Dr Rebecca Williams

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I am an Associate Professor in Media Audiences and Participatory Cultures at the University of South Wales where I also hold roles as the Creative Industries Research & Innovation Group Co-Lead and Co-Chair of the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries Ethics Committee. My PhD research focused on television fan practices and self-identity, and I also hold an MA in Critical & Cultural Theory, and a BA in Journalism, Film & Broadcasting.

My current projects focus on the experience economy, media tourism, and themed and immersive entertainment; the connections between media, space and place; audience responses to on-screen representation of local places; and the lived and embodied experiences of media and screen tourists when they visit important sites. Much of this research focuses on themed spaces, primarily through the concept of ‘spatial transmedia’ and seeks to challenge established binary oppositions between commercial and non-commercial media tourist sites, audiences and producers, and textual and spatial readings. My current work in this area includes chapters for the forthcoming edited collections Fright Nights: Live Horror Events (Edinburgh University Press), and The Routledge Handbook of Immersive Arts & Media, a chapter on Nintendo-themed places for a collection on Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Mario, and developing a book proposal for a monograph, provisionally titled Spatial Transmedia, Branded Iconography, and Play: Experiencing Universal Studios’ Global Theme Parks. I am also currently working on a co-edited collection titled Pikachu’s Transmedia Adventures: The Continuing Adaptability of the Pokemon Franchise.

The other main area of my research inquiry has been within television studies, primarily on audience and fan responses’ to the intersections between television texts and place/space/location, and the notion of endings, resurrections and returns (with particular focus on how self-identity and self-narrative are impacted by changing media and digital contexts). For example, I recently edited a special issue of Critical Studies in Television on the 40th anniversary of EastEnders and contributed an article on fan reactions to soap narrative within the contemporary television landscape, and the developments of convergence culture.

I have published several books including two monographs, Theme Park Fandom: Spatial Transmedia, Materiality & Participatory Cultures (2020, Amsterdam University Press) and Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity & Self-Narrative (2015, Bloomsbury) and the edited collections Animation: Key Films/Filmmakers: Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas (2025, Bloomsbury, with Filipa Antunes and Brittany Eldridge), A Fan Studies Primer: Method, Ethics Research (2021, University of Iowa Press, with Paul Booth), Everybody Hurts: Transitions, Endings & Resurrections in Fan Cultures (2018, University of Iowa Press) and Torchwood Declassified (2013, I.B. Tauris). I also edited a special issue of the Journal of Fandom Studies on the topic of fan endings, transitions and resurrections in 2018 and co-edited a special issue of Critical Studies in Television in 2011 and a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist on the topic of fan controversies in 2022.

In addition, I have published over 50 pieces in edited collections or international journals including Popular Communication, Critical Studies in Television, Continuum, Media History, Journal of British Cinema and Television, Gothic Studies, Popular Music and Society, Television and New Media, Series: International Journal of TV Serial Narratives, Cinema Journal , European Journal of Cultural Studies , Celebrity Studies, and Participations. 

I have experience writing for a broader public audience and have guest blogged at Fantasy/Animation, In Media Res, The Conversation, and Critical Studies in Television. I am regularly consulted as an expert on media and fan cultures and have produced research for the BBC, and offered expert opinion to stakeholders including global tech companies and The Natural History Consortium. I am frequently interviewed as an expert on media audiences and fandom, theme parks, and media tourism in national and international media including podcasts, print and online media (such as Vanity Fair, The Sunday Times, Gay Times, GQ Magazine, Fast Company, New Scientist, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Wired, Verdens Gang (Norway), Information (Denmark)), on radio (for BBC Wales, BBC World Service, BBC Radio Coventry, and Heart Radio Wales), and television (BBC One Wales: The Wales Report).

I was Co-Editor-in-Chief of Popular Communication between 2022 and 2024 and remain a member of the Editorial Board. I also sit on the Editorial Boards of the International Journal of Disney Studies, Celebrity Studies, Journal of Fandom Studies, and Transformative Works and Cultures and was a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Intensities: Cult Media Journal.

I am also a former member of the Management Committee of Cyfrwng: Media Wales Journal and previously held the role of Book Reviews Assistant for Critical Studies in Television. I served as a member of the Steering Committee for the Fan & Audience Studies Special Interest Group for the Society of Cinema & Media Studies between 2018 and 2020 and again from 2022 to 2024. I also sit on the Steering Groups of the George Ewert Evans Centre for Storytelling and the Centre for Media and Culture in Small Nations at the University of South Wales.