BU Research Blog

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July 18, 2019

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 jmcdougall

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 10^th (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

July 16, 2019

Using Databases in Humanities Research (CsJCC and NRG workshop)

BU research, data management, Doctoral College, Events, Featured, Guidance, humanities, innovation, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Transfer, Public engagement, Research Centres, Research Integritiy, research integrity, Research news, Research Training, Uncategorized jround

On Thursday 4 July CsJCC and NRG supported a one-day workshop that demonstrated and explored database use in Humanities Research. This was a two-part day that aimed to introduce participants to the possibilities of this approach, and then moved to discuss potential collaborative projects. It was attended by FMC colleagues and doctoral students researching multiple subjects (including English, Marketing, Advertising, Law, Journalism, Computer Animation, and Radio), and two external scholars.

Ian Stephenson (Senior Lecturer in Computer Animation and Faculty Data Champion) led the morning session, a gentle introduction to using standard query language (SQL) to ask complicated questions of multiple existing data tables. Research generates data, either during primary research or in the form of meta-data where we annotate and organise existing media. While simple notetaking can work at first, greater structure often becomes necessary as projects grow and evolve. Ian demonstrated how small, free programmes such as Postgres can easily be installed (without cost) on a laptop, providing the same power and flexibility as that of commercial datacentres to store and organise essentially unlimited amounts of data. This allows data to be securely stored, well organised, and shared between researchers, allowing us to ask new questions of the data, beyond the scope of the initial investigation.

This workshop grew out of Ian’s development of Julia Round’s database of Misty stories (available at www.juliaround.com/misty). Julia’s project explores the nature of the stories in the British girls’ comic Misty, and also contains supporting information on their creators, origins, and so forth (courtesy of online communities of scholars and fans). Her online database is searchable and will help interested readers find information on these things, but by its nature it’s not capable of asking more complicated questions. Ian developed this research into a relational database or series of interlinked tables, each focused around a subject such as stories (type, length, themes, character, etc), people (artist, writer, letterer, colourist, editor, etc), publication details (title, co-title, issue date, price, cover image, tagline, free gift, etc.), and so forth.

SQL thus enables us to ask questions that link all of this information. For example:
– In what months were new titles launched?
– When did price hikes take place and how does this look if adjusted for inflation?
– How long did merged comics titled usually last?
– Were boys and girls titles different in terms of pricing, story length, or other factors susceptible to numerical analysis?’
– Which artists’ work appeared on the covers most frequently?
– Which artists’ work appears in the internal colour (centre) pages most frequently?
– Which writers and artists most frequently worked together?

In his brief demonstration, Ian showed us some interesting statistics on a number of subjects. These included identifying patterns in story crossover points, i.e. where serials overlapped; the price rises in comics (which prior to the 1980s were not significant in the context of inflation and as compared to newspaper periodicals); and that almost all new titles were launched in February or at the end of the summer. In this way, participants saw how reconstructing simple spreadsheet data as a relational database allowed it to be expanded, interrogated and repurposed. By sharing such datasets, the borders of existing research projects can be extended and interdisciplinary and collaborative projects can be taken to new levels.

The afternoon session invited interested participants to discuss how we might collaborate on developing such a project. Discussion points included a review of what is out there already (sites such as the Grand Comics Database, Jinty blog, Girls’ Comics of Yesterday, Great News for All Readers, Down the Tubes, and so forth), and identification of what these sites do and don’t offer. It was felt that even the most inclusive sites such as the GCD don’t allow complex searches and that most sites/blogs are set up with a singular aim in mind. We thus agreed there was a demonstrable need for a live shared resource that would provide students, researchers and fans with access to a much wider dataset along with the ability to ask complex, interlinked questions of this data.

We were lucky enough to have a brief discussion with a colleague from the Law Department who advised us on copyright issues when including quotations and images, and also IP rights when incorporating data gathered by other people or the templates created to contain this. Images in particular will need to be kept within private circulation and database rights will need to be explored further to ensure we have the correct permissions from contributors.

To develop this project, first steps will be to find some server space to host this dataset. In the longer term, we will reach out to the academic and fan communities for the spreadsheet data currently held by individuals, using our existing networks and also through conference presentations demonstrating the value of this potential resource. Later steps will include expanding the scope of the database to a global level, and developing tools to allow contributors to directly add data, via funding bids or other initiatives.

The proposed database has clear benefits as a data discovery tool, with a demonstrable need from the community of comics scholars at multiple levels. It will have impact as a teaching aid and a source of primary data that will lead to research outputs.

July 5, 2019

CMMPH: “On paper you’re my type”

BU research, Delicious links, Featured, Fusion, international, Publishing, Research Centres, Research news, Uncategorized, writing Edwin van Teijlingen

BU is going through a process of re-commissioning its research centres this month. Existing centres, like ours CMMPH (the Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health) were required to submit evidence of their contribution to BU’s research capacity to deliver our strategic plan BU2025.

