Category / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts

Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge

Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge is the first application of its kind to transport users around a virtual prehistoric landscape, exploring the magnificent and internationally important monument, Stonehenge.

The application was developed by Bournemouth University archaeologists, using new field data gathered during their work with colleagues from the universities of Sheffield, Manchester, Bristol, Southampton and London as part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project.  Google Under-the-Earth works by adding layers of archaeological information to Google Earth technology.Snapshot of the 360 degree view from the Stone Circle

The unique visual experience lets users interact with the past like never before. Highlights include taking a visit to the Neolithic village of Durrington Walls, a trip inside a prehistoric house and the opportunity to see reconstructions of Bluestonehenge at the end of the Stonehenge Avenue and of the great timber monument called the Southern Circle, as they would have looked more than four thousand years ago.

 

The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and Google Research Awards, a program which fosters relationships between Google and the academic world as Google fulfils its mission to ‘organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.’

But this fabulous educational and cultural tool does not end with Stonehenge. Archaeological scientist Dr Kate Welham, project leader at Bournemouth University, explained that it is the start of something much bigger.

“It is envisaged that Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge could be the start of a new layer in Google Earth. Many of the world’s great archaeological sites could be added, incorporating details of centuries’ worth of excavations as well as technical data from geophysical and remote sensing surveys in the last 20 years,” she said.

Dr Nick Snashall, National Trust Archaeologist for Stonehenge and Avebury World Heritage Site, said: “The National Trust cares for over 2000 acres of the Stonehenge Landscape. Seeing Beneath Stonehenge offers exciting and innovative ways for people to explore that landscape. It will allow people across the globe, many of whom may never otherwise have the chance to visit the sites, to share in the thrill of the discoveries made by the Stonehenge Riverside team and to appreciate the remarkable achievements of the people who built and used the monuments.”

You can download the application from the Google Under-the-Earth: Seeing Beneath Stonehenge site. The tool is easy to use and requires Google Earth to be installed on your computer.

Consumer behaviour in virtual worlds

A prestigious journal has awarded two Bournemouth University (BU) academics the ‘Best Paper’ accolade for their work in the largely unstudied domain of consumer behaviour in digital virtual spaces, including video games, virtual communities and the web.

‘Concepts and practices of digital virtual consumption’, by BU’s Dr Janice Denegri-Knottand Dr Mike Molesworth, was among the most downloaded work published by Consumption Markets and Culture last year.

The paper examines digital virtual consumption (such as owning luxury cars in a video game), the relationship it has within the real material world and the appeal of consumption that is deprived of a material, physically tangible form.

Flying planes in a computer gameDenegri-Knott and Molesworth think of consumption on spaces like eBay, Amazon and World of Warcraft as somewhere between the consumers’ imagination and material consumption, and believe it is charged with transformative potential for its users.

Consumers can fulfil all sorts of daydreams, such as finding a designer dress on eBay, or performing the fantasy of being a powerful wizard. They don’t just look and ask ‘what might it be like’, but may ‘try on’ being an entrepreneur, someone with wealth, a collector, a trader, an advertiser, a criminal, a hero, a warrior, or many other ways of being.

Their roles are enhanced as the scripts available to them expand and can be tested within relatively small timescales. The digital virtual individual may be an avid collector one year, a warrior hero the next, and a successful entrepreneur the year after that. The video game player may be a successful criminal one week and a racing driver the next.

Denegri-Knott and Molesworth believe more emphasis is needed on the relationship between the virtual realm and the real-world and, as digital virtual consumption is largely unstudied, they propose an integrative view for further research.

“The paper was written in the spirit of mapping out potential avenues for research, and also to give us some kind of conceptual frame to make sense of consumption in emerging digital virtual spaces,” said Dr Denegri-Knott.  “We now have a body of work that looks at the way in which users consume through eBay, from which we have been able to draw some insights on the acceleration of consumer desire and the problems this creates. We now would like to develop the theme of transformative potential in digital virtual consumption; that is to see how consumers make sense of their experiences and how they integrate these into their everyday lives.”

The pair are also now researching the experience of owning digital virtual goods, in particular the ways in which consumers become attached to certain goods, and how they maintain their preferential stature.

Dr Denegri-Knott concluded: “We were both delighted and surprised to hear that our paper was so well received by the readers of the journal and by the judging panel.  This is a real achievement for the Emerging Consumer Cultures Group (ECCG).”

