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Neil Blain joined the University as professor and head of the former department of Film & Media early in 2007 and was head of Communications, Media & Culture at Stirling until 2011. Other roles included directorship of the Stirling Media Research Institute, and of learning and teaching for the School of Arts & Humanities, of which he was latterly deputy head. He has been Professor Emeritus of Communications at Stirling since 2015. He is a frequent public platform speaker on a range of media and cultural issues, and has made numerous radio, television and press contributions since the 1980s, later also online, including media commentary internationally on royal and monarchic matters, and in the UK media on the Scottish independence question; also (especially 2015-2020)?on broadcasting policy. He has given evidence to various media inquiries and commissions, including appearing as a witness in press industry inquiries at Westminster and Holyrood, and in commissions/inquiries on the broadcasting industry (eg 2008, 2016). He was a member of the Scottish Digital Network Panel in 2010/11, which reported to the Scottish Government on digital network funding. He has acted in an advisory capacity for a number of funded research projects and has undertaken very extensive refereeing and rapporteur work for several research councils, as well as refereeing for many journals. Professional positions have included membership of AHRC’s Peer Review College (2007-15), and periodic AHRC panel membership; Carnegie Research Assessor; editor (with Prof Katharine Sarikakis, University of Vienna) of The International Journal of Media and Cultural Politics (2005-2014); membership of the Scottish Industry Skills Panel from 2002-2008, and of its successor, Creative Skillset’s Scotland National Board, from 2008-2013. He was a member of the 2008 RAE subject panel in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, and has been active in subject associations in various roles. Prof Blain has had a long involvement in quality assurance and curricular matters in higher education, which has included work for Open University Validation Services, the Hong Kong Council for the Accreditation of Academic and Vocational Qualifications, Creative Skillset, and QAA Scotland. He has undertaken numerous validation, review and examining commitments in UK universities and overseas and is a past member of the Scottish Higher Education Enhancement Committee.

Prof Blain’s publications have covered a wide range of topics, often addressing questions of representation, ideology and collective identity in Europe and the UK, including writing on British and European monarchy, on sport and the media, on cultural theory and semiotics, and on Scottish media and Scottish media history. He worked extensively as a broadcast research consultant during the 1990s, supervising and co-designing large scale audience research, and producing policy-related reports. Publications include Media, Monarchy and Power (with Hugh O’Donnell, 2003); Sport, Media, Culture: Local and Global Dimensions (co-edited with Alina Bernstein, 2003); The Media in Scotland (co-edited with David Hutchison, Edinburgh University Press, 2008); and Scotland's Referendum and the Media: National and International Perspectives (edited by Neil Blain and David Hutchison, with Gerry Hassan: Edinburgh University Press, 2016). More recent publications include The Declaration as Polyvalent Signifier: The Semiotics of Absence in the Representation of Scotland, in Scotland and Arbroath 1320-2020, Klaus Peter Muller (ed), Peter Lang, Berlin, 2020; and Reproducing Great Britain: Fatal Diversions of the Monarchy Industry, Media Education Journal, 72: Winter 2022/3.