Want to do a funded PhD on Exercise in Media Culture with me at Cardiff University?

 

I’ve just found out that we’ve won this opportunity to offer a fully funded PhD scholarship! :-D

This PhD scholarship will be advertised in February on Find-a-PhD-dot-com. I’ll post a link to it when it goes live.

But for you, here, now, here’s a sneak peak at the project.

Please share with any film, media, literature, culture grads looking for PhD opportunities this coming September.

Project Title:

Enabling Activities: Narratives of Health and Wellbeing in Wales and Beyond

About the Project

How do people feel about exercise, health, and wellbeing activities? What prevents them from starting? What keeps them going? What makes them stop?

This doctoral project uses the rich analytical approaches of film, media, literature, and cultural studies to uncover these stories – not from surveys or statistics, but from real literary and audiovisual accounts of people’s health and exercise journeys across Welsh, British, and Anglophone popular culture.

We’re looking for an intelligent, curious researcher who wants to make arts and humanities research speak directly to health policy. Your research will examine media and literary sources – film, television, journalism, blogs, vlogs, novels, memoirs, and more – that capture people’s experiences of hesitancy, beginning, continuing, or ceasing participation in health, exercise, and wellbeing activities (whether weight-lifting, swimming, dance, theatre, martial arts, sports, or other health and wellbeing activities).

Using textual analysis and cultural theory, you’ll explore how narratives of exercise and health are shaped by intersectional considerations including age, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, location, and disability. Your analysis could draw on feminist theory, race and ethnicity studies, affect studies, phenomenology, cultural geography, or embodiment studies – or other approaches that emerge as your project develops.

Importantly, this isn’t purely academic. You’ll produce not only a doctoral thesis but also a policy-facing report for the Welsh Government’s Health and Social Services Group, ensuring your insights directly speak to real-world decisionmakers about public messaging, outreach, and health provision.

About the Supervision

You’ll be supervised by Professor Paul Bowman (Professor of Cultural Studies) and Dr Diana Garrisi (Lecturer in Media and Communication), both at Cardiff University’s world-leading School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC). Paul has supervised 22 PhDs and published extensively on media, exercise, and physical culture (eight of his twelve monographs and half his articles focus on these themes). Diana specialises in journalism, body studies, and disability representation, with award-winning published research on news narratives of bodies and compassionate communication.

About the Funding

This is a fully funded AHRC studentship through the ‘Lles’ Doctoral Focal Award, an exciting initiative funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Lles supports arts and humanities research that contributes to healthy planet, people, and places, drawing on Wales’ research strengths while addressing urgent contemporary questions:

https://www.ukri.org/news/ahrc-doctoral-focal-awards-support-world-class-doctoral-training/

As a Lles student, you will receive not only full doctoral funding but also a bespoke training programme developed in collaboration with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales. This includes specialist training on the Well-Being of Future Generations Act 2015 and its five ways of working, preparing you to understand and contribute to policy contexts. You’ll be part of a cohort of 28 students across Wales, receiving mentoring, training, and professional development throughout your doctorate.

About the Placement

Every Lles student undertakes a significant placement (3+ months) with a partner organisation. For this project, we have a placement opportunity in the Health and Social Services Group of the Welsh Government, the body responsible for NHS Wales, health and social care strategy, and policy. You’ll work alongside professionals developing health and wellbeing policy, contributing your research insights to real-world challenges.

Research Context and Impact

Contemporary policymakers often rely on quantitative data and surveys to understand people’s health and exercise choices. Yet literary, media, and cultural sources reveal something different: the affective, narrative, and embodied dimensions of why people feel hesitant, inspired, or unable to engage with health and wellbeing activities. This project brings those voices into policy conversations.

The project engages directly with the Welsh Government’s commitment under the Well-Being of Future Generations Act to improve physical and mental health wellbeing by enabling people to make informed and conscious choices about their health. Your research will contribute fresh, culturally grounded insights that could shape future approaches to health promotion, facility design, outreach, and support services across Wales and beyond.

What We’re Looking For

You should be able to demonstrate an interest in the cultural analysis of media and literature, with strong analytical and writing skills. You’ll ideally have studied film, media, literature, or cultural studies, though we’re open to candidates from related disciplines with demonstrated interest in media analysis and cultural theory. You should be comfortable engaging with complex theoretical ideas, be enthusiastic about archival and textual research, and be genuinely motivated by the prospect of contributing to policy conversations. Above all, intellectual curiosity and independence of thought are vital.

The project is deliberately flexible in design, allowing you to shape its focus within agreed parameters and develop your own analytical approaches.

Key Dates and How to Apply

• Application deadline: 27 March 2026

• PhD start date: September/October 2026

• Study location: Cardiff University

[For specific details about the application process, requirements, and to express your interest, please contact the supervisors or visit the Lles doctoral awards information page. Further details about application procedures, funding levels, and the formal selection process will be confirmed shortly.]

Contact for Enquiries

Professor Paul Bowman: BowmanP@cardiff.ac.uk