Dr Steph Hill

Steph Hill, PhD is lecturer in promotional media and public relations at the University of Leicester, Department of Arts, Media and Communication. Her research focuses on the intersection of public relations and governance and includes published research on the political economy of platforms, corporate social advocacy, online content moderation, and greenwashing. Her work has been published in Convergence, the International Journal of Strategic Communication, and the International Journal of Communication, among others. She is the co-chair of the Emerging Scholars Network at the International Association for Media and Communication Research and the chair of the Spinning Climate Change Working Group at the Climate Social Science Network.

Selected publications:

Hill, S. (2024). Payment Services, the Deplatforming of Sex, and the Governance of Platform Intimacy. TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 48.

Hill, S. (2023). ‘Definitely not in the business of wanting to be associated’: Examining public relations in a deplatformization controversy. Convergence.

Akanbi, O., Hill, S., & Shtern, J. (2023). Platform Governance: The Antitrust Option. Canadian Journal of Communication, 48(2).

Hill, S. (2023). “People will choose for you”: Corporate social advocacy controversies as a window into the contemporary promotional industries. Comunicação Mídia e Consumo, 20(57).

Akanbi, O. & Hill, S. (2023). Two Trusts and a Court: Adapting Legal Mechanisms for Building Trust in Technology Governance. International Journal of Communication, 17, 1675-1694.

Nemes, N., Scanlan, S. J., Smith, P., Smith, T., Aronczyk, M., Hill, S., . . . Stabinsky, D. (2022). An Integrated Framework to Assess Greenwashing. Sustainability, 14(8).

Shtern, J., & Hill, S. (2021). The Political Economy of Sponsored Content and Social Media Entertainment Production. In Creator Culture An Introduction to Global Social Media Entertainment (pp. 250-270). NYU Press.

Hill, S. (2020). Politics and Corporate Content: Situating Corporate Strategic Communication between Marketing and Activism. International Journal of Strategic Communication, 14(5).

Hill, S. (2019). Empire and the megamachine: Comparing two controversies over social media content. Internet Policy Review, 8(1).

Shtern, J., Hill, S., & Chan, D. (2019). Social media influence: Performative authenticity and the relational work of audience commodification in the Philippines. International Journal of Communication, 13.

June, 2024: The article “Platform Governance: The Anti-Trust Option“ co-written by Opeyemi Akanbi, Jeremy Shtern, and Steph Hill, received the Canadian Journal of Communication’s 2024 Editor’s Award. This award is selected by CJC’s Editor and ratified by the Board of Directors, and is intended to recognize articles whose importance, quality and depth of research, theoretical range and quality of writing reflect the best of our journal and the field of Communication.

In 2022, Steph received Toronto Metropolitan University's Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Doctoral Studies. 

• Ph.D Communication and Culture (2017-2022), the York/Toronto Metropolitan University Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Ontario
  Thesis: Chasing the Mainstream: Corporate Political Advocacy and Content Governance
• Visiting Ph.D Researcher and Mitacs Globalink Fellow (2020), Department of Media and Communication, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK.
• M.A. Communication and Culture (2017), the York/Toronto Metropolitan University Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Ontario.
  Thesis: Creating Content, Influencing Democracy: Situating Corporate Political Communication Between Marketing and Activism, Nominated for the Governor General’s Gold Medal
• B.A. Politics and Certificate in Environmental Studies (2010), Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.