Lecturer and Convenor, BA Promotional Media
Media, Communications and Cultural Studies
r.garland (@gold.ac.uk)
My main research project is a longitudinal study of UK government communications from 1979 to date.
I spent more than 25 years in public sector PR, taking my PhD at the LSE in 2016. My research focuses on governments' relations with media taking the UK since 1979 as a case study. I am critical of the narrative of political spin, preferring to examine the broader relations between politics and media as an interaction between and within elites that excludes the public. I am concerned to identify the role of impartiality as a factor in trustworthy and credible public communication.
I worked at the BBC for 19 years as a publicist for TV and its associated published products, and in that time had the chance to observe television production from behind the scenes. I remain fascinated by the making of television programmes and the construction and practice of 'celebrity'. As a sideline to my main research I have conducted a longitudinal thematic analysis of the ITV daytime programme 'Loose Women', focusing on the contradiction between its pursuit of commercial and showbiz values while claiming to challenge stereotypes of female ageing. I have contributed a chapter to a forthcoming Rowan and Littlefield book 'Gender: Representation, Engagement and Expression in the Digital Sphere', edited by Barbara Mitra, entitled 'The social media feeds of Loose Women: taking the temperature of popular feminism'. I have attended conferences and presented papers relating to the representation by Loose Women of older women and cosmetic surgery.
2021:
Garland, R & Lilleker, D (2021). From consensus to dissensus: the UK’s management of a pandemic in a divided nation. Chapter in Political Communicatio
Compares the content of coronavirus briefings conducted by the UK and Scottish governments and their reception by the public and media.
2021:
Government Communications and the Crisis of Trust: from Political Spin to Post-Truth
Book by Ruth Garland, published by Palgrave Macmillan.
2017:
Has Government Been Mediatized: a UK Perspective
R.Garland, D.Tambini & N.Couldry (authors). Published in Media, Culture and Society
2018:
Is post-truth another word for political spin or a radical departure from it? Evidence from behind the scenes in UK government communications: 1997–20
Journal article by Ruth Garland in International Journal of Media and Politics
2017:
Between mediatisation and politicisation: The changing role and position of Whitehall press officers in the age of political spin
Journal article by Ruth Garland in Public Relations Inquiry
Garland, Ruth. 2024. No escape from the No.10. bunker? UK government news management under siege: John Major (1990-97) and Boris Johnson (2019-2022). Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 29(1), pp. 24-37. ISSN 1356-3289
Garland, Ruth. 2018. The unseen power of creative news management in government: The marginalisation of UK Government press officers between 1997 and 2015. Journal of Communication Management, 22(4), pp. 416-431. ISSN 1363-254X
Garland, Ruth. 2018. Is post-truth another word for political spin or a radical departure from it? Evidence from behind the scenes in UK government communications: 1997–2015. International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, 14(3), pp. 333-350. ISSN 1740-8296
Garland, Ruth. 2021. Government Communications and the Crisis of Trust: From Political Spin to Post-truth. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9783030775759
Garland, Ruth. 2025. Spin. In: A Nai and M Gromping, eds. Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Garland, Ruth. 2024. Spin. In: A Nai; M Gromping and D Wirz, eds. Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
Garland, Ruth. 2024. The Social Media Feeds of Loose Women: Taking the Temperature of Popular Feminism. In: Barbara Mitra; Sharon Young and Mehreen Mirza, eds. Gender in the Digital Sphere: Representation, Engagement and Expression. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538155684
Garland, Ruth. 2023. Written evidence submitted by the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London Written evidence submitted to the House of Commons Select Committee on Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs in response to call for evidence for the Inquiry into Civil Service Leadership and Reform.