Dario Llinares

My research can be divided into three overarching strands:

1) Spanning cultural studies, critical theory, gender studies, film studies and film-philosophy my research has sought to analyse how socio-historical and political contexts are shaped by mediatory forms and representations, thus unpacking hegemonic and ideological structures ingrained within media. This area derives from my PhD study and continues with regular outputs based on discursive, textual analysis and audience research. In this context, I am currently writing a journal article for The Film Studies Journal entitled ‘Icons of toxicity: the ambivalent aesthetics of masculinity in turn-of-the-century cinema’.

2) I am interested in the shifting parameters of cinema and the cinematic in the context of the digital age. This includes the status film studies as a discipline, the effects of digital communication on spectatorship, concepts of the audience, post, meta and expanded cinemas, and cinema’s status as a social practice. This element of research underpinned a recent journal article on second screening which explored the results of an audience research project entitled Interactive Spectatorships.

3) My most recent research focus is the medium of podcasting, particularly the potential and current outcomes of this sound medium not only as a non-traditional platform communication and dissemination of research, but as a tool for the very production for knowledge production through sonic means. This research strand originally derived from my production and hosting of The Cinematologists (www.cinematologists.com), a podcast that traverses the boundaries between cinephilia, popular criticism, fandom, and academia. Having completed over 90 episodes with 20000+ subscribers and collaborated with many organisations including the BFI, MUBI, Curzon and Picturehouses, The Cinematologists has become a leading site for ‘new cinephilia’ and audio film analysis. This work has instigated a shift in my research towards examining and utilising the potential of audio based practice-led research. This year I have published Podcast Studies: Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media (Palgrave MacMillan) with Dr Neil Fox & Richard Berry, the first edited collection of research work on podcasting from a Media and Cultural Studies perspective. Alongside this I have started New Aural Cultures podcast in which I interview researchers about their use of podcasting. The next phase of this research is an AHRC funding bid (over £150000) on which I am the Principal Investigator, aimed defining and expanding Podcasting Studies through a survey of audio engagement for academic purposes in the UK and the development of a bespoke software programme for academic podcast hosting.

My supervisory interests span a diverse range of disciplines: Film Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Audience research, Film-Philosophy and Podcast Studies. I am particularly interested in supervising projects that look to interrogate the very concept of "the cinematic" as it is being reformulated in the digital age. Another area of interest is the burgeoning field of Podcast Studies. As this area is yet to be fully formulated it offers the potential for PhD work of the effect of the still relatively new audio medium within wider contexts of media transformation.

If I could outline an over-arching philosophy to define my teaching it is to aid students in finding the knowledge, skills and confidence to articulate their own knowledge and express their creativity, i.e. to find a voice. My central approach facilitating this is to foster an atmosphere of interaction and open communication through my own mode of delivery and by setting up structures and task for learning that engender this. Although lectures and seminars still define the overarching structure through which learning is organised, I look to 'disrupt' the structural boundaries in innovative ways. This kind of in-lecture process of engagement formulates the learning process as a partnership rather than a hierarchical top-down formulation of student-teaching relationship. My desire is to engender a balance where students have the freedom to engage in artistic experimentation sensibility that goes beyond vocational training, and deploy the tools of critical thinking both a rigorous and applied way.