Originally from the UK, where I studied English Literature at Cambridge University, I did my graduate and doctoral research in Communications at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Years later, having never found the campus exit sign, I am now a Full Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University (and was Head of Department from 2019-23). My research interests span visual culture, photography theory, the aesthetics of digital media, cultural production, cultural memory, media and national sentiment, media and moral concern.

My books include The Poetics of Digital Media (2018),The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry (2003); Meeting the Enemy in the Living Room: Terrorism and Communication in the Contemporary Era (2006 edited with Tamar Liebes); Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication (2009, 2nd edition 2011, edited with Amit Pinchevski). I have published articles in such journals as New Media and Society; Journal of Communication, Media, Culture and Society; International Journal of Communication; Public Culture; Journal of Consumer Culture; Cultural Studies; Semiotica, and others. I am a co-editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies, and a past Chair of the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association. In 2023-24 I was a Core Fellow of the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, at the University of Helsinki.

I am currently leading a research project funded by the Israel Science Foundation focusing on the social and cultural ramifications of photography's continued existence and increasing importance in our lives over the past few decades, including its expansion into completely new digital contexts of use. I am also working on a new book on images and truth in a so-called 'post-truth' era.

Research Interests

• Visual culture
• Photography theory
• The aesthetics of digital media
• Cultural production
• Cultural memory
• Media and national sentiment
• Media and moral concern

 

Selected Publications

Books

• Paul Frosh (2019) The Poetics of Digital Media. Polity: Cambridge. Part translated as: Paul Frosh (2019). Screenshots: Racheengel der Fotografie. Trans. Franka Kathrin Wolf. (Digital Bildkulteren) Verlag Klaus Wagenbach, Berlin.
• Paul Frosh and Amit Pinchevski, eds. (2009, 2^nd edition 2011) Media Witnessing: Testimony in the Age of Mass Communication. Palgrave Macmillan: Houndmills.
• Tamar Liebes and Paul Frosh, eds. (2006) Meeting the Enemy In  the Living Room: Terrorism and Communication in the Contemporary Era. Kibbutz Hameuchad (in Hebrew).
• Paul Frosh (2003) The Image Factory: Consumer Culture, Photography and the Visual Content Industry. Berg: Oxford.

Articles and Chapters

• Paul Frosh (2024). Seeing Photographically and the Memory of Photography. Media Theory 8(1): 53-78. https://journalcontent.mediatheoryjournal.org/index.php/mt/article/view/1068
• Sara Kopelman and Paul Frosh (2023). The “algorithmic as if”: Computational resurrection and the animation of the dead in Deep Nostalgia. New Media & Society, https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448231210268
• Hadas Schlussel and Paul Frosh (2023) The taste of video: Facebook videos as multi-sensory experiences. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231179958.
• Tommaso Trillò, Blake Hallinan, Avishai Green, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Rebecca Scharlach, Pyung Hwa Park, Paul Frosh, Limor Shifman (2023) ‘I love this photo, I can feel their hearts!’ How users across the world evaluate social media portraiture. Journal of Communication, jqad009, https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqad009
• Paul Frosh (2023) Screenshots and the Memory of Photography. In W. Gerling, S. Möring and M. De Mutiis (eds.) Screen Images. In-Game Photography, Screenshot, Screencast. Kadmos: Berlin, 173-190.
• Sandrine Boudana, Akiba Cohen and Paul Frosh (2022) How iconic news images travel: republishing and reframing historic photographs in Israeli newspapers. Journal of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac036
• Paul Frosh and Myria Georgiou (2022) Covid-19: The cultural constructions of a global crisis. Introduction to special issue. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(3-4): 233-252. DOI:10.1177/13678779221095106
• Liron Simatzkin-Ohana and Paul Frosh (2022) From user-generated content to a user-generated aesthetic: Instagram, corporate vernacularization, and the intimate life of brands. Media, Culture & Society, DOI: 10.1177/01634437221084107 
• Tommaso Trillò, Rebecca Scharlach, Blake Hallinan, Bumsoo Kim, Saki Mizoroki, Paul Frosh, Limor Shifman (2021) What Does #Freedom Look Like? Instagram and the Visual Imagination of Values, Journal of Communication, 71 (6): 875–897.
• Doron Altaratz and Paul Frosh (2021) Sentient Photography: Image-Production and the Smartphone Camera, photographies, 14(2): 243-264.
• Ifat Maoz and Paul Frosh (2020) Imagine All the People: Negotiating and Mediating Moral Concern through Intergroup Encounters. Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, 13(3): 197-210.
• Paul Frosh (2020) Photography as a Cultural Industry: A Historical-Theoretical Overview. In G. Pasternak, ed. Handbook of Photography Studies. Bloomsbury: London, 255-272.
• Paul Frosh (2020) Is Commercial Photography a Public Evil? Beyond the Critique of Stock Photography. In Melissa Miles and Ed Welch, eds. Photography and its Publics. Bloomsbury: London, 187-206.
• Paul Frosh (2019) Eye, Flesh, World: Three Modes of Digital Witnessing. In Schankweiler, K. and Straub, V. and Wendi, T. (eds.) Image Testimony: Witnessing in Times of Social Media. London: Routledge, 121-135.
• Akiba Cohen, Sandrine Boudana and Paul Frosh (2018) You must remember this: Iconic news photographs and collective memory. Journal of Communication, 68(3): 453-479.
• Sandrine Boudana, Paul Frosh and Akiba Cohen (2017) Reviving icons to death: When historic photographs become digital memes. Media, Culture & Society, 39(8), 1210–1230.
• Paul Frosh (2016) The Mouse, the Screen and the Holocaust Witness: Interface Aesthetics and Moral Response. New Media & Society, 20(1), 351–368.
• Paul Frosh (2015) The Gestural Image: The Selfie, Photography Theory and Kinaesthetic Sociability, International Journal of Communication, 9: 1607–1628. Republished in: K. Kuc and J. Zylinska, eds. (2016) Photomediations: A Reader. Open Humanities Press: London: 251-267.
• Flora Tsapovksy and Paul Frosh (2015) Television Audiences and Transnational Nostalgia: Mad Men in Israel. Media, Culture and Society, 37(5): 784–799.
• Paul Frosh and Amit Pinchevski (2014) Media witnessing and the Ripeness of Time, Cultural Studies, 28(4): 594-610.
• Paul Frosh (2013) Beyond the Image Bank: Digital Commercial Photography. In M. Lister, ed. The Photographic Image in Digital Culture, 2^nd Edition, Routledge: London: 131-148.

 

Awards and Prizes

• Core Fellowship, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki, 2023-4.
• Israel Science Foundation Funded Research Project "The Retention of Media: The Cultural Memory of Photography in the Smartphone Era”. Grant awarded 2021-2025.
• Top Paper Award, Israel Communication Association (co-authored paper with Sandrine Boudana and Akiba Cohen, Tel Aviv University).
• Israel Science Foundation Funded Research Project 'How Media Remember: Recycling and Reframing News Photographs in Israel', with Prof. Akiba Cohen and Dr. Sandrine Boudana. Grant awarded 2017-2019.
• The Hebrew University Rector’s Prize for 2016, awarded to distinguished scholars for excellence in research and teaching. 
• Top Paper Award for 2015 from the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association
• Israel Science Foundation Funded Research Project 'You Must Remember This: Iconic Photographs and Collective Memory', with Prof. Akiba Cohen and Dr. Sandrine Boudana. Grant awarded 2014-2016.
• Albert Bonnier Jnr. Guest Professorship, Department of Journalism, Media and Culture, Stockholm University
• Distinguished Scholar, Rothberg International School, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.