BU Research Blog

30 April 2015

GeoNet Human/Wildlife Conflict

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, Fusion Investment Fund, Knowledge Exchange, PG research, Public engagement, student research pgillingham

For our most recent GeoNet event we were lucky enough to have a visit from Gaius Wilson all the way from Southern India. Gaius told us about his PhD research into elephant behaviour. Apparently there are 12-15,000 elephants in Southern India, and they commonly come into conflict with humans. Farmers try to protect their crops with deep ditches (elephants can’t jump!) and electric fences. However, elephants are clever, and have realised that their tusks don’t conduct electricity, so the males (females don’t have tusks) push over fences or use trees to break them. An emerging problem is the spread of a weed called Lantana, which was introduced from South America as an ornamental hedge plant. Lantana forms very high, dense stands which elephants can’t cross. It takes up space and so there is a loss of fodder, since elephants don’t eat Lantana, and the plant contains oils and can lead to more intense forest fires. This pushes elephants closer to villages to find food, and means that locals with captive working elephants have to travel further to find food. One thing the forest department can do to stop elephants being forced to use farmer’s resources is to remove Lantana where it appears. Employing villagers to do this could create work opportunities, with associated economic benefits.

After Gaius’ talk we had an interesting discussion (joined by Susanna Curtin and Mandy Korstjens) about the potential for wildlife tourism to mitigate human/wildlife conflict. The idea is that if farmers have another income stream provided by tourists, it becomes in their interest to protect the animals that the tourists pay to see. However, most wildlife tourism in India is domestic, so not much cash is generated. There are pitfalls with this type of tourism, in that guides and others employed are often not local people, hotels are usually some distance from wildlife sites and locals often don’t receive any benefit from tourist visits, which can lead to resentment. There are some success stories – in Peru all guides are local by law and receive training to fulfil the role. Small-scale tourism in Peru involving locals has spread as nearby villages see the benefits and follow the example of those who set up schemes. However, in India legislation prevents people from setting up such schemes in protected areas, and until this is allowed nature tourism won’t have a role in persuading locals to protect elephants.

Our next three events are;

7^th May 13.00-14.00 Lawrence LT (Talbot Campus)

Participatory Research – Gitte Kragh (BU Life Sciences) Hayley Roberts (BU AAFS) Rick Stafford (BU Life Sciences) Paola Palmer (BU AAFS)

14^th May 13.00-14.00 KG01 (Talbot Campus)

Storymaps and place-based storytelling – Anna Feigenbaum (BU M & C)

21^st May 13.00-14.00, PG19 (Talbot Campus)

Cultural heritage landscapes and deathscapes – Craig Young (Reader in Human Geography at Manchester Met University), Tim Darville (BU SciTech AAFS), Anne Luce (BU M & C)

30 April 2015

The social sciences at BU

Research assessment brichards

In response to an open email invitation, a group of social scientists from across BU met on Tuesday 17 March to discuss prospects for inter-Faculty collaboration. As in previous meetings between FMC and HSS colleagues, it was apparent that there were opportunities for more collaborative work than currently exists, and that there is considerable enthusiasm for developing links. A growing presence of the social sciences in BU, and of BU in the social sciences, was felt to be essential to BU’s development as a university with a rich intellectual community. If you haven’t received the report from this meeting by email, and would like to do so, please email Prof. Barry Richards (brichards@bmth.ac.uk)

29 April 2015

Dr Jeffrey Murer: Guest lecture on political violence

brichards

The Politics and Media Research Group in FMC has a very stimulating guest speaker lined up for Monday 11^th May. Dr. Jeffrey Murer is Lecturer on Collective Violence at the University of St. Andrews, in the School of International Relations. He is unusual for an IR specialist in that he draws deeply on ideas from psychoanalysis in his studies of violent political conflict. The title of his talk is “The Politics of Splitting: Anxiety, Loss and the Anti-Semitic, Anti-Roma Violence of Contemporary Hungary”. While focussing on the situation in Hungary, his talk will illustrate how an interdisciplinary, psycho-social approach can be applied to generate insights into violence in many other contexts.

The talk will be in P406. It will start at 5.00 and be followed, until 6.30, by questions and discussion.

All staff and students are welcome.

27 April 2015

Representations of PR – online resource

REF Subjects Tom Watson

Representation of professions and employment takes many forms and is often shaped by books and visual and aural media.

In the public relations field, characters such as Edina in Absolutely Fabulous and the foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It are well known, as are terms like “PR success” and “PR disaster”, even though the events may have little to do with public relations practices or activities.

