Dr Toby Bennett
I am Senior Lecturer in Media, Culture & Organisation in the School of Media and Communications. I lead the MA Global Media Business, in partnership with the Communication University of China. I am also a member of the Communication and Media Research Institute, coordinating the research seminar series, and a production editor for the Journal of Cultural Economy. Following a career in the music industry, I gained my PhD from King's College London in 2016. Since then I have held Research Fellowships at Solent University and City, University of London, and teaching positions at Southampton (Winchester School of Art), Queen Mary (Business School), City (Cultural Policy and Management) and Westminster (Music Business). I joined Westminster full-time at the start of 2023.
My research interests focus on the organisation of culture, work, policy and knowledge in relation to the media industries and creative economy, broadly conceived, with particular interest in the business of music. I have published on the topics of passion in work, administrative labour, critiques of gender inequalities, cultural statistics, and the 'music city' as policy construct. Current interests cover the financialisation of music, the management and governance of global cultural production networks and the organisational development of cultural and media theory. My book "Corporate Life in the Digital Music Industry" (Bloomsbury 2024) documents how employees in major record companies managed and shaped digitisation processes.