Category / Research themes

Innovation in sport: breaking through the white-water

Shelley3-1100x500It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking how we’re breaking down the barriers in kayaking for women.Kayaking originated as a method of hunting on rough seas for Arctic Inuit tribes. It was later popularised in the UK by Scottish sportsman John MacGregor, known as Rob Roy, who wrote about his many voyages in a canoe more than 150 years ago, before his death in Bournemouth in 1892.The sport has, ever since, exhibited a more male-dominated history, with only 18% of UK kayakers being female in 2013, according to figures from Sport England.An early career researcher at BU is researching the design of kayaks, focussing on understanding how anthropometric enhancements, such as seating height within the craft, can affect the performance and paddling efficiency of white-water kayaks for women. Shelley Ellis, an academic and Lecturer in Biomechanics and Performance Analysis, became interested in the subject as she saw the challenges facing women in kayaking first-hand.

“My research looks specifically at kayak sitting height – it’s about trying to identify whether adapting sitting height in a white-water kayak can make our paddle strokes more efficient. It’s really borne out of my personal background as a kayaker and the challenges I’ve faced,” explains Shelley.

Having been around the kayaking community for some time, Shelley had heard many coaches suggest that seating height should be raised in order to improve performance, but discovered that there was no follow-up guidance about how much to raise the seat by. It tends to be based on trial and error, rather than taking into account an athlete’s height, body shape and size.

“Because historically kayaks have been predominantly designed with male participants in mind and we can’t change that or make the kayak different at this point in time, we have to make what we have more accessible to all users,” says Shelley, “We already know that by altering sitting height it will effect a chain of contact points within the kayak, however we don’t know how high it has to be to improve efficiency overall.”

Women tend to have a shorter torso length and shorter arms, which gives them a smaller lever to paddle the boat through water. If the sitting height is changed, then this means women have a different torso height, enabling them to have better leverage when paddling.

“My research is all about making sport, in this instance kayaking, more accessible to female participants. The number of women taking part in kayaking is considerably lower than men, although the female population in kayaking is growing much faster than males.

“It’s really about breaking down those barriers on the basis that equipment wasn’t originally designed for women – sport should be accessible for everyone and can be with our scientific knowledge. If we’re able to say that based on height and arm span, for example, we are able to calculate an altered seat height to enable a kayaker to be more efficient, this can help them to progress to the next level of their sport.

“If you look back to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, there are many names of female athletes that come to mind, from Jessica Ennis-Hill and Laura Trott to Sarah Storey and Ellie Simmonds, these now well-known names are helping to change perceptions of what is and isn’t achievable. But these successes didn’t happen by accident – alongside incredible athletes, a lot of science and research has taken place and this has also helped to understand how equipment should be setup for each athlete.

With these role models, even more people are likely to get involved in sport. As all of kayaking’s history has come from a male background, what we now need is for manufacturers to catch up to the fact that it is becoming more popular for women.

“We’re very lucky in the way that we think at BU – we’ve got a lot of academics here who feel that research is important but are also keen to make it relevant and useful. We want to make sure that our research will be used by people and through engaging people with that process, we can ensure that it has a further reach in the long run.

“I’m supported by a local kayaking business, South Coast Canoes, who give me access to participants and a place to share my research directly with the kayaking population in the form of workshops and talks. It really motivates me to solve this ‘challenge’ that female kayakers face as there are people telling me that this research is important, and that they need the answers to move forward in the sport.”

This story featured in the 2017 Bournemouth Research Chronicle, which can be read in full here.

Energy: developing reliable renewable energy sources

BRC-Zulfiqar-energy-6-1024x500

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at how BU researchers are working to develop reliable and renewable energy sources.

As the world’s population continues to grow, so does our consumption of natural resources. Many of these resources are non-renewable, so research into renewable sources of energy is vital. Research led by BU’s Professor Zulfiqar Khan is tackling this issue through reducing corrosion, improving heat transfer and fluid dynamics, and using nano coatings to enhance surface effiencies in renewable energy systems.

