Bio

Dr Francesca Sobande is a writer and senior lecturer in Digital Media Studies at Cardiff University (UK). Her work examines the power and politics of media and the marketplace and focuses on digital remix culture, Black diaspora, archives, feminism, nostalgia, creative and cultural work, pop culture, branding, and devolved nations. Francesca is the author of Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (2022, SAGE), and The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). She is co-author with layla-roxanne hill of  Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022), and the freely available graphic novel  Black Oot Here: Dreams O Us (ESRC/AHRC funded 2023, illustrated by Chris Manson, translated in Scots by Lesley Benzie, and translated in Scottish Gaelic by Naomi Gessesse). An accompanying Dreams O Us animation, co-created with Leeds Animation Workshop, features music by Nathan Somevi. Francesca is also co-editor with Professor Akwugo Emejulu of To Exist is to Resist: Black Feminism in Europe (Pluto Press, 2019). Francesca's research has been published in a wide range of international journals, such as European Journal of Cultural Studies, The Sociological Review, Journal of Consumer Research, Marketing Theory, Consumption Markets & Culture, European Journal of Marketing, Celebrity Studies, Television & New Media, Cultural Studies, Journal of Marketing Management, IPPR Progressive Review, European Journal of Women's Studies, Meridians, Communication, Culture & Critique, and Media, Culture & Society.