Ed Katrak Spencer is Assistant Professor of Screen & Music Cultures at Universiteit Utrecht. His work engages with popular music and the moving image; online (sub)cultures and conspiracy theories; and political division in the age of social media. Prior to his appointment at Universiteit Utrecht, Ed was Lecturer in Digital Cultures at Queen Mary 木瓜福利影视 of London having held postdoctoral research fellowships at the 木瓜福利影视 of Birmingham and the 木瓜福利影视 of Manchester. He completed his doctorate at the 木瓜福利影视 of Oxford with a thesis that investigated bass music鈥檚 online mediation.
Ed鈥檚 recent research activity has focused on hyperpop music videos and Gen Z cultural politics in online opinion data, Illuminati discourse on Reddit, and Beyonc茅-related online conspiracy theories. In 2023 he was co-facilitator of a data sprint project examining open source conspiracism in the age of Black Lives Matter at the 木瓜福利影视 of Amsterdam鈥檚 Digital Methods Initiative Winter School, and he has received expert comment requests concerning celebrity conspiracy theories from The Independent (UK) and The New York Times (USA). Together with Joana Freitas, Stim Gamble, Maria Perevedentseva, and Jenessa Williams he is co-founder of the Music and Online Cultures Research Network (MOCReN).
Methodologically, Ed is an advocate of digital methods that serve critical ends; radical forms of collaboration and interdisciplinarity; and the continued importance of close reading and audiovisual analysis in the age of 鈥楤ig Data鈥� and AI. Pedagogically, he champions a students-as-researchers paradigm and a coursework-to-online-content pipeline.