Apart from one US researcher, Professor Joe Saltzman of the University of Southern California, there has been little investigation of representations of public relations in books and entertainment media.

Working with colleagues in Australia, Sweden and the US, Professor Tom Watson of the Faculty of Media & Communication developed the PRDepiction blog: https://prdepiction.wordpress.com/ in 2012.

“We wanted to create a resource that would offer a catalogue of books, films, TV and radio, as well as articles, and encourage interdisciplinary research,” said Professor Watson.

As the blog has a relatively simple structure, additions and amendments can be made quickly. It has just been overhauled with a new look and revisions and more entries.

“PRDepiction has grown over the years and become more international. The latest additions include TV series in Australia and the UK, and a three-book series on a fashion PR guru from Australia,” said Professor Watson.

Additions can be sent to PR Depiction as blog Comments or to twatson@bournemouth.ac.uk. The blog also has a Twitter address, @PRDepiction.

PRDepiction's Twitter logo

7 April 2015

Datalabs 2: Maps and Mashups

Knowledge Exchange, Public engagement, R & KE Operations afeigenbaum

Digital technologies like google maps have transformed the ways people relate to visual representations of geographic space. From zoom functionality on street view, to rainbow coloured social network graphs, people are engaging their geographical imaginations to produce visual representations that matter to them and their research.

This second Datalabs event introduces participants to mapping tools and techniques for visual analysis and storytelling with spatial data. On Day 1 you will explore open source software for mapping location-linked data, discovering how to scale, symbolise and tell stories with the maps that you make. Then on Day 2 we learn how APIs work to retrieve information from social network sites like twitter and facebook. You will explore how to turn this social media data into maps and create mashups with other data, creating stories for public engagement and finding new, collaborative research questions along the way.

Our innovative datalabs format combines Masterclasses with hands-on workshop sessions to enhance and share skills around working with data for civic and humanitarian research and public engagement. Datalabs involve students and staff from across BU’s faculties, as well as participating NGOs, journalists and digital designers.

Our popular first event was oversubscribed, so register early to take part in this exciting interdisciplinary initiative! Monday April 27th – Tuesday April 28th: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/datalabs-2-maps-and-mashups-tickets-16433088811

Datalabs is a Fusion CCCP Funded project. The project team includes: Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, Dr. Einar Thorsen, Dr. Pippa Gillingham, Professor, Dr.Hamid Bouchachia, Dr. Dan Jackson, Dr. Shelley Thompson, Dr. Nathan Farrell, Dr. Edward Apeh, Dr. Duncan Golicher, Dr. Rebecca Edwards, Robert Munday, Oz Dermirkal and stakeholder coordinator, John Horne.

The Civic Media hub was established in 2014 and brings together a multidisciplinary, cross-Faculties team of researchers and students that work in collaboration with external stakeholders to co-create effective ways of tackling important social issues. We combine expertise from humanities, social sciences, geography, computer science and data analytics. Bios for the Datalabs team can be found at http://www.civicmedia.io/#team

2 April 2015

Publishing an academic book in a low-income country

Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Earlier this year our book ‘The Dynamics of Health in Nepal’ was published by Himal Books for Social Science Baha in Kathmandu.¹It is an edited collection covering a range of current health topics in Nepal, including issues such as maternal health, HIV/AIDS, sexual health, road traffic accidents, non-communicable diseases and the role of the media and migration.

One of us had published several books, with for example international publishers such as Elsevier, Routledge (part of Taylor Francis) and Oxford University Press.^2-4All editors authors are UK PhD graduates from the universities of Aberdeen (van Teijlingen), Southampton (Simkhada) and Sheffield (Wasti) respectively. All three of us were based in the UK at the time of conception of the book. Padam Simkhada was Senior Lecturer in International Health at the University of Sheffield, Edwin van Teijlingen still is professor at Bournemouth University and Sharada Prasad Wasti was a PhD student at ScHARR (University of Sheffield). So it made sense to talk to publishers in the UK, which is what we did. However, it rapidly became clear that we could get a deal for an expensive hardback book, a book which would sell way above what the average academic in Nepal could afford. After some soul searching we decided to look into getting the book published in Nepal.

One of the advantages of publishing Nepal is the same most outsourcing to low income-countries, namely it keeps the production costs down. Rather than increasing our profit margins by keeping the low production costs, as it the typical case in the global market, we used this to keep the retail price low. The book retails for 800NR (about £5.50) in Nepal which means it is affordable to academics and postgraduate students in Nepal. Similar books from international publishers sell for at least £20!

