University of Glamorgan

Faculty Member, Cardiff School of CReative and Cultural Industries

About

Rebecca Williams is a lecturer in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies and currently teaches on the modules Digital Media & Society, Media Audiences & Fandom and Media & Culture in Wales.

She completed her PhD – a comparative study of online TV fans and their use of fandom to perform identity work – at Cardiff University.

Since arriving at the University of Glamorgan in 2008 Rebecca has worked on audience research on a Welsh reality television programme, Coal House/Coal House at War, and on a BBC Trust/Audience Council for Wales project on the portrayal of Wales and Welshness in landmark TV drama.

Rebecca has produced articles on articles on female fans of Doctor Who & David Tennant, participants in historical-reality television, representations of TV Horror in Torchwood, fan responses to the demise of television shows, and a co-authored piece on transnational fans of the Twilight franchise. She is currently working on papers on theoretical approaches to fandom and, with Dr. Ruth McElroy, audiences of local historical-reality television.

Her research interests include audiences and fandom, cultural identity, stardom and celebrity, online research, Welsh media and culture, mainstream and middlebrow media, and issues of quality, canonicity and cultural value.

She has recently completed an edited collection, Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television for I.B.Tauris. She is currently engaged in research on local celebrity in small nations, and fan responses to the end of TV shows.


Publications

Books

Williams, R. (ed.) (forthcoming, 2013) Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television, London: I.B. Tauris.

Journal Articles

Williams, R. (forthcoming) ‘“Anyone who calls Muse a Twilight band will be shot on sight”: Music and distinction inside/outside Twilight fandom’, Popular Music and Society.

Williams, R. (2011) ‘Cannibals in the Brecon Beacons: Torchwood, Place and Television Horror’, Critical Studies in Television, 6 (2): 61-73.

Blandford, S. Lacey, S. McElroy, R. and Williams, R. (2011) ‘Editorial: Television Drama and National Identity: The Case of ‘Small Nations’’, Critical Studies in Television, 6 (2): x-xvii.

Williams, Rebecca (2011) ‘“This is the night TV died”: Television post-object fandom and the demise of The Wing Wing’, Popular Communication, 9 (4): 266-279.

Williams, R. (2011) ‘“Wandering off into soap land”: Gender, genre and ‘shipping’ The West Wing’, Participations: International Journal of Audience Research, 8 (1) http://www.participations.org/Volume%208/Issue%201/williams.htm

Williams, R. (2011) ‘“Endemol approved clones”: Big Brother, illusio and celebrity: Celebrity Forum special issue: Big Brother RIP: 10 years of celebrity production’, Celebrity Studies, 2 (2): 218-220.

McElroy, R. and Williams. R. 2011) ‘Remembering Ourselves, Viewing the Others: historical reality television and celebrity in the small nation’, Television and New Media, 12 (3): 187-206.

McElroy, R. and Williams, R. (2011) ‘The Appeal of the Past in Historical Reality Television: Coal House at War and its audiences’, Media History, 17 (1): 79-86.

Williams, R. (2010) ‘Good Neighbours?: Fan/producer relationships and the broadcasting field’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 24 (2):
279-189.

Blandford, S. Lacey, S. McElroy, R. and Williams, R. (2010) ‘Comment: Screening the Nation?  Contemporary Landmark Drama from Wales’, Cyfrwng:
Media Wales Journal, 7.

Hills, M. and Williams, R. (2005) ‘It’s All My Interpretation: Reading Spike Through
the ‘Subcultural Celebrity’ of James Marsters’, European Journal of Cultural Studies, 8 (3): 345-65.

Williams, R. (2004) ‘“It’s About Power”: Spoilers and Fan Hierarchy in On-Line
Buffy Fandom’, Slayage: The On-Line International Journal of Buffy Studies,
11-12. http://slayageonline.com/essays/slayage11_12/Williams.htm

Chapters in Edited Collections


Williams, R. (forthcoming) ‘Neighbours’ in Bridget Griffen-Foley et al (ed.) A Companion to the Australian Media, Australian Scholarly Publishing.

Williams, R. (forthcoming, 2013) ‘Introduction – Torchwood: Bridging the mainstream/cult rift’ in Rebecca Williams (ed.) Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television, London: I.B. Tauris.

Williams, R. (forthcoming, 2013) ‘Tonight’s the Night with ...Captain Jack!: John Barrowman as celebrity/subcultural celebrity/localebrity’, in Rebecca Williams (ed.) Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television, London: I.B. Tauris.

