Stipendiary Lecturer in Politics

Richard Foster

  • I specialise in democratic theory, and in particular, the relationship between capitalist democracies and their media systems.
  • My favourite part about teaching at the University of Oxford is the tutorial system. It allows us to get to know the academic interests of each our students which can be a real source of inspiration to researchers.
  • One thing which is often overlooked in the study of political communication is the effect which entertainment media can have on our political behaviour – sometimes it can have a stronger effect than when politicians try to change political behaviours.

Teaching

I teach on the Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) and History and Politics (HP) degrees.

I provide tutorials on the second-year Theory of Politics course revision tutorials for the first-year Introduction to the Theory of Politics course.

Research

My primary research interest is broadly within the intersection of democratic theory, political economy, and political communication.

In my DPhil research, I examine how the less affluent have been excluded from the media and thereby have a limited voice in public discourses.

I am also researching the effects of entertainment media on political behaviours, the implications of this for democratic theory, and how entertainment media can be become savvier regarding its unintended political effects.

Selected Publications

Afsahi, Afsoun and Richard Foster. Forthcoming. “An Experimental Approach to Deliberative Democracy and Inequality” in The Oxford Handbook of Grounded and Engaged Normative Theory edited by Brooke Ackerly, Luis Cabrera, Genevieve Fuji Johnson, Monique Deveaux, Antje Wiener, Fonna Froman and Gina Starblanket.

Subjects
Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE)
Richard Foster
richard.foster@politics.ox.ac.uk

The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent

E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People