Category / REF Subjects

Law in Context Early Career Workshop – University of Oxford

ECR Network, Uncategorized

Jeffrey Wale (FMC) has won a place on the Law in Context Early Career Workshop organised by the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford in September 2019.  This followed an open competition involving PGRs submitting their PHD thesis in 2019.  Ten applicants were chosen to participate and the best papers from the workshop will be considered for publication in the International Journal of Law in Context.  Jeffrey will be presenting his doctoral research titled Regulating Medical Decision-Making: A Qualitative Study of Fetal Reduction in Multiple Pregnancy.

 

 

New CMMPH publication on health promotion in post-earthquake Nepal

international, open access, Publishing, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

Today saw the publication of a new paper from an international research team from the UK, Japan and Nepal.  Our research article ‘Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal’ has been published in the Open Access journal PLoS ONE [1]. 

The paper reminds us that natural disasters often disrupt health systems affecting the whole population, but especially vulnerable people such as pregnant women, new mothers and their babies. Despite the global progress in maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) programmes over the years, emergency responses after a disaster are often poor. Post-disaster health promotion could play an important role in improving MNCH outcomes. However, evidence remains limited on the effect of post disaster health promotion activities in low-income countries such as Nepal.

The paper reports on an post-disaster intervention study aimed at women in Nepal following the 2015 earthquake. In total, 364 mothers were recruited in the pre-intervention group and 377 in the post-intervention group. The post-intervention group was more likely to have knowledge of at least three danger signs in pregnancy (AOR [Adjusted Odds Ratio] = 2.96, P<0.001), at least three danger signs in childbirth (AOR = 3.8, P<0.001), and at least five danger signs in newborns (AOR = 1.56, P<0.001) compared to the pre-intervention group. The mothers in the post-intervention group were also more likely to ever attend ANC (AOR = 7.18, P<0.001), attend a minimum of four ANC sessions (AOR = 5.09, P<0.001), and have institutional deliveries (AOR = 2.56, P<0.001).

Religious minority groups were less likely to have knowledge of all danger signs compared to the majority Hindu group. Mothers from poorer households were also less likely to attend four ANC sessions. Mothers with higher education were more likely to have knowledge of all the danger signs. Mothers whose husbands had achieved higher education were also more likely to have knowledge of danger signs and have institutional deliveries.  The paper concludes that the health promotion intervention helped the disaster-affected mothers in improving the knowledge and behaviours related to MNCH. However, the authors also comment that vulnerable populations need more support to benefit from such intervention.

 

Reference:

Dhital R, Silwal RC, Simkhada P, van Teijlingen E, Jimba M (2019) Assessing knowledge and behavioural changes on maternal and newborn health among mothers following post-earthquake health promotion in Nepal. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0220191. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0220191

Media Literacy vs Fake News – recommendations from CEMP research

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, Events, Impact, Post-award, Publishing, Research Centres

As many as possible of the citizens of a democracy must be not only literate but critically literate if they are to behave as full citizens. (Hoggart, 2004: 189)

CEMP have published the outcomes of an ethnography funded by the United States Embassy in London, consisting of a field review, 25 interviews and four multi-stakeholder workshops, bringing together and capturing dialogue between media educators, journalists, students and information professionals, to address the educational response to ‘fake news’ and disinformation.

25 interviews with media educators and journalists were transcribed and analysed for key discursive patterns. Participative workshops were held at the Media Education Summit in Hong Kong, the English and Media Centre in London, the National Higher Research University in Moscow and Loughborough University’s campus at Olympic Park, London.  The total sample, including the interviews and participants in the workshops, is 88, across the four stakeholder groups.

See the project site for the field review, workshop videos, presentations, participant blog, report, recommendations and the ‘top ten’ toolkit of media literacy resources selected by the stakeholders for dealing with fake news.

At the major event in London, with additional sponsorship from the Media Education Association, two days of activities in London at the Olympic Park on 15th and 16th March 2019 brought together the four stakeholder groups for a public event consisting of keynote presentations and a panel comprised of the US and UK academics involved in the project – Professor David Buckingham, Professor Monica Bulger, Professor Paul Mihaildis, Dr Karen Fowler-Watt and Dr Roman Gerodimos.