We had some trepidation about the potentially quality of the book before we signed the contract with Social Science Baha. These low expectations were based on the quality of printed text books we had seen for sale on small stalls outside the Kittipur Campus of Tribhuvan University. One of these shoddy looking books was based on lecturers given by our Nepalese colleague Prof. Dr. Bhimsen Devkota. When we passed one of these stalls many years ago he pointed at a particular book and said: “See that book, a student who had attended my lectures two years in a row, copied all I said, and the materials I handed out, all of it word for word. That student then got it published as a book.”

However, our expectations were wrong. From the outset the publishing process was impressive. Social Science Baha employed a very professional proof-reader/copy-editor who picked up a lot of minor style and language issues even after we had most of the chapters professionally proof-read in the UK. The classic example of the thoroughness of his checking was the name of one for the chapter contributors ‘Sally Woodes Rogers’, he came back to us and said, “But her name on the web pages of the University of Aberdeen is ‘Sarah’ not ‘Sally’, are you sure?” At which point we had to assure him that ‘Sarah’ was her correct birth name but that she wanted herself to be known as ‘Sally’.

The final version of our book looks very good. The cover is beautifully printed; the font, chapter lay-out and overall style are of a very high quality. Our book has the feel of a typical academic book published in Europe or North America. There is really nothing about it that says this book is published in a low-income country.

The book has been well received at its launch in Kathmandu in January 2015. The first published book review was also very complementary.⁵ Last but not least, having produced a great looking book, for us the final feel-good factor is that we agreed to donate all profits from the sale of the book to the charity Green Tara Nepal.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Prof. Padam Simkhada

Dr. Sharada P. Wasti

References:

Wasti, S.P., Simkhada, P.P., van Teijlingen, E.(eds.) (2015)The Dynamics of Health in Nepal,Kathmandu, Nepal: Social Science Baha&Himal Books
DeVries, R., Benoit, C., Teijlingen van, E., Wrede, S. (eds.) (2001) Birth by Design: Pregnancy, Midwifery Care and Midwifery in North America and Europe,New York: Routledge.
Taylor R., Smith, B.,Teijlingen van, E. (eds.) (2003) Health & Illness in the Community: an Oxford Core Text, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Alder, B. Abraham, C., van Teijlingen, E., Porter, M. (eds.) (2009) Psychology & Sociology Applied to Medicine: An Illustrated Colour Text (third edn), Edinburgh: Elsevier Science.
Pradhan S. (2015) Book review The Dynamics of Health in Nepal, Public Health Perspective 5(2) on line journal: http://www.phpnepal.org/index.php?listId=943

25 March 2015

PR History conference abstracts online

Tom Watson

The 46 abstracts of papers chosen for presentation at the International History of Public Relations Conference 2015 are now available online at: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/historyofpr/files/2010/11/IHPRC-2105-Abstracts.pdf

This is the largest selection of papers chosen for IHPRC since it started in 2010 and, says IHPRC Chair Professor Tom Watson, “it is indicative of the increasing quality of research and scholarship from around the world in the field of public relations history.”

Authors come from 21 countries and include first-time contributions from Mauritius, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland. The largest group of papers is from the U.S. (10), followed by UK (8), Germany (4) and Turkey (4).

The conference will be held in the EBC on 8-9 July this year. Registration is at: https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/historyofpr/registration/

11 March 2015

What do Wikileaks, MPs’ Expenses Scandals and Drone Strikes in Afghanistan have in common?

Fusion, Knowledge Exchange afeigenbaum

Data.

Big data, small data, everyday data. New technologies have reshaped what we know and how we find out about world events, conflicts and scandals. The collection, the aggregation, and later the manipulation and visualisation of open and shared datasets are now essential across many fields of research and public communication.

Next week at Bournemouth University we are hosting the first of three Fusion funded co-creation Datalabs. Datalabs are participatory workshops designed to enhance and share skills around working with data for civic and humanitarian research and public engagement. Datalabs involve students and staff from across BU’s faculties, as well as participating NGOs, journalists and digital designers.

Our first Datalab on Scraping and Cleaning combines a Masterclass and workshop to introduce participants to tools and techniques for scraping data from the web. We will go over how you format and organise data in spreadsheets. Discussing basic methods for data storytelling, the workshop will provide training in how to find data stories within datasets. We will also introduce geo-coding, making data ready for mapping.

