Counter-Research Symposium at King's

On Friday, 27 February 2026, King’s College London hosted the inaugural event for CRIMSON (Counter Research in Media Studies Organised Network). The symposium was sponsored by the King’s Arts & Humanities Research Culture Grant and co-sponsored by the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture (CRCC) at Loughborough University.

In the photo: Munira Cheema, Anna Khlusova, Jiali Fan, Matthias De Bondt, Woori Han, Hong Yu Liu, Yuval Katz

About the Symposium:

The symposium introduced the CRIMSON network and brought together CRIMSON members and scholars working on related themes to reflect on the meaning and stakes of counter-research in global media and communication studies—particularly in the context of rising right-wing populism and intensifying attacks on critical theories and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Key questions discussed throughout the day included: how should we study the discourse produced by communities on the margins who seek to speak truth to power? How can we make sense of their media work that “talks back” and offers new epistemologies, subverting what is considered mainstream? And how can media scholars treat this symbolic labour with appropriate sensitivity and care, ensuring that research does not jeopardise either participants or researchers?

The event was particularly attentive to the experiences of early-career scholars, who often struggle to find institutional and peer support for research that is both politically sensitive and difficult to explain, especially when it focuses on contexts outside Anglo-American cultural spheres.

Roundtable: Introducing CRIMSON

The event began with a roundtable discussion featuring the core members of the CRIMSON network, laying the foundation for further conversations throughout the day. The founding members explored different contexts of counter-research and counter-discourse through a range of case studies they are currently working on, including queer and feminist activism in South Korea and Russia, counterpublics in Pakistan, influencers and tech workers in China, and media professionals in Israel/Palestine.

The roundtable also addressed the methodological, practical, and ethical challenges associated with this type of research, including how to manage the vulnerabilities and precarities involved in conducting counter-research, what risks researchers and participants may face, and the institutional barriers scholars encounter when undertaking such work.

The symposium also featured two panel discussions focusing on the ethical, methodological, and practical challenges of conducting counter-research, as well as the politics of representation.

Panel 1: Ethical, Methodological, and Practical Challenges of Conducting Counter-Research

This panel featured presentations from Meghan Lazier Stemp (Royal College of Art), Kennis Lai Mohrbach (Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf), Carlos Eduardo Barros (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro) and Asif Ali Akhtar (London School of Economics).

The presentations explored diverse research sites and a range of complex ethical and methodological questions that arise from their counter-research practice, including: How can we approach counter-research as an embodied practice, particularly when working on highly sensitive topics such as reproductive rights? What does it mean to conduct multi-sited research on media institutions in Pakistan, where the researcher is constantly surveilled while conducting their work? How can one research the film industry in Hong Kong, where practitioners practise self-censorship and are reluctant to open up? How can one counter the power of big tech companies in Brazil as they prey on the weak for profit?

Panel 2: The Politics of Representation and the Intersections of Gender, Race, Sexuality, Class, Caste, and Coloniality in Counter-Research

Panel 2 included presentations from Camille Parrau (University of Paris), Jakob Kleofas Adolph (Aarhus University), and Zhengyu Yang (University of Westminster).

In this panel, the discussion shifted towards questions of representation, researcher positionality, and how counter-research is always entwined with issues of power, as well as the intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, and coloniality.

Camille Parrau’s presentation examined what she terms American “asylum cinema”, exploring how such films evoke traumatic memories of war in the United States and contribute to processes of collective reflection on questions of race, sexuality, and broader social histories.

The next presentation, by Jakob Kleofas Adolph, focused on the challenges of conducting digital ethnography in the Nordic manosphere, including the ways gender can shape access and fieldwork dynamics.

Zhengyu Yang’s paper also addressed questions of power and positionality, asking what it means to focus on the experiences of cleaners in China and to generate research that strives to empower participants rather than extract information from them.

Keynote Address

In the photo: Professor Natalie Fenton 

One of the highlights of the symposium was the keynote address by Professor Natalie Fenton (Goldsmiths, University of London). Natalie spoke passionately about the need to move beyond research that focuses exclusively on diagnosing problems in society, which has been the primary focus of critical media studies, and instead offer a viable, practical vision for a better future.

Natalie also spoke about the urgent need for honesty in academia, in which one “needs to know where they stand and what they are going to do about it” through brave engagement with political issues. Natalie underscored the importance of this type of scholarship at a moment when academia in the UK and elsewhere is under immense pressure to conform to market logics and refrain from being controversial for the sake of student enrolment and reputation management. Ultimately, for Natalie, “critical theory needs to be emancipatory. What’s the point in doing counter research if we don’t offer an alternative?”

Looking Ahead

The symposium marked the beginning of what the organisers hope will become an ongoing series of events and collaborations between members of the network and scholars working on related themes.

The organisers are currently developing a short reflective academic article outlining the contours of counter-research, partly based on insights from the symposium. They are also in discussions with academic publishers about editing a book that will bring together diverse perspectives on counter-research in academia.

Finally, the network plans to organise a future event focusing on the pedagogical dimensions of counter-knowledge and on appropriate ways to bring these sensitive conversations into the classroom.