The workshop was designed to generate dialogue on four issues: (1) clarifying the problem (the apparent ‘information disorder’) from lived experience of the stakeholders; (2) identifying any competing or partly integrated discourses around the concept of trust in media and information; (3) evaluating a range of educational resources already in the world – we called this ‘testing the wheel’ and (4) agreeing on what media education can realistically do, to move beyond ‘solutionism’ (Buckingham, 2019) towards a more viable, modest proposal for Fake News vs Media Studies. Where do / can we have agency?

From the findings of the project, we make the argument that critical media literacy, if adopted as a mandatory subject in schools and taught as a dynamic literacy education, would better equip young citizens with resilience to ‘information disorder’ (Wardle and Derekhshan, 2017) than reactive resources (such as fact-checking and verification tools) and small-scale projects which focus primarily on competences. The latter are described, metaphorically, as ‘giving a fish’, the former are described as ‘teaching to fish’. To use an alternative analogy, the former boosts the immune system, the latter treat the infection (see Rushkoff, 2018).

Both are needed, but ‘teaching to fish’ is the key recommendation, and, in the UK schools’ context, making Media Studies a mandatory subject would be the obvious starting point.

The workshop identified a ‘top ten’ of media literacy resources for dealing with information disorder. These include more holistic, critical media literacy activities (Teaching to Fish) – a more effective and sustainable approach than ‘giving a fish’ through fact-checking tools or surface level media / information literacy competences.

The data generated from the field review, interviews and workshops, taken together, lead us to the following three recommendations:

(1) Rather than producing competence frameworks for media literacy, as though it is a neutral set of skills for citizens, media education needs to enable students to apply the critical legacies of both Media Studies and literacy education on the contemporary media ecosystem;

(2) Media education must adopt a dynamic approach to media literacy and increase the experiential, reflexive aspects of media practice in the curriculum, with reciprocal transfer between the critical rhetorics above and creative media practice in order to respond, academically, to media as primarily a question of representation. In other words, resilience to representation is enhanced by expertise in representing.

(3) We need to add the critical exploration of social media, algorithms and big data to the media education curriculum, accompanied by applied practical learning in the uses of them for social justice, as opposed to training the next generation in the use of these for even further commercial and political exploitation of one another.

Dr. Rachel Arnold’s first paper as BU staff

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized, writing

Congratulations to Dr. Rachel Arnold in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health who had her first paper accepted since she started working at BU two months ago. Her paper ‘Villains or victims? An ethnography of Afghan maternity staff and the challenge of high quality respectful care’ is co-authored with her former PhD supervisors Professor Kath Ryan (BU Visiting Faculy), Professor Emerita Immy Holloway and CMMPH’s Professor Edwin van Teijlingen [1].  The paper is Open Access funded by Bournemouth University’s Open Access Fund which will help promote the visibility of the paper before REF 2021.

I was tempted to head this blog ‘Dr. Arnold only two months at BU and first paper published’, but I decide this would perhaps send the wrong message to other new BU staff.  Rachel completed her PhD in CMMPH and this is paper is the third publication from her thesis.  The other academic publications by Dr. Arnold on Afghanistan have been in BJOG and Social Science & Medicine [2-3].

 

References:

  1. Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2019) Villains or victims? An ethnography of Afghan maternity staff and the challenge of high quality respectful care ,     BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (accepted).
  2. Arnold R., van Teijlingen E, Ryan K., Holloway I. (2015) Understanding Afghan health care providers: Qualitative study of culture of care in Kabul maternity hospital, BJOG 122: 260-267.
  3. Arnold, R., van Teijlingen, E., Ryan, K., Holloway, I. (2018) Parallel worlds: an ethnography of care in an Afghan maternity hospital, Social Science & Medicine 126:33-40.

New collaborative paper BU-NHS colleagues

BU research, Featured academics, nhs, NHS, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

The month saw the publication of the latest collaborative paper between FHSS academics, BU Visiting Faculty and NHS clinicians.  Our paper ‘Design errors in vital sign charts used in consultant-led maternity units in the United Kingdom’ [1] is available for a free download from Elsevier until August 28, 2019. Till then no sign up, registration or fees are required, click here.

The authors, as part of the Modified Obstetric Warning Score (MObs) Research Group, lead by BU Visiting Faculty Richard Isaac, argue that obstetric observation charts in the UK contain poor design features. These charts have common errors such as an inappropriate use of colour, poor alignment and axes labelling.  Consequently, these design errors render charts difficult to use and could compromise patient safety. The article calls for an evidence-based, standardised obstetric observation chart, which should integrate ‘human factors’ and user experience.

