Rebecca’s research crosses sociology, media and cultural studies and feminist theory, and she has particular interests in the everyday life of media; futures and presents; bodies, affect and new materialisms; and inventive methodologies. She is Professor in the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (BDFI) and the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS). She has previously worked in the Sociology Departments at Goldsmiths, University of London and Lancaster University.

Her current research explores digital cultures and time. She is Researcher in Residence at Knowle West Media Centre, a community organisation based in south Bristol that makes thriving neighbourhoods through art, tech and care, where is she working on a collaborative project about the role of community tech in making better digital futures (supported by an AHRC Knowledge Exchange Placement, 2023-2024).

She is also writing a book that draws on empirical research on digital media, temporality and feeling (supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, 2018-19). She has recently completed a collaborative project on time and feeling during the Covid-19 pandemic which included co-commissioning a special directive with Mass Observation, ‘feel tanks’ with young people and an artist response to the research (supported by a British Academy Small Grant, 2021). This is part of a wider collaborative programme of research - A Day at a Time - on everyday experiences of time during and after the pandemic. 

Rebecca has published widely. On media, culture and bodies, this includes Glitterworlds: The Future Politics of a Ubiquitous Thing (2020, Goldsmiths Press), ‘Mediating Presents’, a special issue of Media Theory (edited with Susanna Paasonen, 2020), Transforming Images: Screens, Affect, Futures (2012, Routledge) and The Becoming of Bodies: Girls, Images, Experience (2009, Manchester University Press). 

On time and futures, this includes ‘Futures in Question: Theories, Methods, Practices’ a special issue of Sociological Review (edited with Richard Tutton, 2017), which emerged from the interdisciplinary ESRC Seminar Series on Austerity Futures: Imagining and Materialising the Future in an ‘Age of Austerity’ (2012-2014), which she led.

On interdisciplinary, creative methods, this includes a co-edited book, How to do social research with… (edited with Kat Jungnickel and Nirmal Puwar, 2024, Goldsmiths Press), which is an engaged guide to doing critical and creative social research with a range of unusual things. Other publications in this area include ‘Feminist New Materialist Practice’, a special issue of MAI (edited with Tara Page and Helen Palmer, 2019), which includes visual and practice work alongside written essays, and Deleuze and Research Methodologies (edited with Jessica Ringrose, 2013, Edinburgh University Press).