To register to attend March 16th and March 17th Datalbs, email afeigenbaum@bournemouth.ac.uk

For more information on the project and future sessions see: http://www.civicmedia.io/datalabs/

To get the most out of the day we ask that you arrive promptly for the slotted programme sessions.

17 February 2015

Serendipitous Impact and the Power of No: lessons from CEMP’s Research Away Day

R & KE Operations, Training afeigenbaum

On Friday February 13, 2015 eighteen researchers across all stages of their careers came together for our CEMP Research Away Day. Hosted at the Old School House By the Sea in Boscombe, the day focused on how we can foster our media & education research culture, from REF strategy to collaboration building, both at BU and beyond.

Kicking us off with REF and Impact, Rebecca Edwards from RKEO spoke about key issues including the new Open Access Guidelines and how we can work to evidence our impact. She summed up 8 key points to takeaway:

1. Know your Open Access
2. Go Gold when possible – use RKEO fund
3. Collaborate with other institutions and international colleagues
4. Identify and developing Impact Case Studies
5. Evidencing your Impact as you go along (testimonials, visitor counts, etc)
6. Promote your research on the BU research website
7. Aim to increase research income
8. Focus on PhD registrations and completions

Sound like a gigantic task for just one person? These goals are not for individuals to accomplish alone. Working in teams and groups is key for doing innovative research, producing outputs and building successful bids. Making connections between our work is a necessary beginning.

Isabella Rega’s Making Connections session got the group talking about where our interests intersect. Using three different coloured post-it notes, we wrote down the issues (green), methods (pink) and stakeholders (yellow) that we work with. Participatory research methods, HE teaching and learning, and Education and Social Change emerged as key overlaps.

Out of these connections some concrete plans emerged, including turning fusion project output into educational resources and a participatory methods workshop day.

From project plans to project afterlife, we shifted to speak about documenting and evidencing impact. We looked at four case studies of research projects including ETAG and Copyrightuser.org, their significance and who they reached. Rebecca Edwards provided advice on how we evidence, measure and track our project’s impact. Sometimes these impacts can be anticipated, but more often there is serendipity and surprise.

Tracking Impact

-Tiers of influence
-Is influencing an organisation enough? How do we understand what this was?
-Testimonials
-Formal letters from key institutions
-If you’ve done research at another institution it doesn’t count at our institution. Impact stays at institution. Reason is because it is usually about groups.
-Entire groups can be rewarded for impact
-Demonstrate the evidence of impact on policy —> Following the story
-Distinct contribution of the University
-Can’t always see the impact from the outset —> serendipity involved, not always
-visitors counts and the result of them

After a tasty, if unidentifiable food-filled lunch from Bosconova, we ran a reflection session on barriers to research bidding and publishing. Designed to get us thinking about the personal and structural constraints on our research, the session helped us room-source practical solutions to common challenges.

Richard Wallis got us back up on our feet with a enthusiastic round of Research Speed Dating. Partnering up with colleagues for short bursts of time, we quickly exchanged project ideas offering feedback and fostering more research connections. Julian McDougall and Richard Berger rounded out the afternoon with a go-around. Everyone shared their upcoming plans and outlined the support they would need to achieve them.

Described by participants as a “fantastic day,” we left feeling the best kind of inspired: more excited and less exhausted about the research plans that lay ahead for CEMP’s growing educational research community.

Anna Feigenbaum is a CEMP Fellow. To find out more about CEMP and how to get involved, check out the website: http://www.cemp.ac.uk/

17 February 2015

Are you in the know? – Creative, digital and design communities

Knowledge Transfer jcodling

Trying to keep up with what is happening within this sector.?

Why not sign up for a comprehensive newsletter emailed to you on a regular basis summarising upcoming events, funding programmes and awards within this sector. Packed full of information this is an easy read and a useful tool to keep up to speed with news and information in this fast moving creative arena.

Published by the Knowledge Transfer Network.

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16 February 2015

SW businesses can benefit from £5k of funding from Creative England

Business Engagement, Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange jcodling

Creative England is offering creative digital businesses in the South West the chance to apply for a third round of Business Strategy and Innovation Vouchers.

The scheme provides companies with £1,000 – £5,000 to subsidise much of the cost of procuring expert third party services in order to aid growth.

Funded by the Creative Industries iNet programme through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Regional Growth Fund (RGF), the initiative focuses strongly on digital innovation and business strategy.

The Creative England Innovation Programme helps creative companies build and sell innovative products and services more successfully. This work is delivered through structured projects – which include seed investment, mentoring, marketing, and business support, planning and strategy. These projects help companies jump over business barriers to grow more quickly and profitably.

