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Francesca Sobande on Muck Rack

Francesca Sobande

Verified
(She/Her)
Wales
As seen in: The Waterstones Podcast, Yahoo Canada, SAGE Publishing, Taylor & Francis Online, The Conversation, LSE Connect, Dawn, Independent On Saturday, Paste, Weekend Argus and
Covers:  Art; Black diaspora; Black media; Creative industries; Devolution; Digital culture; Education; Feminism; Film; Inequalities; Meme culture; Music; Popular culture; Scotland; Social justice; Wales; Work
Dreaming. ✨🌑✨

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Francesca Sobande’s Biography

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Dr Francesca Sobande is a writer and reader in digital media studies at Cardiff University, Wales. She is the author of The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Consuming Crisis: Commodifying Care and COVID-19 (SAGE, 2022), and Big Brands Are Watching You: Marketing Social Justice and Digital Culture (University of California Press, 2024). Francesca is also co-author with layla-roxanne hill of Black Oot Here: Black Lives in Scotland (Bloomsbury, 2022), the free gr…

Francesca Sobande’s Journalist Portfolio

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She Burns: The Heat of Black Women in Blues and Punk

She Burns: The Heat of Black Women in Blues and Punk

Be it through punk music, self-publishing, or other types of collective expression that involve embracing bei…

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Why emo endures: the comforting nostalgia of emo on vinyl

Why emo endures: the comforting nostalgia of emo on vinyl

Over the last 20 years, emo has moved from the margins of mainstream music to near its centre. But beyond thi…

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Welcome To When We Were Young's Big Tech Parade

Welcome To When We Were Young's Big Tech Parade

"[W]e caved, we're on tiktok, go follow us for a chance to win tickets! all you have to do is follow our acco…

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Blackness and Metal: From Nu Metal to Baddiecore | Museum of Youth Culture

Blackness and Metal: From Nu Metal to Baddiecore | Museum of Youth Culture

Francesca Sobande delves into the cultural impact of Nu-Metal. Tracing the scene from it's origins to contemp…

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"Black Alt", Social Media, and Music Sub-Genres | Museum of Youth Culture

"Black Alt", Social Media, and Music Sub-Genres | Museum of Youth Culture

How do new genres emerge in the social media age? In this essay Francesca Sobande explores the Black Alt musi…

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"Real Emo": Mythologizing and Marketing Emo Music

"Real Emo": Mythologizing and Marketing Emo Music

Emo’s nostalgic status may be an inevitable part of time passing since the genre’s inception. Then again, as …

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Articles

Racism, anti-racism and the politics of popular culture

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By Anamik Saha, Francesca Sobande Verified
| LSE Connect Verified
Racism and antiracism clash on a daily basis in media discourse. This joint talk reflects on current practices of "othering" in popular media. Racism and antiracism clash on a daily basis in media discourse. This joint talk reflects on current practices of "othering" in popular media. Thursday 6 February 2025 | 1 hour 30 minutes 16 seconds Racism and antiracism clash on a daily basis in media discourse.
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She Burns: The Heat of Black Women in Blues and Punk

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By Francesca Sobande Verified
| Free-Thought Podcast by Shuddhashar
Be it through punk music, self-publishing, or other types of collective expression that involve embracing being otherwise, the spark of Black women is eclectic and eternal. Across different genres are musicians, bands, singers, and artists who challenge authoritarianism with vim. But punk music is particularly known for tackling the atrocities of governments.
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WIDE ANGLE; ‘MORE THAN A WOMAN’

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By Francesca Sobande Verified
| Dawn Verified
Black women’s influence on metal and connected sub-genres is still often overlooked. As part of my research into Black women in pop culture, I’ve looked at the relationship between race, gender, onscreen portrayals of immortality and nu-metal. Nu-metal, popularised in the early 2000s, is known for combining the mood of metal with riffs and hues of rap and hip-hop. The genre drew on the creativity of Black artists, singers and musicians across different genres and generations.
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Interview

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How is social media changing news?

By making engagement with news a more conversational, content-driven, and constant experience.

How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?

Over email.

What tools and software do you use to do your job?

Pen and paper, first and foremost.