Graduate Teaching Assistant in Politics

Richard Foster

  • I specialise in democratic theory. My research concerns how we can make media systems facilitate more inclusive public deliberation.
  • 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 interesting thing which has come out of my research on the study of political communication is the effect which entertainment media can have on our political behaviour. On many occasions, entertainment media can have a stronger effect on our political behaviours that the messages from political parties or politicians.
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Teaching

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

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

Research

My primary research interest concerns democratic theory. In my DPhil research, I examine how media systems can facilitate increased inclusivity in public deliberation. In the bulk of my research, I draw on empirical methods to examine media systems and consider how they can be improved.

I have additional research interests in broader deliberative politics, communication studies, urban governance, and empirical approaches the political theory.

Selected Publications

Richard Foster. Forthcoming. Review of Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere and Deliberative Politics, Oxford Political Review. Issue 13.

Afsoun Afsahi 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

“Just as printing made everyone a potential reader, today digitalisation is making everyone into a potential author. But how long did it take until everyone was able to read?”

Jürgen Habermas