In order to apply to this round, businesses must be based in Bristol, Bath, Dorset, Devon, Wiltshire, Somerset or Gloucestershire, and be able to provide a total equalling 30% of the requested amount in match funding.

The voucher scheme is part of a wider £314k programme of support through the Creative England Innovation Programme.

Applications for the Voucher Scheme close on February 27th, 2015. For more information please read the guidelines below. Companies can apply directly here.

11 February 2015

CEMP Bulletin February 2015

Funding opportunities, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, PG research jmcdougall

Here is the new CEMP Research Bulletin. CEMP bulletin FEB 15 Isa

As always, talk to the CEMP Fellow in your academic group, Milena in CEL, Richard Berger or Julian McDougall to follow up any of the opportunities listed or to get involved in research with CEMP.

30 January 2015

GeoNet Launch with climate change event

Coffee Morning, Fusion, Knowledge Exchange pgillingham

The fusion funded GeoNet project holds its first event on Tuesday the 3rd of February. The project aims to bring together staff and students from across the university with mutual interests via a series of events, including some lunchtime panel debates and a series of external speakers. GeoNet is very inclusive and anyone with an interest is welcome to come and take part. The events are designed to encourage conversation and interaction, with plenty of audience participation. Our first event is;

A conversation about climate change

Coyne Lecture Theatre

Tues 3^rd February, 1-2pm

Come along to the Coyne on the 3^rd Feb to join in the first of eleven planned GeoNet events. Join panellists who research the science of climate change and its impacts (John Stewart, Andrew Ford and Pippa Gillingham from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences) and those who research how best to communicate it (Einar Thorsen, Nathan Farrell and David Fevyer from the Media School) in conversation to find out more about their work. We want this session to be as interactive as possible and there will be lots of opportunities to ask questions and help us as we try to learn from each other.

Tea, coffee and cookies will be provided and all are welcome!

23 January 2015

Reminder: Consumer Research Group Meeting No.3!!

Funding opportunities, PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes jmemery

The ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be holding its next meeting 2-4pm on Wednesday 28^th January in PG19. Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting. Discussions within this meeting will revolve around an outline of the vision/strategic plan for the CRG, as well as opportunities to initiate and progress collaborative research projects around the seven CRG themes. These all aim to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

Anyone who is doing consumer research of any description is welcome to join and contribute to the discussions – and as before there will be coffee and cake to help our consumer thinking along.

If you would like to come along please email any of the other contacts below so that we can get a feel for numbers. If you are unable to make this meeting but are interested in being involved please email us to let us know and we will keep you informed about future events.

Jeff Bray (Tourism; jbray@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Juliet Memery (Business School; jmemery@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Janice Denegri-Knott (Media School; JDKnott@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Siné McDougall (SciTech; smcdougall@bournemouth.ac.uk)

21 January 2015

CIPPM Researchers launch Copyright Resource for A/AS Level Media Studies

Awarded & submitted bids, Post-award cippm

Researchers at the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy and Management (CIPPM) in collaboration with CREATe, the RCUK Centre for Copyright and New Business Models in the Creative Economy at the University of Glasgow have launched an educational web resource aimed at A/AS Level Media Studies. The project, which was carried out during 2013-2014, was funded by RCUK under a contract with CREATe, University of Glasgow (Principal Investigator: Dr. Dinusha Mendis, Co-Director, CIPPM).

The Centre for Excellence in Media Practice (CEMP) at Bournemouth University is also part of the collaboration.

The web resource and downloadable PDF forms part of the already established Copyrightuser.org (initially funded by the Fusion Investment Fund, 2012-2013) and is titled, Contemporary Media Regulation: A Case Study in Copyright Law.

In particular, this educational web resource addresses Critical Perspectives in Media, Section B: Contemporary Media Issues and was approved by Oxford Cambridge and RSA (OCR) Examination Board at their Annual Conference on 21 March 2014.

The resource was disseminated to a large network of Schools in England and Wales in January 2015 and during 2015-2016, the researchers will map the impact of this educational resource by identifying how many Schools / students have opted to study Copyright Law as part of the Critical Perspectives in Media, Section B: Contemporary Media Issues.

The value of this educational resource has already been identified by the UK Government. In October 2014, Copyrightuser.org was mentioned by Mike Weatherley MP in his report Copyright Education and Awareness, in which he specifically mentioned this resource as an attempt to introduce copyright law into the AS/A Level Media Studies curriculum in schools in England and Wales. A write-up about it can be found here.