The European Union’s (EU’s) Renewable Energy Directive states that the EU should be producing 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020; a challenging target for any country. Professor Khan’s research is a direct response to this initiative and to the challenge of finding sustainable and renewable ways of meeting our future energy needs. His research is supported by a team of PhD students, many of whom are fully or part funded by industry and international HEI partners.

One of his major areas of focus is developing solar thermal technology, solar energy is available abundantly due to its nature. “Currently, we are very reliant on Solar Photovoltaic for our solar panels, but we do not have a large supply of the materials used, so using it won’t be sustainable over a long period,” explains Prof Khan. “I am developing means of using readily available and sustainable materials to be applied in flat plate solar thermal systems through a combination of thermofluids with nano additives and efficient thermal storage, which will help meet our future energy needs. I am also looking at ways to move away from standalone panels to integrating them within standard building practices.”

Professor Khan explains the different components in the system: “There are four parts to this system. One part focuses upon generating heat for colder climates, while within warmer climates it focuses on generating electricity. The third part of the project looks at thermo-fluids, with the aim of improving the efficiency of fluids within the solar energy system. The final part will be the integration of heat storage and recovery system from waste.”

At the moment Professor Khan and his team of PhD students and Post Docs are testing the system for generating electricity in warmer climates. Funding from industry has allowed Professor Khan and his team to set up labs in Poole, which include a scale model of the solar thermal system – an invaluable tool for testing. The first two phases of heat generation in cold climates and generating electricity in warmer climates have been successfully commissioned. The third and fourth phase of optimisation of thermo-fluids and heat storage are in progress.

The very nature of the programme and its complexity means that an interdisciplinary approach is vital. Professor Khan’s research combines materials sciences (nano coatings), mechanical engineering (heat transfer and thermodynamics), and electrochemistry (corrosion). “It is the combination of several subjects and disciplines which guarantees the delivery of objectives of this very challenging and exciting programme, which will put BU in particular and the UK in general on the international map as a leader in developing clean energy technologies,” says Professor Khan. “This is why we shouldn’t shy away from other disciplines as it can bring huge benefits and opportunities to research which will give it originality, significance and reach.”

The research and its interdisciplinary nature has the potential to make a significant difference to society as it presents a solution to one of the biggest challenges now facing us – how to meet our current and future energy needs. “I think we can learn to do without many things, but without energy, life as we know it would not be the same,” says Professor Khan. “With our current levels of consumption and the non-renewable sources we are using, our energy sources won’t last forever. If we look to the future, our energy reserves used at our current rates will last us perhaps another 50 – 60 years for oil and gas, and coal another 100 years. What are we going to do when that runs out?”

You can read Professor Khan’s most recent publication on Thermodynamic modelling and analysis of a solar organic Rankine cycle employing thermofluids here

You can find more of Professor Khan’s publications on his staff profile.

The team would like to thank UK and International industry as well as HEI partners for providing funding and resources to enable their research to take place.

Lifelong health and wellbeing: improving orthopaedic practice and patient care

ORI-3

It’s British Science Week 2017 and to celebrate we’re sharing some of our science research stories, to highlight some of the fantastic research taking place here at BU. Today we’re looking at the Orthopeadic Research Institute (ORI).

Living well in older age is increasingly becoming a concern for our society. A key priority for our health services is to enable people to stay healthy and independent for as long as possible. BU’s newly established Orthopaedic Research Institute (ORI) is addressing this need by carrying out research to improve orthopaedic practices and patient care, thus supporting people to improve their activity levels and mobility as they age. Orthopaedics will become a critical issue as our population ages, as longer and more active lives will increase the risk that joints will wear out and replacements or treatments will be needed.