Funding with a Media Flavour – UK

Funding opportunities, Guidance

At a recent Media School meeting attendees asked us to outline some of the common funders, so here is a general overview of those funders with a Media flavour both domestic and further a field.  Part One concentrates on the key UK funders and in the next few days we’ll post information on potential EU funders and schemes.

 

Research Councils

The two primary research councils for media-focused research are the Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) which are responsible for funding the vast majority of arts and humanities in the UK. The success rates for the AHRC are the highest of all RC’s (see the recent blog article) and it offers standard grants,  networking grants, collaborative doctoral awards and early career research grants.

The RCs also focus on particular initiatives to address issues of intellectual and wider cultural, social or economic urgency, these schemes tend to have higher success rates than the standard grants so are always worth consideration. Information on AHRC initiatives can be found here.

An overview  – AHRC Early Career Research Grants:

Early Career Research Grants are intended to assist new researchers at the start of their careers in gaining experience of managing and leading research projects. They look to support well-defined research projects enabling individual researchers to collaborate with, and bring benefits to, other individuals and organisations through the conduct of research.

They also enjoy higher success rates than standard grants, there are no set submission dates, projects can last up to 60 months and should cost between £20,000 and £200,000 fEC.

To be eligible as an early career researcher you must be within eight years of the award of your PhD or equivalent professional training or within six years of your first academic appointment.

Further information on all opportunities can be found here – AHRC ESRCs

British Academy

The British Academy supports excellent ideas, individuals and intellectual resources in the humanities and social sciences.  In particular, the Academy enables UK researchers to work with scholars and resources in other countries, sustain a British research presence in various parts of the world and help to attract overseas scholars to the UK.

An overview  – International Partnership and Mobility Scheme:

Aims to support the development of partnerships between the UK and other areas of the world where research excellence would be strengthened by new, innovative initiatives and links. Awards are for research partnerships between scholars in the UK and scholars in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East, South Asia, or East Asia.

Partnerships might include a range of related activities, and mobility should form an integral part of proposals. Workshops and seminars should form an integral part of the programme. The main purpose of the funding is to cover travel and maintenance costs, although costs related to other eligible activities will be considered. Partnerships including a training element and involving scholars in the early stages in their career will be looked on favourably.

Grants are offered up to a maximum of £10,000 per year for a period of one year or three years. The submission deadline is 8th February 2012.

Further information can be found here – British Academy International Partnerships

In addition to these big UK funders, there are also some smaller more focused funders which may appeal to the interests of specific research groups within the school. For instance conference grants offered by the The Modern Humanities Research Association (MHRA) could be of interest to the Narrative Research Group – information can be found here MHRA.

 

Rio plus 20

As we move into the run up for Rio plus 20 a number of colleagues in the UK are seeking to influence the thinking of key delegates and power brokers (unfortunately the UK delegates are not announced yet). November 1st is the deadline for receiving formal submissions which will be considered for the text to be negotiated at the Summit (compilation text). 

The EAUC is asking members to input their views.

http://www.eauc.org.uk/giving_eauc_members_a_powerful_international_vo

 It is critically important that the role of education in relation to sustainable development does not slide off the table. My colleague Professor Daniella Tilbury has been engaged in the PreComs and has alerted that there is a real danger that the dialogue is moving away from the Agenda 21 vision and UN DESD, to focus on technical and specialist training approaches (with little reference to learning based change and social community learning). There is still time to influence (sustainability will not be achieved by technical solutions alone – it requires education and behaviour change) and to stress the importance of ESD. You can influence either through EAUC or Education Caucus, or other channels you may have access to

To find out more about the processes leading up to Rio

http://www.earthsummit2012.org/

Or

http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/

 If you have ideas about influencing it would be interesting to hear them.

At the same time as the Summit there is a World Symposium on Higher Education and SD. The call for papers is still open

http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/index.php?page=view&type=13&nr=289&menu=27nd

 If you are developing research for Rio it would be great to hear about it

Cultural and Social Change research theme discussions

A number of colleagues from four Schools (AS, HSC, MS, ST) met on Monday 27th June to consider whether a meaningful theme, complementary to those already in development, could be defined within the broad territory of the social sciences and humanities. We had a useful discussion and the phrase ‘Cultural and social change’ was considered an appropriate theme title. The meeting decided that to produce a full prospectus for this theme we would invite any interested colleagues to contribute further inputs to it – these could be thoughts about the overall theme, or suggestions for specific elements to be within it. If you’d like to do so, please go to the latest ‘Cultural and Social Change’ post listed under the Research Themes tab – do not reply to this post.

