Hannu Nieminen
Nationality: FinnEnrolment: Autumn 1992
Completion: 3 May 1996
Director of Studies: Prof.Vincent Porter;
Supervisors: Prof. Paddy Scannell, Prof.John Keane
Aim of the study
The main topic of my thesis was the relationship between Habermas’ historical account of the development of the Public Sphere and the British experience of the “real” developments. I contrasted Habermas’ interpretation of the British case to that of Raymond Williams, who – although not using the concept of the Public Sphere – explored much the same phenomena as Habermas. The main achievements of my thesis are perhaps that I developed some more elaborated conceptual tools for the studies of the Public Sphere and that I drew a more detailed picture of the circumstances of the development of the public sphere in Britain.
My PhD experience
Writing up the research plan took time. In the course of the first six months I changed my topic from a more empirical and comparative research design to a more theoretical and conceptual. I did not have a comprehensive plan for the first one and a half years, so what I did was that I read extensively literature around my topic. I also wrote several “working papers” which I did not include or use in my thesis but published afterwards as a separate collection of essays.
In the middle of my second year my superviser finally grabbed me and told me in clear terms to start writing the thesis, and that he expected me to produce the first chapter in one month’s time. I did, and from that time my thesis started to get its final shape. I wrote the chapters in sequence, although the last two or three chapters took much more time and I was able to finalise the thesis only after two more years. So all in all, the PhD thesis took me three and a half years from the start to submit (October 2002 – early January 2006). After this, it took still four months before the viva.
I don’t suggest my experience as a model to anybody. It is certainly better to have a well thought research plan and carefully prepared research design well in advance. You should have at least relatively good understanding of what you are aiming to do, what are your basic assumptions and hypotheses, and how you are going to proceed systematically within the time frame available.
How the University supported me during the PhD
I had a grant from the Finnish Academy, so my financial situation was relatively stable. Prior to arriving to the CCIS/Westminster University I had worked a short time as a junior research fellow at the University of Tampere, so I had some research and teaching experience already. For me the CCIS and its staff appeared from the beginning as a supportive community, although the distance between the PhD students and the staff was something that I was not accustomed to. Supervision was from the start effectively arranged, and I enjoyed excellent supervision all the time – which was something I was not used to at all in Finland.
The situation was tougher to some of other students from abroad who did not know very well the European and/or the British education system. We were the first group of international PhD students in the CCIS, so it was a learning process for the staff too. Communication between students and the staff was not good in the beginning but improved gradually, and by the second year we started to enjoy of common social and cultural events, such as theatre visits, occasional concerts etc. The students formed rather close knit community both socially and academically, we spent time together and discussed of our research plans and different difficulties that we went through etc. Learning to know of the different backgrounds and motives of the fellow students was really an educating experience, and the friendship ties formed then will last, even if we don’t see or hear of each other.
How the PhD experience had helped me for my career
Certainly my experience as a PhD student in Westminster has been elemental for my whole academic career after that. I was somewhat older that other PhD students in my time as I had been working mainly outside the academia for some 10 years, so the PhD studies were like a re-initiation to academic community. Of course, PhD in CCIS/Westminster is also highly valued internationally, so it looks always very good in your CV.
Download an article written by Hannu for CAMRI's Newsletter Findings in October 2005
Publications
Download Hannu's CV and the list of publications (pdf)Current position
Professor of Media Policy, Department of Communication, University of Helsinki, Finland
Contact details
E-mail: hannu.nieminen@helsinki.fi
tel. +358 40 560 5248