Deputy Head of ORI Associate Professor Tom Wainwright explains: “Knee and hip problems are going to become more prevalent, so we’re going to need better solutions to manage that; whether it’s better surgical procedures or better nonsurgical interventions. We have some very effective treatments in orthopaedics, but they’re not 100% effective, so part of our role is to work out how to make them better – improve them, through developing better surgical techniques, testing new medical techonology or developing better rehabilitation processes.”

Between them, Associate Professor Wainwright and Head of ORI Professor Rob Middleton have a wealth of clinical and research expertise. Professor Rob Middleton is a practising orthopaedic surgeon, specialising in hip replacement, while Associate Professor Wainwright is a physiotherapist and clinical researcher. They carried out research alongside their clinical practice before joining BU and have a national and international reputation for their work to date.

One of their biggest successes so far is speeding up the recovery process after hip and knee surgery, which has led to their work being cited in best practice health guidelines around the world. This approach, called Enhanced Recovery after Surgery, seeks to minimise the impact of surgery and accelerate recovery by employing strategies throughout the patient pathway, to improve outcomes and reduce the need for medical interventions. Their research into this area was a first in the UK for orthopaedics and demonstrated its value to patient care, as well as showing an improvement in patient and staff satisfaction and leading to significant cost savings to hospitals.

A more recent example of their work is a programme developed with local partners in Dorset called CHAIN – Cycling Against Hip Pain – which is designed to help people to live well with conditions such as osteoarthritis and to improve their mobility. The programme provides a combination of education and static cycling sessions,designed to improve mobility and increase people’s confidence in managing their conditions. The results have been excellent, with patients reporting improvements in walking, finding daily living tasks easier and most importantly, decreases in pain. Even the least likely candidates have seen improvements, demonstrating the value of education and exercise in improving patient care and in helping to reduce or delay the need for further medical interventions.

“As well as developing interventions to help patients recover from surgery and manage their conditions. We also work with a number of global orthopaedic companies to test and run clinical trials
on the latest orthopaedic technology,” says Associate Professor Wainwright. “We work with companies such as ZimmerBiomet, Lima Corporate, and Firstkind Ltd to ensure that their technology is delivering the best possible outcomes for patients.”

One example of their work with ZimmerBiomet was to explore ways to improve the technology used in hip replacements. The hip joint is a ball and socket joint and one of the risks of hip replacement is dislocation; where the new ball comes out of the socket. ORI’s research has shown that a larger ball reduces the risk of dislocation, and does not adversely affect the rate of wear.

“We currently have five trials underway within local hospitals and more to come,” explains Associate Professor Wainwright. “These trials are looking at different ways that we can improve the medical technology used in orthopaedics and means that not only are we contributing to improving future care, but we’re also bringing the latest technology to Dorset and improving care in the local area. As Dorset has a very high proportion of orthopaedic surgeries, there is potentially a very large group of people we can benefit.”

“We take a very interdisciplinary approach to our research. Establishing ourselves within BU is a real advantage for us, because we can draw on the expertise of colleagues in other areas of research, including other health professionals, psychologists, technologists and engineers,” explains Associate Professor Wainwright, “Ultimately, our driving force is that we wantto ensure that everyone gets the best possible treatment for their condition – it’s just the right thing to do.”

Wainwright, T.W., Immins, T. and Middleton, R.G., (2015) A cycling and education programme to promote self-management and to increase functional ability in patients with osteoarthritis of the hip. Osteoarthritis and Cartilage, 23 (2), 372.

Howie, D.W., Holubowycz, O.T., Middleton,R. and Grp, L.A.S., (2012) Large Femoral Heads Decrease the Incidence of Dislocation After Total Hip Arthroplasty A Randomized Controlled Trial. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery – American Volume, 94A (12), 1095- 1102.

Wainwright, T. and Middleton, R., (2010) An orthopaedic enhanced recovery pathway. Current Anaesthesia and Critical Care, 21 (3), 114-120.

ORI was established at BU thanks to generous funding from the Dorset Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP).