Given the need to finalise a statement about the theme within the next month, we agreed that blog-based conversations and inputs could run until 15 July, at which point a smaller group would hopefully collate them into a generally acceptable statement which would establish the theme across at least the four Schools so far involved. 

Barry Richards

Cultural and Social Change (Barry Richards and Rosie Read)

BU Challenges

A number of colleagues from four Schools (AS, HSC, MS, ST) met on Monday 27th June to consider whether a meaningful theme, complementary to those already in development, could be defined within the broad territory of the social sciences and humanities. We had a useful discussion around the following points:

  1. The themes are being defined as a way of presenting BU’s research externally, but may have internal effects, in promoting collaborations, inflecting research identities, etc.
  2. There will inevitably be major areas of overlap between several themes, given that all are broadly defined.
  3. Dialogue between themes in the development phase would help to clarify boundaries.
  4. The themes of ‘Creative & digital economies’ and ‘Leisure and tourism’, and also ‘Health and well-being’, were ones where overlaps and interfaces with a ‘culture&society’ one would be most obvious.
  5. Contributions to the debate about how to define a ‘culture&society’ theme had suggested that ‘history’ and ‘welfare’ were two important parameters, amongst others.
  6. In the discussion we were very aware of the need to introduce some limits to the theme, and of the possibility therefore that some ‘potential ‘members’ might not fit into the final definition of it.
  7. There was also a view that we should try to include both social scientific and more humanities-based researchers.

The proposal that the phrase ‘Cultural and social change’ might be an appropriate theme title was favourably received. While still very broad (no doubt in some contexts unhelpfully so), it puts implicit emphasis on the historical context (‘change’ being a process in time), which is important for those studying contemporary life as well as for those actually doing historical research. It would encompass researchers of different philosophical orientation, and is hospitable to agendas of social engagement (such as the social welfare vision from HSC, the commentaries on democratic culture from MS, contributions to media and cultural policy/production from MS and ST, and the perspectives on various social issues from AS). Whether the theme title can be modified to reflect explicitly this principle of engagement for social betterment remains to be seen.

The meeting decided that in order to produce a full prospectus for this theme we would invite any interested colleagues to contribute further inputs to it – building on or otherwise responding to the above – via the Research blog. These could be thoughts about the overall theme, or suggestions for specific elements to be within it. If you’d like to do so, please indicate which heading of the theme template you are addressing (summary, scope in/out, ‘big societal questions’ which the theme addresses, link to RC priorities, interlinks with other BU themes). Given the need to finalise a statement about the theme within the next month, we agreed that blog-based conversations and inputs could run until 15 July, at which point a smaller group would hopefully collate them into a generally acceptable statement which would establish the theme across at least the four Schools so far involved. Myself and Rosie Read are happy to play a part in that group; if anyone else is interested please let us know.

You can access the latest version of the scoping document for the Cultural & Society theme here:  Cultural and Social Change – July 2011

In the meantime, to help consolidate the responses so far around this theme, please note that the previous two discussion threads entitled ‘Culture and Society (Rosie Read)‘ and ‘Culture and Society (Barry Richards)‘ are now closed and all future responses related to this theme should be made to this post using the link below. Thank you.

Barry Richards

Culture and Societal Change: Methodologies

BU Challenges

I would concur with the idea raised at our recent meeting that a defining feature of this theme could encompass some specific forms of methodology underpinning epistemology  relevant to the social sciences and humanities. I would suggest that ethnography and its variants are a key form of methodology commonly used by a number of interested members of our emerging group; in addition to case studies, narrative and oral history methodologies. I’m sure there would be a number of other methodologies that colleagues might wish to suggest as well, including quantitative methods commonly used in the social sciences, for example. Although precisely how to define these as distinctive to this theme, as opposed to others, may be more of a challenge. Perhaps here the ‘naturalistic’ social context of any epistemological undertaking, as opposed to the more ‘controlled’ positivistic context might be one way forward.

Sara Crabtree

Culture and Society

BU Challenges

There are dangers with trying to develop too focused a title for this research theme as this is likely to lead to exclusion of potentially interesting and important areas of research and research collaboration. For instance, adding ‘change’ or ‘cohesion’ introduces a particular idea that socially transformative research would be privileged above, say, methodological endeavour. Whilst there are problems with the use of the singular forms in ‘culture and society’, it perhaps allows for the emergence of greater productive diversity in developing what is likely to be a wide and changing brief.