This process was an interesting stock-take exercise and offered an opportunity to reflect on our successes. Our friends and associates will be aware of some of our work through our collaborations, joint publications, posts on BU’s award-winning Research Blog as well as our newsletter three times a year. The phrase commonly heard on the television programme Love Island, “You’re my type on paper”, reflects the notion here that a description on paper never quite reflects reality. The same goes for the research centre description of CMMPH, on a structured application form some of the subtle success can be overlooked. First of all, being a research centre is the main function of CMMPH, but certainly not the only one.

CMMPH is much more a university centre in the sense of FUSION, bringing together and creating a synergetic effect between research, Education and Practice. This FUSION enables research to be meaningful and has the ability to impact on the student experience through education as well as ‘real life’ issues and challenges in midwifery practice. This notion of being more than a research centre is reflected in our newsletters which always have sections on Research, Education and Practice.

To highlight this synergetic effect of being a properly fused centre, CMMPH has built a reputation for developing innovative student-led clinics: i) Student Midwife integrated Learning Environment (SMiLE) postnatal clinic in collaboration with Portsmouth NHS Trust; and ii) Newborn infant feeding clinic, in collaboration with the AECC University College. These clinics are underpinned by a growing body of evidence (=Research) from studies undertaken within CMMPH, which identifies their effectiveness in terms of a unique learning environment (=Education) to offer women better maternity care (=Practice). Both student-led clinics are being evaluated by PhD students at BU, one being match-funded with Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust and the other a self-funded chiropractic student.

On a different note, in the past four years our academics have been involved in organising five international conferences. CMMPH held two, high profile, international conferences focusing on research in midwifery education (2015, 2018); it organised the BNAC (British-Nepal Academic Council) conference at Bournemouth University in April 2017 (https://blogs.bournemouth.ac.uk/research/2017/03/24/nepal-conference-at-bu/ and CMMPH staff co-organised a conference in India on Mixed-Methods Research at the Mahatma Gandhi University (2019), and an education conference in Nepal (2018). Prof. Steve Tee, FHSS Executive Dean and National Teaching Fellow, gave a key note speech at the 2018 International Conference on ‘Challenges and Prospects of Quality Education in Nepal in Federalism Era in Nepal’.

Research team includes Ann Luce, Marilyn Cash, Vanora Hundley, Helen Cheyne, Edwin van Teijlingen and Catherine Angell

CMMPH was on the BU Research Blog this week celebrating its latest media and midwifery publication (to see click here!). This paper is paper of a growing body of interdisciplinary research at BU across faculties and across the UK (see photo left). In addition last month Dr. Chris 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 (Hundley & van Teijlingen) and Dr. Ann Luce in the Faculty of Media & Communication.

CMMPH is internationally recognised for its midwifery and maternity care research, education and publications. It has strong international links which includes active partnership agreements (MoA) with the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, Manmohan Memorial Institute of Health Sciences (MMIHS) in Nepal and University of Texas Health Science Centre, School of Nursing in the USA.

Did I mention that CMMPH academics sit on the editorial boards of (or are editors of) all top four world-leading midwifery research journals: Birth, Midwifery, Women and Birth and BMC Pregnancy & Childbirth. Not only is this unique in the UK, as no other midwifery research group can claim this, it is also unique at BU as no other research centre can claim this kind of global coverage! And, last but not least CMMPH staff can claim to have written the eighth most quoted article in the international journal Midwifery (out if 2,626 published papers over the past 35 years).

All in all, on paper, 100% a centre to be proud of.

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

July 3, 2019

New BU cross-faculty publication

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

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:

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.
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
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
Luce, A., Hundley, V., van Teijlingen, E. (Eds.) (2017) Midwifery, Childbirth and the Media, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
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.
Hundley, V., Luce, A., van Teijlingen, E. (2015) Do midwives need to be more media savvy? MIDIRS Midwifery Digest 25(1):5-10.
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.

July 3, 2019

Celebration of the United Nations’ World Oceans Day 2019

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Doctoral College, Events, Featured academics, Festival of Learning, Fusion, Public engagement, Research Centres, Research Concordat, Student Engagement, the conversation Genoveva Esteban

All rivers lead to the sea, which is why it is important to consider the health of both our rivers and oceans. To celebrate the United Nations’ World Oceans Day 2019 (https://www.un.org/en/events/oceansday/) Genoveva Esteban and Dan Franklin from BU’s Department of Life and Environmental Sciences, with help from Thomas Hardye Academy’s 6th Form students and science teachers, showed Prince of Wales (Dorchester) Year 1 pupils how to study the invertebrate indicators of clean water, by kick sampling. Not only is it an important sampling method, it’s great fun too! Pupils were thrilled with their findings and recognised the significance of keeping rivers clean. The activity took place at the River Laboratory near Wareham (Dorset). Dr John Davy-Bowker (BU Visiting Fellow and Freshwater Biological Association Fellow) is gratefully acknowledged for his help throughout the day.