This article appeared in the 2016 Bournemouth Research Chronicle. Download a copy of the magazine, or view the articles online.

Dr. Masi Fathi appointed to the board of Sociological Research Online

open access, Publishing, writing

SROCongratulations to Dr. Mastoureh (Masi) Fathi, FHSS Lecturer in Sociology, who has been appointed to the editorial board of Sociological Research Online.  Sociological Research Online is a peer-reviewed online sociology journal looking at current social issues, and it is in its twenty-second year.

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Developing a novel self-optimising femtocell network for indoor communication with mobile devices

PG research

We would like to invite you to the latest research seminar of the Centre for Games and Music Technology Research.

 

Speaker: Haseeb Qureshi (Creative Technology PhD Student)

 

Title:     Developing a novel self-optimising femtocell network for indoor communication with mobile devicesFemtoCell

 

Time: 2:00PM-3:00PM

Date: Wednesday 15th March 2017

Room: PG11, Poole House, Talbot Campus

 

Abstract:

The need for a fast and reliable wireless communication system has increased with the development of social and business activities around the world. A promising cost and energy efficient way of meeting the future traffic demands is the idea of very dense deployment of low cost, low power and self-organizing small base stations i.e. Femtocells. Self-configuring, self-optimizing and self-healing base stations have the potential to significantly increase the capacity of mobile cellular networks in the future 5G while reducing their energy consumption. The aim of this research is to consider the integration of Femtocells as Self Optimising Networks for the future communication network. An extensive and thorough research has been carried out to investigate what drawbacks of the existing communication 4G network are and whether Femtocells as a Self-Optimising network can improve the current network. In order to evaluate the algorithms for self-optimising Femtocells that have been proposed by other authors in the existing literature an evaluation criteria has been developed, and a simulating environment has been constructed. The evaluation is performed by measuring the effect that changing parameters has on the output of the environment. From the results of the evaluation a new algorithm to enhance the self-optimisation of the network will be designed and developed in a simulating environment.​

 

We hope to see you there.

Interreg Opportunities

Funding opportunities, innovation, international

interregFollowing the successful visit by UK Interreg Territorial Facilitators to BU on 21st February 2017, please find out more about the current Interreg call, which is open from 1 March until 30 June 2017.

It is targeted at public authorities and non-profits

  • National, regional or local authorities
  • Other organisations in charge of defining and implementing regional policy instruments
  • Non-profits

Projects must focus on one of these topics

  • Research and innovation
  • SME competitiveness
  • Low-carbon economy
  • Environment and resource efficiency

Support is available on the call website, including instructional videos, partner search, online project self-assessment, project feedback before submission and a demo of the application form.

If BU academics are interested in applying for this call, please contact Emily Cieciura, RKEO’s Research Facilitator: EU & International

CQR Narrative Group Welcomes a Student Research Assistant

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Figure 1 Guste Kalanaviciute, Lee-Ann Fenge, Anne Quinney, Jen Leamon & Kip Jones

The Centre for Qualitative Research (CQR) Narrative group, a centre of the Faculty of Health & Social Sciences (FHSS) is an interprofessional group, with representation from across social work, nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, education practice and media production. We have an interest in how stories and dialogue can be used to create meaning and understanding, and in particular how novel and creative methods can be used to support both the collection of data and the dissemination of findings. This includes the use of film as a method of sharing findings as well as public engagement

 

Over the last few years we have run numerous seminars, and public engagement events (as part of the HEA workshop series, Festival of Social Science and BU’s own Festival of Learning https://vimeo.com/174549052).

 

We are delighted to have a student research assistant, Guste, join us to help explore the mountains of narrative data we have accumulated over several years of community activities. As part of her work with us, we hope to develop a digital story around the meanings attached to health and well-being as well exploring opportunities for a publication.

