Professor Jon Silverman
Professor of Media and Criminal Justice
Jon Silverman is Research Professor of Media & Criminal Justice at the University of Bedfordshire (UK). His main area of research is media and post-conflict justice/governance in both West and East Africa.
He has written extensively about international criminal tribunals, including the ICC, and attended both the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals as a reporter.
Before becoming an academic, he was a journalist for the BBC and worked for 13 years (1989-2002) as Home/Legal Affairs Correspondent, winning the Sony Radio Journalist of the Year award in 1996 for his coverage of the UK’s war crimes investigations.
BA Upper-second, Cantab (1971). Fellow, Higher Education Academy.
Books/Chapters
- Crime, Policy & the Media, Routledge, 2012.
- Foreword to Media, Diaspora & Conflict, ed. Ogunyemi, 2017. Palgrave Macmillan
- ‘Youtube if you want to : camera phones, investigative journalism and social control, in The End of Journalism, ed.Charles, A. 2014. Peter Lang.
- Cats, convicts & clerics : how media and politicians have framed the Human Rights Act in Breaking the News, eds.Gordon,Rowinski & Stewart, 2013. Peter Lang.
Refereed articles
- ‘The International Criminal Court and Africa : A fractious relationship assessed’ (with Archangel Rukooko) in African Human Rights Law Journal Vol 19(1),2019.
- ‘The Justice Conundrum : Africa’s Turbulent Relationship with the ICC’ in Harvard International Law Journal Online Blog, 2019.
- ‘Mediating Identity :The West African diaspora, conflict and communication’ in Crossings : Journal of Migration & Culture Vol 9(1), 2018
- ‘Newspaper coverage of a Sierra Leone war crimes trial : “a continuation of conflict by other means”’ (with Abou Binneh-Kamara) Ecquid Novi/African Journalism Studies.Vol 37(2), 2016.
- ‘The Media’s Reporting of War Crimes Trials and its impact on post-conflict democracy in Sierra Leone and Liberia’ (with Bernadette Cole). Journal of African Media Studies, Vol.5 (1), 2013.
- ‘I feel your Pain’ : Terrorism, the Media and the Politics of Response (with Dr.Lisa Thomas) Crime, Media Culture, Vol.8 (3) 2012.
Member, East Midlands Board of Remembering Srebrenica.
- Media
- Post-conflict justice in Africa
- International criminal courts