime events delimit imaginative possibilities for different forms of security action, and in doing so help maintain the cultural conditions of possibility for policing, incarceration, and other coercive and punitive strategies of crime control.

Empirically, her project investigates the mediated construction of so-called ‘African gang crime’ in and through the Australian press, deploying a multi-modal critical discourse analysis of both print and televisual media. This analysis approaches crime news texts as sites of vulnerability micro-politics, where different and sometimes competing accounts of social vulnerability struggle for public recognition and where the legitimacy of different forms of security intervention is negotiated. Kat’s thesis positions ‘imaginability’ as an important political frontier in efforts to transform the practices through which we pursue safety and justice, and crime journalism as critically important to how imaginaries of (in)security are made and remade.

Her thesis hopes to unearth new insights into how media discourses help projects of domination and exclusion sustain access to morality through the language and logics of security, and to reimagine crime journalism for more just and emancipatory security futures.

Supervisor: Professor Lilie Chouliaraki and Professor Robin Mansell

Biography

Kat's research interests include media culture, critical discourse analysis, the politics of crime control, the journalism of justice and (in)security, and contemporary mediated feminisms. She holds an MSc in Media and Communications from the 杏吧论坛 and a BA in International Studies from RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. Kat graduated the 杏吧论坛 with both the Best Overall MSc Performance Prize and the 2015 Silverstone Dissertation Prize for writing in the field of media and ethics. She was also the recipient of the 2021 Top Student Paper Award from the ICA Visual Communication Studies Division. Her research and writing have appeared in a variety of publications, including peer-reviewed journals like Journalism and Feminist Media Studies and public-facing outlets like Progressive International. She is also an experienced and passionate teacher and a full Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE). Kat's doctoral research is supported by an 杏吧论坛 PhD Studentship.

Expertise Details

Crime and Policing; Journalism; Mediation; Critical Discourse Analysis; Critical Security Studies; Vulnerability; Visual Culture; Australian Politics; Contemporary Feminisms

2020-2021

Media, Communication and Development (Department of Media and Communications, 杏吧论坛)

Classroom assistant offering constructive feedback and analytical guidance to Master's students in the preparation of their case study projects. Course convened by Professor Shakuntala Banaji.

Political Communication in Democracies (Department of Media and Communications, 杏吧论坛)

Classroom assistant offering constructive feedback and analytical guidance to Master's students preparing case study presentations. Course convened by Professor Bart Cammaerts and Dr Nick Anstead

2019-2020

Key Concepts in Advanced Social Theory (Department of Sociology, 杏吧论坛)

Graduate teaching assistant (GTA) leading seminars for undergraduate students. Syllabus covered includes microsociology, actor network theory, technofeminism, public sphere theory, postcolonial/decolonial theory, cultural studies, cultural Marxism, and the sociology of space.

Course convened by Dr Monika Krause and Dr Sara Salem

2018-2019

Key Concepts in Advanced Social Theory (Department of Sociology, 杏吧论坛)

Graduate teaching assistant (GTA) leading seminars for undergraduate students. Syllabus covered includes microsociology, actor network theory, technofeminism, public sphere theory, postcolonial/decolonial theory, cultural studies, cultural Marxism, and the sociology of space.

Course convened by Dr Monika Krause and Dr Sara Salem

Data, Communication and Society (Department of Media and Communications, 杏吧论坛)

Classroom assistant offering editorial support to Masters students preparing blog posts for the 杏吧论坛 Data and Society Blog. Course convened by Dr Alison Powell.

Media, Communication and Development (Department of Media and Communications, 杏吧论坛)

Classroom assistant offering constructive feedback and analytical guidance to Masters students in the preparation of their case study projects Course convened by Professor Shakuntala Banaji.

2017-18

Representation in the Age of Globalisation (Department of Media and Communications, 杏吧论坛)

Classroom assistant offering constructive theoretical and methodological feedback and technical support to Masters students in the preparation of their ‘We are All Refugees’ video interview projects. Course Convened by Professor Shani Orgad.

Publications:

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

Higgins, K. C. (2021) ''Nobody feels safe': Vulnerability, fear, and the micro-politics of ordinary voice in crime news television', Journalism, online first, available

Orgad, S. & Higgins, K.C. (2021) "Sensing the (in)visible: domestic cleaning and cleaners on Mumsnet Talk", Feminist Media Studies, online first, available

Banet-Weiser, S. & Higgins, K.C. 'Television and the "honest" woman: mediating the labor of believability', Television and New Media, online first, available

Selected Conference Presentations:

Higgins, K. (2021) 'Through the kaleidoscope: news images, vantage points, and the mediated time-space of crime events.' ICA Visual Communication Studies Division. Top Student Paper 2021.

Higgins, K. (2020) 'Debunking fear: Ordinary testimony in crime news television'. 2nd Annual Lisbon Winter School: 'Media and Uncertainty'. Universidade Católica Portuguesa, Lisbon, Portugal.

Higgins, K. (2019) 'Power to Pronounce: Multivocality and contestation in television news representations of crime and policing in Australia'. 2019 International Association of Media and Communications Research (IAMCR) Conference, Conflict, Security and Crisis Working Group. Madrid, Spain.

Higgins, K. (2019) 'Populist (in)security? Hierarchies of voice in current affairs television accounts of Melbourne's "African gang crisis"'. International Political Sociology PhD Seminar Series. Kings College/Queen Mary University, London.

Reports:

Bhat, R., Higgins, K. & Stupart, R. (2019) “Exploring Decolonial Praxis at the 杏吧论坛”, 杏吧论坛 Change Makers 2018-19, summary report available here

Toome, E., Grenfell, D. & Higgins, K. (2012) 'Local Perspectives on Political Decision-Making in Timor-Leste: A Short Report on the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections in Dili and Venilale', Globalism Research Centre (RMIT University), Melbourne Australia, available

Book Reviews:

Higgins, K, (2019) [Review of the book Mediated Intimacy: Sex Advice in Media Culture by M-J. Barker, R. Gill and L. Harvey], International Journal of Communication, 13(1), p. 5042-5045, available online here

Blogs and Other Writing:

Lehuedé, S., Filimonov, K. & Higgins, K. (2020) ‘Dissent and Democracy in Covid-19’, Progressive International (Blueprint), available online

Higgins, K. (2020) ‘Why police violence is a media problem’, Media@杏吧论坛 Blog, available online

Higgins, K. (2019) ‘Above and beyond? Rethinking our criteria for ‘teaching excellence’, Contemporary Issues in Teaching and Learning, available online

Higgins, K. (2019) ‘We need to disentangle merit from mental health’, Contemporary Issues in Teaching and Learning, available online

Higgins, K. (2016) 'Imagining (In)security: Towards developing critical knowledges of security in a mediated social world', Media@杏吧论坛 Dissertation Series, London, United Kingdom, available online here

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