Rebecca Williams

I am an Associate Professor in Media Audiences and Participatory Cultures, and also hold roles as the Creative Industries Research & Innovation Group Co-Lead and Co-Chair of the Faculty of Business & Creative Industries Ethics Committee.

My research specialisms include media audiences/fans and participatory cultures; material cultures and audiences/fans; and place and space (particularly the experience economy, themed and immersive experiences, and media tourism). I am currently guest editing an issue of Critical Studies in Television focusing on the 40th anniversary of EastEnders in 2025, and working on an edited collection titled Pikachu’s Transmedia Adventures: The Continuing Adaptability of the Pokemon Franchise. My next project is developing a book proposal for a monograph, provisionally titled Spatial Transmedia, Branded Iconography, and Play: Experiencing Universal Studios’ Global Theme Parks and engaging in ongoing research into the experience economy, media tourism, and themed and immersive entertainment.

I have published six books; two monographs, Theme Park Fandom: Spatial Transmedia, Materiality & Participatory Cultures (2020, Amsterdam University Press) and Post-Object Fandom: Television, Identity & Self-Narrative (2015, Bloomsbury) and the edited collections Animation Key Films/Filmmakers: The Nightmare Before Christmas (2025, Bloomsbury), A Fan Studies Primer: Method, Ethics Research (2021, University of Iowa Press), Everybody Hurts: Transitions, Endings & Resurrections in Fan Cultures (2018, University of Iowa Press) and Torchwood Declassified (2013, I.B. Tauris).