Dr Maria Touri

Current Research Interests and Focus

My research focuses on communication, participation and knowledge in processes of sustainable development and well-being. One strand examines sustainable food systems, farmers’ knowledge and more-than-human relations. Drawing on Communication for Social Change (CfSC), I explore how farmers, producers, and small businesses generate and communicate ecological knowledge through everyday practices, sensory experience, and relationships with land, crops, changing environments and the demands of the global supply chain. This includes work using short farmer-produced videos to document and communicate knowledge, and to explore how such situated knowledge can circulate among producers, traders, businesses and other actors in food networks. This is a collaborative project with farmers in India and Mexico and SMEs in Europe and Mexico.

A second strand focuses on communication and justice in energy transitions. My research on the transition from lignite in Western Macedonia, Greece, examines how communities experience and respond to decarbonisation and regional transformation. I bring CfSC into dialogue with energy justice to investigate voice, participation, institutional listening, communicative power and the relationship between official, media and community narratives. Across both areas, my work asks whose knowledge and voices are recognised in environmental decision-making, how communication shapes participation, and how more inclusive communicative processes can contribute to socially just and sustainable change.

Impact Case Study

The case study focuses on informing the professional marketing strategies of farmer cooperatives in India and Mexico and SMEs in England, France, Germany, and Mexico. The farmer groups and five SMEs have developed a video-based communication strategy that was used for marketing, price negotiation, internal communication and teaching/training, leading to economic benefits and positive socio-cultural change.

Research grants

2023-2024: ESRC IAA Rapid Response Grant, ‘Developing innovative participatory communication strategies for marginalised farming cooperatives (India)’, £7,000

2021-2022: ESRC IAA Rapid Response Grant, ‘Developing innovative participatory communication strategies for marginalised farming cooperatives (Mexico)’

2019-2023: Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (HFRI), with Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, ‘Communication and Journalism for Sustainable Development: Greece as a Case Study’

2018: Research Impact Development Fund, University of Leicester ‘Indian farmers’ empowerment through communication and digital storytelling’

2017-2019: British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants, ‘Communication and Human Development in Alternative Food Networks: Digitally connecting produces and consumers across the globe’ 2016: Research Development Fund, University of Leicester, ‘Capacity Building in Alternative Food Networks’

2015: Society for the Advancement of Management Studies College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities,‘ Sustainability, Food and Fashion: the role of Social Sciences as an agent for innovation – Workshop organised in collaboration with the School of Business, University of Leicester

2013: Research Development Fund, University of Leicester, ‘Sustainable agriculture and development in a global context. The role of businesses in supporting producer - consumer interactions. A case study of Indian Organic Farmers Producer Company Limited (IOFPCL)’

Touri, M. and Kostarella, I. (2026) ‘Media as (In)Justice Infrastructures in Energy Transitions: A Communication for Social Change Perspective ', Journal of Environmental Media (forthcoming)

Touri, M. (2024) 'Deconstructing the role of ICTs in agricultural development using the Diverse Economies Framework', Information Technology for Development, 30 (4): 696–716. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2024.2332316

Karekla, S., Gioltzidou, G., Galatsopoulou, F. Touri, M., Kostarella, I.,Skamnakis, A. (2022), 'Communication for Development and Social Change in Greece: An Emerging Field', Social Science Tribune, 20 (75):3-30 (in Greek)

Touri, M. (2021) Sustainable Development and Communication in Global Food Networks: Lessons from India, Palgrave Macmillan

Touri, M., Galatsopoulou, F., Kenterelidou, C., Kostarella, I. (2021), 'Communication for Sustainable Development and Blue Growth: Towards New Theoretical and Empirical Directions', in M.J. Yusha'u and J. Servaes (Eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of International Communication and Sustainable Development, Palgrave Macmillan

Touri, M. (2020) Representation, voice and producer-consumer solidarity in fair trade movements: toward new empirical directions, Geoforum 117: 103-113

Touri, M. (2020) ‘The Power of Weak Communication’, in J. Tacchi and T. Tufte (Eds.) Communicating for Change, Concepts to Think With, Palgrave Macmillan

Touri, M.(2018) 'Development and Communication in trade relations: new synergies in theory and practice', Development in Practice 28 (3): 388-399, DOI:10.1080/09614524.2018.1432569

Touri, M. (2016) 'Development Communication in Alternative FoodNetworks: empowering Indian farmers through market relations’ Journal of International Communication, 22(2):209-228 DOI:10.1080/13216597.2016.1175366 

Touri, M. (2017), 'Journalism culture and professional identity in transit: technology, crisis and opportunity in the Greek media' in J. Tong and S.H. Lo (eds.) Digital Technology and Journalism: An International Comparative Perspective, Palgrave Macmillan

Touri, M. & Kostarella, I. (2016), 'News Blogs vs Mainstream Media: Measuring the gap through a frame analysis of Greek blogs', Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, DOI: 10.1177/1464884916648097 

Touri, M., Theodosiadou, S. & Kostarella, I. (2016), 'The Internet's Transformative Power on Journalism Culture in Greece: looking beyond universal professional values' Digital Journalism,DOI:10.1080/21670811.2016.1166062 

Touri, M. & Koteyko, N. (2015) 'Using corpus linguistic software in the extraction of news frames: towards a dynamic process of frame analysis in journalistic texts', International Journal of Social Research Methodology,18(6):601-616 

MS3004 Global Cultures

MS3026 Community Radio in Practice

MS7082 Global Communication and Development

MS7083 Theories of Globalization and New Media 

MS7006 Global Affairs

Small businesses and social scientists must collaborate for a sustainable food chain’, Food Navigator, October 5, 2015

Why we must reconnect consumers and producers’, Leicester Mercury, October 15, 2015

‘Sustainability struggles amid cheap excess’ Western Morning News, November 19, 2015

Higher Education Academy Fellowship

PhD Communication Studies, University of Leeds

MA International Communication, University of Leeds

BA Communication and Mass Media, University of Athens