Her first book Bad News for Refugees, (Pluto Press, 2013, co-authored with Greg Philo and Pauline Donald), examined UK political and media discourse on migration prior to ‘Brexit’ as well as its impact on communities. It involved collaboration with the Red Cross and Refugee Council, demonstrating the negative impact of misleading coverage of the refugee crisis on communities and migrants’ mental health.
The book made real-world changes when Dr Briant and her co-authors contributed evidence with Scottish Refugee Council to the Home Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into Asylum & UK Media, which led to new UK rules on journalism ethics in 2013.
It was also widely reported by BBC News, The Guardian among others, and reviewed in The Political Quarterly, Institute of Race Relations, Journal of Refugee Studies, Socialist Review, European Journal of Communication, International Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and New Left Project.

Dr. Briant’s longstanding research impact includes some of her first publications – in 2011 Dr. Briant was lead author on the study ‘Bad News for Disabled People‘ with Nick Watson and Greg Philo. Backed by Inclusion London, the study became important evidence relied on in the UK’s Leveson Inquiry into the British press, it was widely reported and was directly discussed both in a House of Commons debate on disability hate crime and in the Work and Pensions Select Committee (February 2012). The Committee Chair relied on it to question Department of Work and Pensions Ministers concerning the changing attitudes to disabled people and the transformation of the language used to represent disabled people and disability welfare benefits in the media (read more in the research impact 2014 case study from Glasgow University).

This was Dr. Briant’s peer-reviewed academic article both this and the report on which it was based were submitted as examples of research exellence to the Research Evaluation Framework in 2014 by University of Glasgow as a case study for societal impact of research. This research, on which she was first author and managed a team of research assistants, helped Glasgow University achieve Rank of 1st in Scotland and 8th in the UK in sociology, with a GPA of 3.20 and 75% of the work considered world-leading or internationally excellent after she moved on to her first faculty post at University of Sheffield. Here is an extract from the Research Evaluation detailing the research’s policy impact as an example of excellence.

“This research ignited the political debate on media representations of disabled people. For example, on 14 November 2011, the report was directly cited by Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson in a welfare reform debate in the House of Lords as evidence of widespread misrepresentation of disabled people and disability benefits. Also in November 2011, the Shadow Minister for Disability Issues referred directly to the University of Glasgow findings in a House of Commons debate on disability hate crime. The report was also mentioned during discussion in the Work and Pensions Select Committee (February 2012), allowing the National Autistic Society and Disability Alliance to draw attention to ‘the negative tone adopted in the media about wider disability issues’.
The Committee Chair also used the research in the in the Committee’s questioning of DWP Ministers concerning the changing attitudes to disabled people and the transformation of the language used to represent disabled people and disability benefits in the media. The research was cited in the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s report Government support towards the extra living costs of working age disabled people and in a Westminster Briefing prepared by The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on Work Capacity Assessment. The Committee Chair has also drawn from the research in the preparation of speeches and articles relating to the change of language used to describe disabled people since the 2010 General Election.”

The research was covered extensively by The Observer, The Guardian, BBC News as the policy debate unfolded and the disturbing impacts the policy had on the lives of the most vulnerable became apparent.