Genoveva Esteban, Dan Franklin and Katie Thompson

July 1, 2019

Science for all, and all for Science!

Awarded & submitted bids, BU research, BU2025, Doctoral College, Events, Festival of Learning, Funding opportunities, Fusion, Public engagement, Research Centres, Research Concordat, Research news, Student Engagement Genoveva Esteban

Bournemouth University Charity Impact Fund is a fantastic way to facilitate engagement with charitable organisations if one wishes to increase the impact of our research as well as collaboration opportunities for our students. In my case, I will be organising the first ever Dorchester Science Festival during National Science Week 2020 with the aim of strengthening BU’s relationship with Dorset charities, and to reach out to the local community. Partners involved are the Dorset County Museum, Dorchester Arts, the Jurassic Coast Trust, The Institute of Physics, and the Thomas Hardye School Academy. Dorchester Town Council (although not a charity) is also a key partner to gain access to local venues. The longer-term ambition is to use this event as the basis for a Bournemouth Science Festival, an event that has never taken place. The date for the Dorchester Science Festival has now been fixed for Saturday 14^th March 2020. You are all invited!

If you would like further information please contact Genoveva F. Esteban gesteban@bournemouth.ac.uk

June 7, 2019

Applications Open! Re-commissioning the Research Centres

BU2025, Research Centres plynch

Following a recent review by the Research Performance Management Committee (RPMC) applications are now open for the establishment of new Research Centres. This process is open to all groups of academic staff, each led by a member of the Professoriate, to put forward proposed Research Centres. Applications can be from established Research Centres, new groupings or new amalgamations of groupings (old and/or new). The new Research Centres will be launched in September when existing Research Centres will cease to exist unless they have applied under this process (except where exempt).*

Research Centres are the public face of BU’s research. They bring together individuals and research teams from across the University to form collaborative and interdisciplinary groupings which, through the development and delivery of world-leading research, strengthen and underpin the delivery of the BU2025 vision. They offer an opportunity for the Professoriate to engage in leadership of research that can contribute significantly to the aims of BU2025 – see leadership role descriptor – and provide a genuine platform for innovation and the achievement of critical mass.

Research Centres provide opportunities for staff at all levels to become members, benefitting from dynamic, creative relationships which cut across the perceived boundaries of discipline, Department and/or Faculty. Research Centres provide members with the opportunity to be a part of an interdisciplinary research community, which enables individuals to join and establish interdisciplinary relationships and networks which can facilitate and strengthen their own research.

The Process

Applications (see pages 6 – 9) are to be completed and submitted to the Faculty Research and Professional Practice Committee (FRPPC) for approval. As part of the application process Research Development and Support (RDS) will provide a data set of the KPI’s relating to the proposed membership for the past year. This means that there are two deadlines – the first being to allow time for the data set to be prepared and the second for final submission to FRPPC. Arrangements and the dates for submission vary between Faculties and are shown in the table below:

Faculty	D/L for proposed membership list	D/L for completed application to FRPPC	D/L for approval by Faculty
FMC	5th July 2019 A Faculty meeting on 5th July 2019 will discuss and finalise Research Centre compositions. Proposed Centres and membership lists should be brought to this meeting.	14th July 2019 Details of submitting completed applications to be decided at this meeting but the deadline is 14th July and will be submitted for FRPPC via DDRPP (ethorsen@bournemouth.ac.uk)	18th July 2019
FHSS	14th June 2019 Proposed membership lists to be sent directly to Project Delivery Manager (plynch@bournemouth.ac.uk) by 14th June who will provide data set by 21st June	5th July 2019 Deadline for submission of completed applications to DDRPP (vhundley@bournemouth.ac.uk)	21st July 2019
FoM	28th June 2019 Completed applications (including membership lists) to be sent directly to Project Delivery Manager (plynch@bournemouth.ac.uk) by 28th June 2019.	28th June 2019 Same as deadline for membership list. Project Delivery Manager will forward to DDRPP (msilk@bournemouth.ac.uk)	19th July 2019
FST	21st June 2019, 5 pm Completed applications (including membership lists) to be sent to DDRPP tzhang@bournemouth.ac.uk	21st June 2019 Same as deadline for membership list.	4th July 2019

For an overview of the approval process please see this flowchart.

If you have any questions please contact me, (plynch@bournemouth.ac.uk EXT 68265), or the DDRPP for your Faculty.

*Institutes will be exempt from this process and addressed later. The following entities are exempt from this process for the reasons stated: NCPQSW and NCCA as they are externally recognised national centres; DMC, CoPMRE, Centre for GP Practice, Centre for Digital Entertainment and BUCRU as their purpose and remit exceeds the scope of the Research Centres policy and therefore the re-commissioning process

Category / Research Centres

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

Using Databases in Humanities Research (CsJCC and NRG workshop)

Celebration of the United Nations’ World Oceans Day 2019

Science for all, and all for Science!

Applications Open! Re-commissioning the Research Centres

The Process

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