This research team, earlier published ‘Vital signs and other observations used to detect deterioration in pregnant women: Analysis of vital sign charts in consultant-led maternity units’. [2]

References:

  1. Isaacs, R., Smith, G., Gale-Andrews, L., Wee, M., van Teijlingen, E., Bick, D.E., Hundley, V. on behalf of the Modified Obstetric Warning Score (MObs) Research Group. (2019) Design errors in vital sign charts used in consultant-led maternity units in the United Kingdom, International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia 39:60-67.
  2. Smith, G., Isaacs, R., Gale-Andrews, L., Wee, M., van Teijlingen, E., Bick, D., Hundley, V. (2017) Vital signs and other observations used to detect deterioration in pregnant women: Analysis of vital sign charts in consultant-led maternity units. International Journal of Obstetric Anesthesia 30: 44-51.

 

EDULEARN held in the beautiful city of Palma (on Love Island!): Assoc Prof Jacqui Taylor presents paper and poster

Centre for Excellence in Learning, conferences, staff profile pages


I recently presented a paper and poster at the EDULEARN19 Conference. The paper reported a study which measured different elements of psychological literacy in students across five different disciplines. Sarah Coady, a voluntary Psychology Research Assistant, helped me with some of the data analysis and for this work she won a BU co-creation Award in May. Also, I presented a poster with the title ‘Psychological literacy for all’, to show how psychological literacy is relevant for students of all disciplines. Both papers are published by IATED in the Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies.

New book by BU academics on re-imagining journalism receives endorsements from industry, the academy and international community

BU research, humanities, Impact, Publishing, Research Centres, Research news

Karen Fowler-Watt and Stephen Jukes are excited to share their new book: New Journalisms: Rethinking Practice, Theory and Pedagogy, which is published as paperback and e-book by Routledge this week.

It has received a range of endorsements from within the academy, industry and our international partners:

New Journalisms invites an important conversation about the future of news reporting, inspiring us to revisit familiar perspectives, challenge our assumptions, and forge fresh approaches. Taken together the chapters set in motion a dazzling array of critiques, each informed by an impassioned commitment to reinvent journalism anew in the public interest. Essential reading.

  • Professor Stuart Allan, Cardiff University

New Journalisms provides us with a much-needed road map, making a vital contribution to the debate about how to reboot journalism for this age of technological, economic and editorial disruption.

  • Stephen Sackur, Hard Talkpresenter, BBC World News and BBC News Channel

Bring together incredible faculty, journalists and students from five continents to reinvent media and you have the Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change. Over a dozen years the Academy has driven a global movement for media literacy, turned news consumers into producers, encouraged social entrepreneurship, and challenged scholars to rethink everything they thought they knew. Arising from this intellectual wind tunnel, New Journalisms offers thinking we desperately need to address information overload and manipulation.

  • Stephen Salyer, President & CEO, Salzburg Global Seminar

The plural in New Journalisms is important in that the edited collection focuses on not only new challenges facing journalism (in the singular) but also seeks to capture a range of new practices that are being employed across a diversity of media. The book explores how these new practices can lead to a re-imagining of journalism in terms of practice, theory and pedagogy.

It forms part of a media literacy series, Routledge Research in Media Literacy and Education, co-edited by CEMP’s Professor Julian McDougall, https://cemp.ac.uk. The book takes an innovative approach in its aim to challenge the normative discourse about practice, theory and pedagogy through encouraging contributors from industry and the academy to re-imagine journalism in all its forms.

It brings together high-profile academics, emerging researchers and well-known journalism practitioners. These include some leading figures in the field. Many of them come together each year at the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change: https://www.salzburgglobal.org/multi-year-series/media-academy . This global alliance of activist scholars, media makers and experimental educators, shares values reflecting a school of thought that advocates transformative pedagogies and practices, which also support civic impact. Given the current period of uncertainty and introspection in the media, the book represents a timely intervention in the debate about journalism but also aims to have a sustainable impact due to its forward-looking nature.

