Email: c.v.leicht@soton.ac.uk
PhD Project Title: “Eight More Years of Kate McKinnon” - How Satire and Caricature Affect Political Discourse and Political Communications Strategies in US Presidential Elections
Supervisors: Professor Will Jennings, Dr Jessica Smith
Caroline Leicht is a PhD student in Politics within the School of Economic, Social and Political Science at the University of Southampton. Her research focuses on political communication and elections with a focus on US politics.
Caroline's PhD project looks at the role of visual political satire in election campaigns. Using a mixed methods approach, this project will explore how political satire shapes key campaign moments and how it is received and recontextualized in the public sphere.
Prior to joining the University of Southampton, Caroline received her MA in International Relations and Security from the University of Liverpool and her BA in North American Studies from the Free University of Berlin, Germany. During her BA, she spent a year studying abroad at New York University on a scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service as well as a scholarship from the Free University of Berlin in partnership with New York University.
Outside of academia, Caroline has worked as an editor and reporter in print, online and television journalism. Most recently, she covered elections in the US (2020), in the UK (2019) and in Germany (2017).