Hannah Smith

My research is focussed on media representation of six chosen acts of political violence during The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Specifically looking at the years in the beginning of the conflict (1969-1974), and comparing a selection of British Anglophone, Irish Anglophone, NI Anglophone and Irish-language print media, I aim to establish how events and people involved are translated into stereotypical and often harmful identity tropes. I thus explore how these representations promote and sustain the relationship between Self and Other. 

Expanding Stanley Cohen's Folk Devils and Moral Panics (1972), I consider how Folk Devils were created by the media during the Troubles in dynamic and context-specific scenarios, resulting in Othering occurring in different ways, and in different temporospatial contexts. 

My primary research interests are in translation, and particularly news media as a site of translation. I am also interested in research relating to the promotion and protection of minority languages, conflict studies and the sociology of communication. 

I have experience in teaching at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

I am currently a tutor on the L1 undergraduate module Language, Politics and Conflict, run in the Irish and Celtic Studies department of the School of Arts, English and Languages in Queen's University Belfast. 

I am currently also a tutor in two postgraduate modules, Principles of Community Interpreting and Theory and Practice of Translation, both for sudents of MA Translation in the Centre for Translation and Interpreting, Queen's University Belfast.

In addition to teaching, I have undertaken personal development courses in the Graduate School, Queen's University Belfast, in order to enhance the pedagogical experience of students and colleagues with whom I work. 

I can be contacted by email at: [email protected]