- Elevating the Film Review: Critics and Critical Practice at the Monthly Film Bulletin MacDonald, Richard. 2016. Elevating the Film Review: Critics and Critical Practice at the Monthly Film Bulletin. Film Studies, 14(1), pp. 93-111. ISSN 1469-0314
- “Going Back in a Heartbeat”: Collective memory and the online circulation of family photographs MacDonald, Richard. 2015. “Going Back in a Heartbeat”: Collective memory and the online circulation of family photographs. Photographies, 8(1), pp. 23-42. ISSN 1754-0763
- Digitisation and Materiality: Researching Community Memory Practice Today MacDonald, Richard; Couldry, Nick and Dickens, Luke. 2015. Digitisation and Materiality: Researching Community Memory Practice Today. The Sociological Review, 63(1), pp. 102-120. ISSN 1467-954X
- “‘I can do things here I can’t do in my own life”: The making of a civic archive at the Salford Lads’ Club’ MacDonald, Richard and Dickens, Luke. 2015. “‘I can do things here I can’t do in my own life”: The making of a civic archive at the Salford Lads’ Club’. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 14(2),
- Digital platforms and narrative exchange: hidden constraints, emerging agency MacDonald, Richard; Couldry, Nick; Stephansen, Hilde and Clark, Wilma. 2015. Digital platforms and narrative exchange: hidden constraints, emerging agency. New Media and Society, 17(6), pp. 919-938. ISSN 1461-4448
- Digital citizenship? Narrative exchange and the changing terms of civic culture Couldry, Nick; Stephansen, Hilde; Fotopoulou, Aristea; MacDonald, Richard; Clark, William and Dickens, Luke. 2014. Digital citizenship? Narrative exchange and the changing terms of civic culture. Citizenship Studies, 18(6-7), pp. 615-629. ISSN 1362-1025
- Film Appreciation and Cultural Leadership: Rudolf Arnheim, Roger Manvell and Two Books Called Film MacDonald, Richard. 2014. Film Appreciation and Cultural Leadership: Rudolf Arnheim, Roger Manvell and Two Books Called Film. Canadian Journal of Film Studies, 23(1), pp. 109-127.
- Constructing a Digital Storycircle: Digital Infrastructure and Mutual Recognition MacDonald, Richard; Couldry, Nick and Stephansen, Hilde. 2014. Constructing a Digital Storycircle: Digital Infrastructure and Mutual Recognition. International Journal of Cultural Studies, ISSN 1367-8779
- Book review of Expanded Cinema: Art, Film, Performance MacDonald, Richard. 2013. Book review of Expanded Cinema: Art, Film, Performance. Moving Image Review and Art Journal, 2(1), pp. 108-115. ISSN 20456298
- Evasive Enlightenment: World Without End and the Internationalism of Postwar Documentary MacDonald, Richard. 2013. Evasive Enlightenment: World Without End and the Internationalism of Postwar Documentary. Journal of British Cinema and Television, 10(3), pp. 452-474. ISSN 1743-4521
- Interview with Dai Vaughan: “Between a Word and a Thing/You Encounter Only Yourself" MacDonald, Richard and Stollery, Martin. 2011. Interview with Dai Vaughan: “Between a Word and a Thing/You Encounter Only Yourself". Journal of British Film and Television, 8(3), pp. 430-446. ISSN 1743-4521
Dr Richard MacDonald
Richard is a media ethnographer who investigates infrastructure, publics and urban life.
Staff details
Position
Senior Lecturer in Media and Communications, Senior Tutor
Department
Media, Communications and Cultural Studies
r.macdonald (@gold.ac.uk)
I am a media ethnographer with an interest in the relationship between technological infrastructures and publics. I look at the way infrastructural systems address and implicate publics, and the spaces of participation and contestation that crystallise around their planning, construction and use. I have also published on the historiography of film and screen culture (projection practices, film publications and writing, film education and the amateur film society movement) and on memory, images and archive practices.
Academic qualifications
- PhD Media & Communications (Goldsmiths, University of London) 2009
- MRes Cultural Studies and Humanities (London Consortium, University of London) 1998
- BSc Anthropology (Goldsmiths, University of London) 1996
Teaching and supervision
Featured publications
Grants and awards
2018: Newton Fund Institutional Links (British Council)
2016:
Newton Fund Mobility Grant (British Academy)
Mobile Media Practices in Everyday Life: Negotiating Commercial Infrastructures and State Control in Mainland Southeast Asia
2014:
British Academy/ASEASUK Visiting Fellowship
Projecting for the Spirits: Film Projection as Ritual Offering in Thailand
Publications and research outputs
Book
- The Appreciation of Film: The Postwar Film Society Movement and Film Culture in Britain MacDonald, Richard. 2016. The Appreciation of Film: The Postwar Film Society Movement and Film Culture in Britain. Exeter: University of Exeter Press. ISBN 9780859898881
Edited Journal
- Archaeology of the Moving Image (Volume 1, Summer 2022) MacDonald, Richard, ed. 2022. Archaeology of the Moving Image (Volume 1, Summer 2022), Archaeology of the Moving Image, 1.
Book Section
- The Smart City and the Extraction of Hope MacDonald, Richard. 2022. The Smart City and the Extraction of Hope. In: Joanna Zylinska, ed. The Future of Media. London: Goldsmiths Press, pp. 297-312. ISBN 9781913380144
- Film Projection and the Sacred Geography of Site-Specific Cinema in Contemporary Thailand MacDonald, Richard L. 2020. Film Projection and the Sacred Geography of Site-Specific Cinema in Contemporary Thailand. In: Virginia Crisp and Gabriel Menotti, eds. Practices of Projection. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190934125
- A place for memory: Family photo collections, social media and the imaginative reconstruction of the working class neighbourhood MacDonald, Richard. 2018. A place for memory: Family photo collections, social media and the imaginative reconstruction of the working class neighbourhood. In: Silke Arnold-de Simine and Joanna Leal, eds. Picturing the Family: Media, Narrative, Memory. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 151-170. ISBN 9781474283601
Article
- A Circumstantial Collective: Tongpan and the Isan Film Group MacDonald, Richard. 2025. A Circumstantial Collective: Tongpan and the Isan Film Group. Senses of Cinema(112), ISSN 1443-4059
- Conjuring the People: Entrepreneurial Localism and the Case of the Khon Kaen Model MacDonald, Richard. 2021. Conjuring the People: Entrepreneurial Localism and the Case of the Khon Kaen Model. Way Magazine,
- Projecting Films to Spirits: on shrines as conjunctural space and the ritual economy of outdoor cinema in Bangkok MacDonald, Richard L. 2017. Projecting Films to Spirits: on shrines as conjunctural space and the ritual economy of outdoor cinema in Bangkok. Visual Anthropology Review, 33(2), pp. 152-163. ISSN 1058-7187
Digital
- For Documentary: Remembering Dai Vaughan MacDonald, Richard and Stollery, Martin. 2012. For Documentary: Remembering Dai Vaughan.
Areas of supervision
I am interested in supervising MPhil/PhD students in any of the following areas
• Film culture, technology and historiography
• Media apparatus and ritual practice
• Rogue archives and collective memory
• Contemporary documentary film and video
• Experimental moving image in Southeast Asia
• Infrastructures and urban life