The content is shaped to enable teachers to explain the complexity and importance of copyright in media, and for the students to research copyright regulation and demonstrate their understanding within the Contemporary Media Regulation exam question.

This educational resource provides teachers with simple and straightforward information about copyright law. The focus is to bring together different perspectives on copyright issues. There is a consideration of the historical, contemporary and future copyright issues, with an emphasis on present.

The resource was formally launched in February 2015 by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the press release titled ‘What we Should Teach Students about Copyright Law’ can be accessed here.

The educational resource was produced by a team consisting of:

Authors: Ms. Hayleigh Bosher and Dr. Dinusha Mendis (CIPPM)

Illustrations: Mr. Davide Bonazzi

Editor: Professor Ronan Deazley (Professor of Copyright Law, CREATe, University of Glasgow)

Educational Resource Development: Dr. Julian McDougall (CEMP)

Production: Mr. Bartolomeo Meletti (CREATe, University of Glasgow)

Questionnaire Respondents: see here

23 December 2014

FIF Erasmus award – Relationship continues with Leipzig University

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, REF Subjects Tom Watson

Since 2010, Professor Tom Watson of the Faculty of Media & Communication has been developing a productive teaching and research association with Leipzig University in Germany. Following a successful application to the FIF Erasmus fund, he will be making his fourth visit in June 2015.

As Leipzig’s research on communication management is Europe-leading, headed by Professor Dr Ansgar Zerfass, research-based material for teaching to BA (Hons) Public Relations and MA Corporate Communication students will result from the visit. Professor Watson will also gain insights on the teaching of communication management for BU’s new MA Corporate Communication.

Working with Emeritus Professor Dr Günter Bentele on the history of PR in Western Europe will lead to publications and conference papers, and development of new archival resources. The visit will also aid the objectives of the European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN), which was formed by Professor Watson and Professor Dr Bentele and others, through investigation of archives at Leipzig. New research publications which will result from the two researchers’ joint work on the history of European public relations in the three decades after World War II.

This research will also assist preparation of material and lectures for the forthcoming BA (Hons) History. During the visit, Professor Watson’s teaching commitments will include:

Lectures on the history of public relations to BA students
Lectures and seminars on corporate social responsibility, management of communication performance, and quantitative research methods for MA and PhD students.
A seminar for MA students regarding the history of PR is western Europe since WW2

11 December 2014

Festival of Learning 2014 not ‘finished’ yet!

Festival of Learning, Publishing Edwin van Teijlingen

Whilst the call for 2015 Festival of Learning activities is already out, some of us are still busy with the 2014 one. This past year Prof. Vanora Hundley (Faculty of Health & Social Sciences) led a debate about the impact of the mass media on women’s view of childbirth. The debate was centred around The media is responsible for creating fear in childbirth.

Elizabeth Duff from the NCT and BU Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen affiliated with the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health argued in favour of the motion and Joanne Dewberry independent blogger, journalist and successful business woman and Dr. Ann Luce from BU’s Journalism and Communication Academic Group argued against.

The audience were given the opportunity to vote on the motion before and after the debate. The interesting and wide-ranging debate has been written up and it now published in MIDIRS under the title ‘Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible?’

The full reference is: Hundley, V., Duff, E., Dewberry, J., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2014) Fear in childbirth: are the media responsible? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 24(4): 444-447.

Professors Edwin van Teijlingen & Vanora Hundley

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

Faculty of Health & Social Sciences

8 December 2014

News from the Consumer Research Group: The CR@B is dead … long live the CRG!!

PG research, REF Subjects, Research themes jmemery

The newly renamed ‘Consumer Research Group’ (formally known as CR@B (Consumer Research @ Bournemouth) … but now rebranded!) held its second meeting last week which again brought together consumer researchers from a wide range of disciplines across the University for lively discussions around the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research (over coffee and mince pies!). The aim of the meeting was to begin to identify themes around which groups or clusters of consumer researchers could discuss potential collaborations and plan activities for the future. From the meeting seven themes were initially proposed (see diagram above), and whilst these may initially remain fluid, they offer great opportunity for further discussion. A notable outcome from this meeting was the variety of consumer research areas being explored at BU, and the number of potential linkages that could be made between different groups, across and between these themes, to develop an even stronger research profile for the CRG.

The next meeting for the ‘Consumer Research Group’ will be 2-4pm on Wednesday 28^th January in PG19. Professor John Fletcher – Pro Vice Chancellor – Research and Innovation – will open the meeting.