Not for the first time, journalism is in a period of introspection. This time, however, it is not about ‘drinking in the last chance saloon’ as a result of self-inflicted wounds after the phone hacking scandal and ensuing Leveson inquiry. Today, the crisis facing the media comes from external forces, whether it be attacks from the U.S. president, the rising voice of partisan opinion or narratives of fear. Established media appears to be drowned out and ‘the people who want to see journalism fail now have a bigger megaphone than ever’ (Bell, 2017). The Internet has perversely reinforced personal opinion as the public consumes what it wants to hear. The Internet has thus, in part, failed to deliver on the connectivity it promised.

Against this landscape, the edited collection explores a series of key themes and objectives:

− New challenges: towards a definition of ‘new journalisms’, those challenges presented by a crisis of professional identity, changing patterns of consumption and engagement with news, and issues arising from public disaffection with elites, journalism and the media

− New practices: ways of connecting publics through listening to marginalised voices, the increased potential of alternative journalisms, the impact of analytics, considering how journalists handle the rise of violent and graphic images,

− Re-imagining: how journalism education can lead to new journalisms, how to engage people in an age of distrust, pedagogies to enhance an understanding of narratives of terror and threats to human rights, teaching new ways of telling human stories.

Karen and Stephen will be discussing the book in a ‘salon’ at the Salzburg Media Academy in late July and they are hosting an official launch at BU as part of a journalism education symposium for CEMP’s Journalism Education Research Group on October 10th (2-5pm in the EBC).

Author biographies:

Dr Karen Fowler-Watt is a senior principal academic at Bournemouth University where she is research theme lead for journalism education in the Centre for Excellence in Media Practice. As a BBC journalist and editor for Radio 4 News and Current Affairs, she worked in Moscow, the Middle East, Northern Ireland, and the United States. Her research focuses on questions of empathy and voice with specific interest in reimagining journalism education, trauma awareness, and conflict reporting. She works with the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change and is engaged in a pedagogy project with Global Voices. https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/kfowler-watt

Stephen Jukes is Professor of Journalism in the Faculty of Media & Communication at Bournemouth University. He worked in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas as a foreign correspondent and editor for Reuters before moving into the academic world in 2005. His research focuses on areas of objectivity and emotion in news with an emphasis on affect, trauma, and conflict journalism. He works with the Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, chairs the Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma in Europe, and is a trustee of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting. https://staffprofiles.bournemouth.ac.uk/display/sjukes

 

 

 

Research Events in July

BU research, Events, REF Subjects, Research assessment, Research Training, writing

Preparing Practice-Based Research Outputs for Assessment (REF 2021)

Wednesday 17th July 11:00 – 15:30 on Talbot Campus

The focus of this session will be on :

  • The information to include in your submission, and how it is presented
  • Looking at worked examples – good and bad practice
  • Providing individual support

By the end of this workshop you will have knowledge of the information which reviewers need in order assess research outputs, and how this should be presented to reviewers. You will also have made progress in developing the supporting information for outputs due to be submitted in future REF Mock exercises.

See here for more details and to book.

Research Outputs Writing Days

The Research Outputs Writing Days are very popular. These aim to give authors time and space with like minded individuals to produce publications , and provide insights and tips into how to manage writing time within daily routine.

The event on Tuesday 16th July is now fully booked, but the next is on Thursday 5th September. See here for to book and for details of other dates.

Congratulations to PhD student Alice Ladur

BU research, open access, PG research, Publishing, Research news, student research, Uncategorized, writing

FHSS PhD student Alice Ladur has been awarded a small but very competitive grant by FfWG, the Funds for Women Graduates.  FfWG is the trading name of the BFWG Charitable Foundation and the BFWG (British Federation of Women Graduates), which is affiliated to the International Federation of University Women.

Alice is based in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH).  Her PhD research in Uganda is supervised by Prof. Vanora Hundley and Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen. Her thesis research has already resulted in an academic paper published in the international journal BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth, which Open Access.

New BU cross-faculty publication

BU research, Featured academics, international, NHS, Publishing, Research Centres, Research news, Uncategorized, writing

This week Evidence-Based Midwifery published the latest article from the BU team working on the portrayal of midwifery and maternity in the media.  This qualitative paper ‘Changing the narrative around childbirth: whose responsibility is it?’ is co-authored by a multidisciplinary team including the disciplines of Midwifery, Sociology and Media.[1]  The lead author is Prof. Vanora Hundley in the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH), one of longest established centres at BU, her co-authors are Dr. Ann Luce in the Faculty of Media & Communication, Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen director of CMMPH and Sophie Edlund, who was based at BU at the time of the research but who is now at Malmö University in Sweden.