 

Guste reports:

 

I am very grateful for this amazing opportunity to join such a friendly group of people and gain invaluable experience for my future career. At first I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the new information as I am only a first year Psychology student and do not yet have experience with qualitative data. However, Lee-Ann was very supportive, assured me that with time the skills will come and set me off to start my journey by reading around qualitative data and themes of health and well-being. So far I have read some papers around these topics, a few of Lee-Ann’s and Kip’s publications, watched clips of their past projects (Seen but Seldom Heard; Rufus Stone) and met the team in person to discuss our next steps. Everything is going well now, will start looking into some of the data they have collected, try to find emerging themes and report it for the feedback.

 

From Nepal, to BU and back again

PG research, student research

Recent BU graduate Dr Pratik Adhikary is currently working alongside BU researcher Professor Edwin van Teijlingen and the Centre of Midwifery, Maternal and Perinatal Health (CMMPH) in Nepal.

The CMMPH have been working on improving maternity care in Nepal for a number of years. They’ve most recently begun looking at the impact of women’s groups on maternal and child health uptake in Pharping- rural Nepal.

A former BU PhD student, Dr Adhikary is in charge of planning and monitoring the study, as well as training local Nepalese data collectors. He also looks after the data entry and the overall evaluation of the study.

As well as this, Newton funding is offering him his first fieldwork post as an independent researcher. Below we follow his journey from a former BU student to a BU staff member.

“I’m originally from Nepal and came to Bournemouth University in 2009 to study for my PhD. This looked at Nepalese migrant workers working in the Middle East and Malaysia – this focused on their physical and mental health, as well as any risks they took in their jobs. Previously, I studied for an MSc in Public Health at the University of Aberdeen, as well as working as a cardiac data collection officer in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary,” says Dr Adhikary.

“Studying at BU was very important for my academic career. I was lucky enough to present my PhD study at an international conference, which provided me with useful feedback from both academics and early career researchers,”

“My academic supervisors Prof van Teijlingen and Dr Steven Keen were instrumental throughout my PhD- in gaining a partial fee waiver, international travel funds to attend conferences and arranging a grant from the open society foundation,”

“As a young researcher, I am planning a number of drafts for publication in 2017. Support from my BU colleagues has given me a unique stepping stone in the academic world,”

“Being at BU has enabled me to grow my researcher’s network and provided me with an insight into the some of the highest quality of research in the world,” says Dr Adhikary, “I’ve always felt at home at BU and I’m keen to continue my research career here! “

You can read one of Dr Adhikary’s PhD papers online for free here

Dr Adhikary was also a co-author on this recent 2016 paper on the BU Research Blog

Patient and Public Involvement Seminar Series

DrBUDSPA James Gavin is running a free series of seminars on  patient and public involvement (PPI).

This series will highlight the importance of PPI throughout the research cycle, from design to dissemination. PPI is gaining importance to identify treatments that meet people’s needs and are more likely to be adopted in practice.

Speakers will share insights on involving the public as partners to improve: relevance, quality, study protocol design and the communication of findings in health research. The speakers are from a variety of roles in occupational therapy, mental health, social work, health demographics, education and national health governance.

To find out more information and to book your place please click here.

Date Location Time Speaker Seminar Title
Monday 6 March 2017 EB708, Lansdowne Campus 3.00-4.30pm Professor Jo Adams Making research meaningful and accessible to patients: Why PPI is crucial to designing effective health research studies
Wednesday 15 March 2017 EB708, Lansdowne Campus 3.00-4.30pm Lisa Gale-Andrews & Dr Zoe Sheppard Importance of public involvement in research design: an orthopaedic case study
Monday 3 April 2017 EB708, Lansdowne Campus 3.00-4.30pm Dr Mel Hughes & Angela Warren Recruiting and supporting participants to engage in meaningful PPI
Monday 24 April 2017 EB708, Lansdowne Campus 11.00am-12.30pm Simon Denegri How can today’s patient help research tackle tomorrow’s health challenges?