The ways in which societies and cultures are understood, analysed and approached, and the meanings created by these for individuals and groups within them, again offers fertile ground for exploration and cross-school collaborative work, and this too is an area which would be useful to include within the theme’s overarching brief.

Inclusivity and broad coverage is important. It is within this context that exciting pockets of research can develop across the university. Let’s not be too prescriptive at this stage of the game.

Professor Jonathan Parker

‘Society and Social Welfare’,  HSC

Culture and Society (Rosie Read)

BU Challenges, Research themes

Author: Rosie Read (Health and Social Care)

Alternative name suggestion: Socio-Cultural Change, Conflict and Cohesion

Brief theme summary: A rapidly globalising world generates profound economic and social instabilities, opportunities and inequalities. The truly global nature of corporate capital and investment, alongside the large scale migration of populations across the world in search of better opportunities, raises key problems and/or debates in the contemporary world. These developments have been linked to the rise of class and ethnicity-based conflicts and political and religious extremism, as well as the seemingly contradictory role of governments in seeking to encourage growth (via deregulation and privatisation) whilst also needing to guarantee some level of social and economic equality and protection for vulnerable sections of the population (however these may be defined). These problems raise important questions for how to create social cohesion, and specifically the responsibilities of governments, corporations, non-profit organisations and individuals in achieving this.

Scope of theme: what is included? Socio-cultural change, globalisation, conflict, equality and diversity, governance, cohesion, security.

Scope of theme: what is excluded? This theme embraces all strands of social science as well as humanities and the arts. Natural sciences, engineering and technology-based sciences may be outside of this theme in the first instance, but opportunities to collaborate with these disciplines will be taken up where advantageous. This may be potentially fruitful when considering digital technologies, green technologies and the theoretical crucible enabled by complex systems theories.

Which big societal questions are addressed by this theme?

  • How can equality, opportunity and social cohesion within and between different societies be understood and defined, ensured and promoted in the context of globalisation? What role, if any, should governments, multinational corporations, non-governmental organisations, faith organisations and individuals play in achieving this?
  • How are identities and notions of citizenship formed in societies characterised by cultural diversity, inequality and insecurity? What are the consequences for social cohesion, political organisation, solidarity, collective forms of responsibility and protection against insecurity?
  • How can contemporary conflicts in the world be better understood, and thereby addressed or prevented? How can the vast critical scholarship and expertise from the social sciences, arts and humanities be used to analyse and address contemporary conflicts in the world?

How do these link to the priorities of the major funding bodies?

  • ESRC: Strategic Plan 2009-2014. This theme overlaps with four (of seven) of key priority areas for this research council’s funding during this period. These are:  Global Economic Performance, Policy and Management, Health and Wellbeing, Security, Conflict and Justice and Social Diversity and Populations Dynamics
  • RCUK: (1) The AHRC is leading a cross-council research programme entitled ‘Connected Communities’, aimed at creating better understanding of the key societal and economic challenges facing communities, as well as effective forms of intervention. (2) ‘Global Uncertainties’ programme, supported by a range of research councils, including AHRC and ESRC.
  • EU: (1) Key theme of Framework 7 is ‘Social and Economic Concerns’, incorporating a number of foci relevant to this theme, such as regional development, employment issues, safety, security and social and economic issues. (2) Youth in Action Programme, European Commission, aimed at promoting sense of European citizenship and solidarity amongst young people in EU.

How does this theme interlink with the other BU themes currently under consideration? This theme has obvious links with several others under consideration, notably Health and Wellbeing, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth, Learning and Public Engagement and Green Economy and Sustainability.

Culture and Society (Barry Richards)

BU Challenges, Research themes

Authors: Barry Richards (Media School)

Alternative name suggestion: This theme definitely needs a new title – the present one, and the suggestion of ‘Society and social change’, are so broad as to be meaningless. Once we know the theme summary we can come up with an appropriate title. See below.

Brief theme summary: Sorry, I can’t offer anything here as I think it depends on the research agendas of the 35 people who have signed up for this theme. My suggestion would be for a meeting of these people to try and identify a shared agenda. This will probably leave a handful of people without a home, but that will be the cost of having a theme which is not a catch-all. Answers to all questions should follow from the agreed agenda. Happy to play a part in facilitating this.