Dr Preeti Raghunath (she/her)
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Lecturer in Digital Media and Society
International Officer, Sociological Studies
Full contact details
School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Floor C
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH
- Profile
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Preeti Raghunath joined the Department of Sociological Studies in May 2023 as a Lecturer in Digital Media and Society. Prior to joining the University of Sheffield, she was a Lecturer in Communication and Media at Monash University, Malaysia. Preeti holds a PhD in Communication (2019) from the University of Hyderabad and a Masters in International Relations and Politics (2011) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, both in India. Before joining academia, Preeti worked as a print and broadcast journalist, in communications and as a researcher.
- Research interests
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Preeti’s multidisciplinary research focuses on histories and lived experiences of communication technology policies. She completed her PhD in Communication in 2019, which was an ethnography of community radio policymaking in South Asia. This work is now available as Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). After her PhD, Preeti has received funding to study Hated Speech, has held research consultancies AI Policies and Gender in Southeast Asia, and Sustainability and the Digital Transformation.
Preeti is currently leading a UKRI-SSHRC project on AI Safety/Security. She is also working on her second book ‘Global Approaches to AI and Data: Theories and Practices’, under contract with the Bristol University Press.
- Publications
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Books
- Community Radio Policies in South Asia A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach. Springer Nature.
Journal articles
- Exploring datafied practices, imaginaries and digital state assemblages in South and South East Asia. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 15(3), 309-324.
- Critical Data Governance: A Southern Standpoint to the study and practice of data. Technology and Regulation, 37-46.
- (Re)Iterations, transgressions, recognition: Politics and practices of media policies in South Asia. Journal of Digital Media & Policy, 13(1), 3-8.
- Editorial. Revue Neurologique, 178(1-2), 3-3.
- Airing imperium: A historiography of radio governance in South Asia. Global Media and Communication, 18(1), 49-66.
- Book review: Hilde Van den Bulck, Manuel Puppis, Karen Donders, Leo Van Audenhove (eds). The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research. Asia Pacific Media Educator, 30(1), 131-135.
- The unfinished business ofNepal’s community radio policy. Media Asia, 41(1), 22-23.
- Decolonizing Open Science: Southern Interventions. Journal of Communication.
Book chapters
- “Hated Speech”: the communicative dimension of progressive politics and (un)democracy in India, Handbook of Progressive Politics (pp. 434-447). Edward Elgar Publishing
- Opening Up the Black Box of Communication Governance in South Asia: Critical Policy Ethnography as Methodology In Padovani C, Wavre V, Hintz A, Goggin G & Iosifidis P (Ed.), Global Communication Governance at the Crossroads Palgrave Macmillan
- Deliberation as pedagogy: gender, intersectionality, and journalism Education in India In Mutsvairo B, Bebawi S & Borges-Rey E (Ed.), The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South (pp. 111-120). Routledge View this article in WRRO
- Deliberation as Pedagogy, The Routledge Companion to Journalism in the Global South (pp. 111-120). Routledge
- Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach: Media Policy Studies from South Asia In Ganter SA & Badr H (Ed.), Media Governance
A Cosmopolitan Critique Palgrave Macmillan
- Deliberating Community Radio in India: A policy ethnography, Community Radio in South Asia Reclaiming the Airwaves (pp. 21-43).
Reports
- Artificial Intelligence and the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in South-east Asia
- Gender-sensitive Artificial Intelligence Policy in Southeast Asia
Other
- Translating experience into enunciation on conducting a policy ethnography in south asia: A researcher reflects on what it means to translate policy ethnography into action.. Economic and Political Weekly, 56(22), 63-64.
Preprints
- Community Radio Policies in South Asia A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach. Springer Nature.
- Research group
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Preeti is a Fellow and ECR co-rep with the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD), and co-leads the Tech and Care research group as well as the interest group on Data-driven Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Shef.AI at Sheffield.
- Grants
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Preeti has secured grants and consultancies with entities like UNU-Macau (for ITU and UN Women), Indian Council for Social Science Research (ICSSR), and the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). She was the recipient of the Best Paper Award from the Communication Technology and Policy section at IAMCR 2018. She is currently Project Lead (UK) for Weaving an AI Safety Net for UK and Canada, UKRI-SSHRC KSG (2025-26).
- Teaching interests
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Postgraduate supervision
Preeti welcomes enquiries from candidates interested in supervising PGR research exploring the situated and lived experiences of AI-data policies and practices. She is particularly interested in lived experiences of policies as they are actualised/intervened in/pushed back against in everyday life.
- Teaching activities
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Preeti teaches the following modules:
- SPR421 Perspectives on Digital Society (MA DMS)
- SPR316 Digital Media Work Placement (BA DMS)
- SPR227 Social Research Design and Methods (BA DMS)
- SPR324 Global Data Industries (BA DMS)
- Professional activities and memberships
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Preeti is Co-Editor of the Palgrave Global Media Policy and Business book series. She is on the Editorial Boards of Critical Policy Studies and the Journal of Digital Media and Policy. Preeti is a member of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA), where she co-leads the Global South research network, and the British Sociological Association (BSA), where she co-leads the BSA Global Histories and Sociology Study Group.
- Partnerships, engagement and impact
Preeti is part of the AI+Planetary Justice Alliance. She also serves on the Board of Trustees of Utopia Theatre, Sheffield. She was instrumental in developing inter-institutional partnerships for research cooperation between Monash University, Malaysia and United Nations University, Macau. Her research report on Hated Speech features in Columbia University’s Global Freedom of Expression curriculum. Based on her PhD research, she was part of a national consultation with the Government of India on media policy in 2017.