Williams, R. (forthcoming, 2012) ‘Unlocking The Vampire Diaries: Genre, authorship, and quality in teen TV horror’, in Sam George and Bill Hughes (ed.) Open Graves, Open Minds: Vampires and the Undead in Modern Culture, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Williams, R. (2011) ‘Desiring The Doctor: Identity, gender and genre in online science-fiction fandom’ in James Leggott and Tobias Hochscherf (ed.) British Science Fiction Film and Television: Critical Essays, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.

Williams, R and Kalviknes Bore, I.L. (2010) ‘Transnational Twilighters: A Twilight fan community in Norway’ in Melissa Click, Jennifer Stevens Aubrey, and Lissa Behm-Morawitz (ed.) Bitten by Twilight: Youth Culture, Media, and the Vampire Franchise, New York: Peter Lang.

Williams, R. (2007) ‘From Beyond Control to In Control: Investigating Drew Barrymore’s Feminist Agency/Authorship’, in Su Holmes and Sean Redmond (eds.) Fame Culture: The Reader in Stardom and Celebrity, London: Sage.

Hills, M. and Williams, R. (2005) ‘Angel’s Monstrous Mothers and Vampires with Souls: Investigating the Abject in ‘Television Horror’’ in Stacey Abbott (ed.) Reading Angel: The TV Spin-Off With A Soul, London: I.B. Tauris.

Book & Conference Reviews

Williams, R. (2011) ‘Book review: Enric Castello, Alexander Dhoest and Hugh
O’Donnell (ed.) (2009) The Nation on Screen: Discourses of the National on Global
Television’, Critical Studies in Television, 6 (2).

Williams, R. (2010) ‘Cyfrwng Conference 2009 Report’, Cyfrwng website.
http://www.cyfrwng.com/e/conference/2009.shtml

Williams, R. (2009) ‘Book review: Jill Walker Rettberg (2008) ‘Blogging: Digital
Media and Society Series’, Journalism Studies 10 (4): 568–569.

Williams, R. (2008) ‘Conference review: Whoniversal Appeal: An Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Conference on Doctor Who, and its Spin-Offs, Cardiff University, 14–16 November, 2008’, Critical Studies in Television Online
http://criticalstudiesintelevision.com/index.php?siid=8611

Williams, R. (2008) ‘Book review: Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss and C. Lee
Harrington (ed.) (2007) Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World’,
Participations 5 (2)
http://www.participations.org/Volume%205/Issue%202/5_02_williams_review.htm

Conference Papers

‘Tonight’s the Night with ...Captain Jack!: John Barrowman as celebrity/subcultural celebrity/localebrity’’,Alien Nation: A Conference on British Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Television, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, July 2011.

‘Transnational Twilighters: A Twilight fan community in Norway’, with Dr. Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore, 4th Edinburgh International Film Audiences Conference, Edinburgh Filmhouse, March 2011.

‘Unlocking The Vampire Diaries: Genre, authorship, and quality in the teen vampire series’, Vegetarians, VILFs and Fang-Bangers: Modern Vampire Romance in Print and on Screen, de Montfort University, Leicester, November 2010.

‘Screening the Nation: Landmark television and the representation of a small bilingual nation’, with Dr. Ruth McElroy, ECREA European Communication Conference, University of Hamburg, October 2010.

‘Portrayal, nation and Welsh contemporary landmark drama’, with Dr. Ruth McElroy, Theorising Wales: Gender, Culture, Politics, University of Wales Conference Centre, July 2010.

‘“Anyone who calls Muse a Twilight band will be shot on sight”: Music, fandom, and distinction in the Twilight franchise’, Popular Music Fandom: A One-Day Symposium, University of Chester, June 2010.

‘Channeling horror: Torchwood, monstrosity and the road to BBC1’, Investigating
Torchwood: Texts, Contexts, Audiences, University of Glamorgan, June 2010.

‘Making Sense of the Past? Television history and its participatory audiences’, with Dr. Ruth McElroy, Television History Conference, University of Lincoln, July 2009.

‘Press coverage of landmark television and the small nation: Doctor Who, Torchwood, and Wales’, “Locating Media” NECS Conference, Lund University, Sweden, June 2009.

‘Remembering Ourselves, Viewing the Others: participant audiences of historical reality TV’, with Dr. Ruth McElroy, Big Reveal: Lifestyle TV Conference, University of Brighton, May 2009.

“Meeting in a dark alley!” Understanding fan/producer relationships through Bourdieu’s field theory in online Neighbours fandom, MECCSA Postgraduate Conference, University of Sussex, July 2008.

‘Pure power, pure pleasure? Recontextualising fan/object and fan/fan relationships’, MeCCSA Postgraduate Conference, University of the West of England, Bristol, July, 2007.

‘Post-object fandom and the demise of The West Wing’, MeCCSA Postgraduate Sharing Experience Conference, Aberystwyth University, April, 2007.

Contact Information