The paper addresses societal’s interest in all aspects of childbirth, which is reflected in both social and traditional media. Stories often focus on dramatic, risky and mostly unrealistic events; misrepresenting childbirth and maternity care professionals. The authors raised the question: “Whose responsibility is it to ensure accurate representations of childbirth?”   Using semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten midwives working in the UK some working in the NHS, some in Higher Education or independent practice, the authors distilled four separate but inter-related themes:

(1) not my responsibility;

(2) fear of retribution;

(3) power balance; and

(4) social media.

The themes sat within two wider societal issues that reflect the current challenges for midwifery, these were (a) the ongoing battle between the social and the medical models of childbirth and (b) the impact of gender.  Finding that midwives fear the media resonates with experiences from a number of countries and professional groups. There is a need to change media discourse in both fictional and factual representations of childbirth and midwives have a critical role to play in this, but to do this they need to equip themselves with the skills necessary to engage with the media. Guidelines on responsible media reporting could ensure that media producers portray pregnancy, midwifery and maternity care as naturally as possible.

This paper is paper of a growing body of interdisciplinary research at BU across faculties, which had already resulted in six earlier publications. [2-7]  In addition last month Dr Chapleo from the Faculty of Management submitted a grant application to the ESRC under the title ‘Rebranding childbirth: understanding the role of marketing in influencing uptake of health services’, a joint application with CMMPH staff (Profs. Hundley & van Teijlingen) and the Media School (Dr. Luce).

 

References:

  1. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E., Edlund, S. (2019) Changing the narrative around childbirth: whose responsibility is it? Evidence-based Midwifery 17(2): 47-52.
  2. Luce, A., Cash, M., Hundley, V., Cheyne, H., van Teijlingen, E., Angell, C. (2016) “Is it realistic?” the portrayal of pregnancy and childbirth in the media BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth 16: 40 http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-016-0827-x
  3. van Teijlingen, E., Simkhada, P., Luce, A., Hundley, V. (2016) Media, Health & Health Promotion in Nepal, Journal of Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences 2(1): 70-75. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/JMMIHS/article/view/15799/12744
  4. Luce, A., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) (2017) Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  5. 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.
  6. Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
  7. van Teijlingen, E., De Vries, R., Luce, A., Hundley, V. (2017) Meer bemoeien met media (In Dutch: more engagement with media). Tijdschrift voor Verloskundigen (in Dutch: Journal for Midwives), 41 (6):28-29.

Research Capacity Building in Nepal: 600 reads

BU research, Centre for Excellence in Learning, Featured academics, international, Knowledge Exchange, open access, Publishing, Research communication, Research news, Training, Uncategorized, writing

A few times a month ResearchGate alerts me that another paper has reached a miles stone of so having been read some many times.   Today the ResearchGate message is about 600 reads for our paper ‘Research Methods Coverage in Medical and Health Science Curricula in Nepal’. [1]  This paper was a report  on research methods teaching in health-related Higher Education (HE) courses in the health and medical field in Nepal.  This paper originates from a DelPHE (Round 4), British Council award.  Our study ‘Partnership on Improving Access to Research Literature for HE Institutions in Nepal’ (PARI Initiative) was a collaboration between the oldest university in Nepal, namely Tribhuvan University and two UK university of which BU was one.    A further paper from the PARI Initiative was published a year later.  [2]   The lead author of both papers in BU Visiting Faculty Prof Padam Simkhada, who is Professor of International Public Health at the Public Health Institute at Liverpool John Moores University.

The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is a full Open Access journal which means anybody across the globe can access it for free.  The Nepal Journal of Epidemiology is part of  Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) a service established by INASP in 2007,  which provides online publication of Nepali journals.

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

References:

  1. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Pokharel, T., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S. (2013) Research Methods Coverage in Medical & Health Science Curricula in Nepal, Nepal Journal Epidemiology 3(3): 253-258. www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/9185
  2. Simkhada, P., van Teijlingen, E., Devkota, B., Pathak, R.S., Sathian, B. (2014) Accessing research literature: A mixed-method study of academics in Higher Education Institutions in Nepal, Nepal Journal of Epidemiology 4(4): 405-14. http://www.nepjol.info/index.php/NJE/article/view/11375