Eating out in Britain: the feeding habits of non-native pitcher plants

Recent work from Bournemouth University indicates that these non-native pitcher plants are consuming bumblebees but their current impact is limited.

In a bog in Dorset grow a small patch of the strange, alien like forms of the invasive pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea. It is adapted to the poor soils of American wetlands and therefore supplements its diet with insect prey, luring them in with the promise of sweet nectar.

bog1

Photo by Anita Diaz

It is not every day that an invasive plant species also counts as predator and this can prove a challenge for management. The pitchers are one such case and a research team from Bournemouth University have been investigating the impact these invaders are having on the native bumblebees. They have done this by looking at the contents of the pitcher’s

traps.

Their results showed that no rare bumblebee species were found in the sampled pitchers from 2012-14. In 2013 the pitchers were found to be consuming a considerable amount of bumblebees (101 bees in the 170 pitchers sampled), however, very few bumblebees were caught in 2012 and 2014. Bumblebees also seem to be attracted to pitchers where the pitchers grow in higher density, suggesting that the bumblebees are treating the pitchers as they would another floral resource, despite individuals being trapped.

It is quite probable that the bumblebees feed off the flowers of the pitcher plants, as they do in the plant’s native America, as well as the nectar from traps. It is also likely you see flowers online due to the low capture rate of pitchers (around 1 in 100 insects get caught), and the majority of visiting bumblebees are getting a ‘free meal’ in a bog habitat with limited other resources.

‘It could very well be that the sugar rich solution produced by the pitchers, coupled with the low trapping rate of pitchers, is worth the risk to our native bees’ Dr Liz Franklin

bee in pitcher

Photo by Anita Diaz

It is important to prevent the spread of invasive plants like S. purpurea, as they can have a drastic impact on our native plant life and wildlife, however in a sensitive bog habitat with Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) status, removal could cause severe damage to the native habitat and risk the further spread of the invasive.  It is hoped that this work will help inform when and where management of S. purpurea is needed in its invasive populations around Europe

Although further work needs to be done on the interactions between invasive pitcher plants and their native prey, the pitchers might not be as bad for our bogs and their fauna as first thought, although it will be important to keep an eye on them.

 

Want to find out more, visit our open access article

Franklin E, Evans D, Thornton A, Moody C, Green I, Diaz A. Exploring the predation of UK bumblebees (Apidae, Bombus spp.) by the invasive pitcher plant Sarracenia purpurea: examining the effects of annual variation, seasonal variation, plant density and bumblebee gender. Arthropod-Plant Interactions.:1-0.

 

 

New Post-doc says ‘Hi’

IaNmUdIe

Hi all,

This is just a quick post to introduce myself – I started in January as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Faculty of Human Sciences and Public Health, and am working on the Implementing Nutrition Screening in Community Care for Older People (INSCCOPe) project (led by Professor Jane Murphy).

This project explores factors that may promote or inhibit successful implementation, and embedding in routine practice, of a new procedure for screening and treatment of malnutrition by integrated community teams (ICTs). The procedure is currently in development as part of service improvement work within Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust, and the INSCCOPe project will run in parallel. The project will run for 14 months, and is informed by Normalisation Process Theory (NPT) (http://www.normalizationprocess.org/).

I’ve been made to feel very welcome in my short time at BU, and look forward to meeting new people in the faculty in future. Below is a short summary of my background and current research/development interests.

Kind regards,

Mike.

(p.s. apologies if you’re seeing this for the second time – I initially sent this around the HSS-staff list by mistake)

Dr. Mike Bracher (Post-doctoral Research Fellow, INSCCOPe project)
Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, Department of Human Sciences and Public Health, Bournemouth University.

