Jacob Woodhouse

DPhil Research Topic

‘Tell Sid!’: An analysis of policy promotion within the Conservative and Labour parties, 1979-1990'

Supervisor: Matthew Grimley

Background 

I am principally a twentieth-century political historian with a particular interest in how governments operate, how internal political factions negotiate their political, economic, and social interests with one another, and the means by which governments advance and implement their political agendas. 

Thesis

My current research examines the evolution of electioneering and advertising strategies within the Conservative and Labour parties in Britain during the 1980s.  I am especially interested in the shifting relationship between political parties and the media, the growing influence of professional campaign management, and the use of targeted messaging during a period of rapid political, social, and economic change. I am drawn to questions concerning how parties craft narratives that embody their political and ideological agendas, how these are communicated to the public, and how such narratives intersect with broader themes in modern British political history, including statecraft, ideology, and political communication. These questions are central in trying to account for how both parties’ attempted to (re)define themselves as political entities within the period and how they articulate their respective agendas in order to maintain existing voter bases and identities or cultivate new ones.

To explore these dynamics, I will undertake a semiotic analysis of campaign and electioneering materials, as well as political advertisements, across the period. This allows for an examination of how both parties’ political and ideological visions manifested themselves through processes of signification, in which images, slogans, and design choices produced meaning through the signs, codes, and visual grammars embedded within them.

Academic Career

• DPhil in History, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (Present)
• MSt in History, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge (2024)
• PG Cert in Classics, St Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge (2022)
• BA in History and Politics, Coventry University (2019)*

*Awarded the 'Course Tutor Prize' for highest academic achievement within cohort, with an undergraduate dissertation grade of 80.

Masters Dissertation

Dissertation entitled: ‘An analysis of statecraft within the Thatcher Administration, 1979-1990’, under the supervision of Dr. A. Williamson (Trinity Hall)

Undergraduate Dissertation

Dissertation entitled: 'How did Neville Chamberlain maintain control during the Downing Street years, 1937-1940’, under the supervision of Dr. K. Lovell.