Matthew Alford

Dr. Matthew Alford MPhil FHEA is a Teaching Fellow in Politics, specialising in media theory.

His PhD thesis applied Noam Chomsky's Propaganda Model to contemporary Hollywood and his subsequent research similarly concerns the representation of American exceptionalism on screen.

Dr. Alford's documentary feature film and novel, The Writer with No Hands, deconstructs conspiracy theory discourse while examining CIA and US military public relations activity in the entertainment industry.  The documentary was premiered in 2014 at Hot Docs, Toronto and received 11 wins and nominations at festivals worldwide. A TV edit of the movie began selling to a set of national platforms in 2018.  

His work currently involves examining censored scripts, including those stored in the Department of Defense's film archive in Washington DC, which will result in a second edition of his latest book National Security Cinema and a new preface to the foreign language translations of his debut book Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy.

Dr. Alford continues to provide specialist guest lectures at the University of Birmingham - as well as at the University of Bristol, University of Portsmouth, and Advanced Studies England - following his attaining a Masters with distinction from its department of American Studies.  He also has taught units in related fields, including Terrorism, International Relations, and British Politics.