Background:

  • I’m health sciences researcher with a social science background, and the majority of my research experience has been in the areas of autism and cancer.
  • I completed my PhD, an exploration of pre-diagnostic identity formation in the lives of people diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome in adulthood, at the University of Southampton from 2009-2013.
  • Following this, I completed a service evaluation and development project at the Autism Diagnostic Research Center (ADRC Southampton), which explored post-diagnostic support needs.
  • In February 2014, I moved to the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southampton, where I worked as part of a team to produce the first analysis of free-text survey responses from a national (Wales) sample of cancer patients (http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/6/9/e011830).
  • I was also involved in methodological developments in the application of text mining to analyses of free-text responses from large surveys (http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/10/e007792), and a further analysis of free-text responses from patients in England who had been diagnosed with cancer of unknown primary (CUP).
  • From February 2015 to February 2017, I worked as a Research Fellow on the True Nth Decision Support: Understanding Consequences project, a complex intervention aiming to improve treatment decision support for men with low and moderate risk prostate cancer.

Current research interests and professional development aims:

My research interests are in the uses of data from applied health research to drive improvements in healthcare by:
​

  • better understanding the needs of specific populations;
  • understanding social and organisational processes that promote or inhibit successful provision of services or implementation of new technologies and innovations;
  • developing models and tools from theoretical and empirical knowledge of experiences and/or processes in healthcare, as a basis for service improvement.

My current professional development aims include:

  • further development in conversation analysis – conversation analysis offers a set of useful tools to describe and analyse micro-level processes that shape everyday interactions in healthcare settings;
  • further development in quantitative data analysis methods, including exploration of epidemiological and psychometric methods;
  • programming using Python and R.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS Two-day workshop: Politics in a post-truth era

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Two-day workshop: Politics in a post-truth era

10th – 11th July 2017, Bournemouth University

The concept of post-truth, where facts are deemed less important than beliefs, is one that has recently been frequently invoked when making sense of the modern political campaigning environment. The suggestion is that political campaigns exploit and reinforce strongly held beliefs, encouraging the disavowal of contrasting facts, in order to undermine support for the arguments of opponents.

Post-truth has become most associated with campaigns that invoke more populist arguments. Such arguments give voice to privately held beliefs, often hidden by norms of societies which reinforce pejorative stereotypes based on religious and racial differences, gendering of roles and discussing myths of us (as a nation and people) and the others whose differences mark them as not us. Hence there are far-reaching implications of such practices for democratic societies.

The workshop will explore the underlying themes and implications of this phenomenon.

KEY QUESTIONS

1) Is post truth really new, or simply a synonym for the exaggerations and spin long associated with the techniques of political campaigns? Or have political campaigns been proven to lie more?

2) What does a post-truth campaign look like, how is the communication constructed to tap into belief systems and feed the dynamics of a post-truth (belief-based) political environment?

3) Why might beliefs have more power in influencing voting behaviour than more fact, logic or reason based arguments?

4) How does post-truth link to the models of a marketised and professionalised campaign environment?

5) What does post-truth tell us about the current and future state of democratic engagement and of democracy itself?

CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributions need not be full papers, rather informed arguments that promote discussion – although they should have the potential to be full or part papers. The workshop seeks to tease out what post-truth means, how this is encouraged during political campaigns, its root causes, impacts on election outcomes and, importantly, what are the implications for democracy.

PUBLICATION

The longer-term aim is to develop an edited collection of work that would include solo-authored or joint publications from participants that address these questions. The volume will be published in the Palgrave series Political Campaigning and Communication.

DATES

The event will be held on July 10th and 11th with a workshop dinner on the evening of the 10th. There will be no attendance costs – the venue, refreshments and evening meal will be covered jointly by funding from the Centre for Politics and Media Research and the PSA Political Marketing Group.  Participants should expect to cover travel and accommodation. The venue will be the Bournemouth University’s Executive Business Centre close to Bournemouth train station.

ABSTRACTS

Interested participants should propose their participation by offering a short 200-300 word abstract that summarises the main points of the argument, case studies and evidence drawn upon and the broader socio-political implications into which their argument offers insights. The deadline for abstracts is 1600hrs GMT on Friday 6th April 2017. Please email them to dlilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk ​