Tagged / media

Engaging with the media – scary or essential?

BU research, Impact, policy, Research communication, Uncategorized

Wonkhe have an excellent new blog out: Why aren’t there more academic experts in the media?

Written by Justin Shaw, a HE Consultant at Communications Management, it is part of his campaign to ensure the academic voice is heard. He would like to see a proliferation in colleagues sharing their evidence-based expertise both with policy makers and the population.

For the blog Justin interviewed 30 of the most prolific ‘media active’ academics to understand the enablers and barriers in taking up media opportunities and what they would say to media-hesitant colleagues to help them take the next step.

Here are some excerpts – but do make time to read the full (short) blog:

The belief that it is far better to anticipate, lead, and take control of media opportunities (rather than suffer in response or serve as a moaning bystander) is one of the main findings that has emerged from interviews with some of the UK’s most committed “media active” academics.

A significant finding is that these academic media advocates simply now regard working with journalists as part of the job. Not only that, but they also stress that it is now (more than ever) a duty and an obligation – especially in an era of growing media input from the subjective and the “ill-informed” (most commonly defined as: shoot-from-the-hip politicians or rent-a-quote personalities drawn from reality TV shows).

While their journey as a go-to media expert has been challenging, and certainly there are some hard lessons to learn on the way, they say that we have now come to a point where academics just have to be bolder, must stand-up and project their knowledge, their evidence, their experience, and they must simply just seize the initiative. Without taking this stand then academics will be crowded out as the voices of reason

“So often politicians and policy-makers present things as facts, but there’s no evidence base for this, so I feel obliged to point out that there is a big body of work and evidence that isn’t being drawn upon, just being the critical voice to say “have you thought about the implications of what you are saying?”. The value of it is that it allows the public to have a more rounded view of the situation, so they can make their own minds up, based on evidence.”

The blog goes on to explain that the skills of an academic researcher and lecturer are the best type of skills to prepare for media engagement. So in short, you’re already got it in the bag.

The blog concluded by considering how the professional services teams around the academic, such as BU’s Press Office, BU’s RDS Impact and Research Comms colleagues, and BU’s Policy Team, can be useful additional support mechanisms – both for media experienced and novice colleagues. Get in touch if you’d like more support or to discuss how you could connect with the media or parliament.

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.

Opportunity to Develop Bidding Skills

BU research, Funding opportunities, PG research, Research news, Uncategorized

Mentoring relationships can take time to forge. We offer an opportunity to cultivate your expertise in developing research bids by joining a specific bidding team from the outset of its project.

Are you interested in learning more about how to go about applying for research funding, particularly larger Research Council bids? Would you like to gain experience by joining us in the process of developing, writing and submitting a large bid to the AHRC?

Are you intrigued by concepts such as student co-creation, generational issues and concerns, the use of media in learning and dissemination, social work, social psychology and narrative methods—all with teens?

We are looking for one or two academics with an interest in not only developing their expertise in grant writing, but also participating in a research and dissemination project involving Generation Z youth.  Working with experts with success in writing large grant proposals, you will engage in the process, from the very beginning through submission. You also will have the opportunity to develop a role that you might play in the project itself, when successful. Win-win, in other words.

Please see the outline article in the AHRC blog for more information on the proposed project. https://ahrc-blog.com/2018/04/09/how-ahrc-funded-film-rufus-stone-inspired-a-project-on-the-next-generation/

The team (so far) includes:

Kip Jones Qualitative Research and Performative Social Sci FHSS & FMC

Trevor Hearing Studio media production FMC

Lee-Ann Fenge Social Work and creative participation in research HSS

Michelle Cannon Senior Teaching Fellow in Media Arts Education UCL

Helen Walsh Dorset Space Youth Project CEO

Alexandra Pekalski and Eva Papadopoulou RKEO, BU

If this offer of mentorship in grant proposal writing seems interesting to you, please contact Kip Jones for an informal discussion. mailto:kipworld@gmail.com

Skam”, the Norwegian TV series about Oslo teenagers, has influenced our concept and will be used to engage local youth in telling their own stories.

Two reviews by BU academics in the American Anthropologist in 2018

BU research, Featured academics, international, open access, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing

The first review by a Bournemouth University academic  in the prestigious  journal American Anthropologist was published in its February issue.  Dr. Sue Sudbury who is Principal Academic in Media Production reviewed the film ‘The Anthropologist’ [1].  She wrote in this Open Access review that this film raises many interesting issues about the role of the anthropologist and deftly illustrates the divide that exists when different cultures come together.   Her conclusion of the review is that ‘The Anthropologist’ is an intriguing and memorable film about environmental anthropologists and the important work they do collecting and telling the stories of people whose lives are being reshaped by climate change. It is also about the relationship between female anthropologists and their daughters. As such, it does an important job of introducing the subject and will no doubt generate discussion, but it is not an anthropological film and doesn’t claim to be.

The second one, a book review this time, appeared this week in the June issue.    Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen in Bournemouth University’s Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health (CMMPH) reviewed the book Midwives and Mothers: The Medicalization of Childbirth on a Guatemalan Plantation by the American anthropologist Sheila Cosminsky [2].  He reminds the reader that some of the work in this book work has previously been published in articles, as clearly stated in the acknowledgments (p. xii).  He highlights that “on reading the book I remembered with joy snippets from some of the articles on Doña María I read nearly thirty years ago while working on my PhD thesis.” Cosminsky does a great job of bringing together a lifetime of anthropological (field)work in a comprehensive and easy‐to‐read book.

It is not often that we see reviews written by BU staff in this impressive journal, let alone two in subsequent issues.

 

References:

  1. Sudbury S. (2018) The Anthropologist Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller, and Jeremy Newberger, dirs. 81 mins. English, Russian, Sakha, Kiribati, Spanish, and Quechua with English subtitles. New York: Ironbound Films, 2015, American Anthropologist 120(1): 169-170.
  2. van Teijlingen E. (2018) Midwives and Mothers: The Medicalization of Childbirth on a Guatemalan Plantation by Sheila Cosminsky, American Anthropologist 120(2): 369.

Tessa Jowell’s farsighted vision for media literacy was ahead of its time

BU research, the conversation

File 20180516 155569 1h92h9o.jpg?ixlib=rb 1.1

Forward thinker: Tessa Jowell in 2007. More Than Gold UK, CC BY-NC

By Dr Richard Wallis, Bournemouth University

The untimely death from cancer of former UK Labour cabinet minister, Dame Tessa Jowell, has triggered a wave of tributes from across the political spectrum. Her vision for securing the 2012 Olympics for London, her formative role in New Labour’s flagship Sure Start scheme, and most recently, her campaign for cancer research, have all been given many column inches.

By contrast, Jowell’s less certain legacy as principal advocate for media literacy is barely given a mention. It seems to have been quietly forgotten that it was Jowell, as secretary of state for Culture, Media and Sport, that pushed through parliament the Communications Act 2003 which enshrined media literacy in law, and gave to Ofcom – the (then new) media “super-regulator” – the responsibility to “promote” the idea.

Media literacy existed as a New Labour policy well before Jowell’s turn at the Department for Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Her predecessor, Chris Smith, believed that the concept was a useful one for “arming the citizen-consumer” of media, to make responsible choices in a period of increasing deregulation.

To the dismay of some of her own policy advisors, Jowell seized the concept, made it her own, and became a fervent advocate at every opportunity. In an address given at BAFTA the year following the Communications Act, she referred to media literacy as “a coming subject” and one that “in five years’ time will be just another given”.

Misplaced optimism

With the benefit of hindsight, Jowell’s optimism seems to have been misplaced. Media literacy, arguably, has never been lower on the political agenda. The plethora of initiatives that sprang up in the wake of the Communications Act have largely withered on the vine – and the process of recent reforms to the popular Media Studies A-level have seen the subject savagely “strangled”.

Yet Jowell’s argument for media education has never been more relevant. “It is important,” she insisted, “that we know when we are watching ‘accurate and impartial’ news coverage and when we are not”. These are prescient comments when you consider that they were made more than a decade before “post-truth” became the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year (in 2016) and when terms such as “fake news” or “Leveson Inquiry” had yet to pass anyone’s lips.

Jowell believed that education in media opened opportunities that could enrich the experience of individuals and society – but she was equally exercised about the role that education had to play in protecting against some of the dangers of modern media. She thought that media were dominated by powerful and potentially harmful commercial and political interests. She believed that children, in particular, should be provided with “critical life skills” to guide their media consumption.

“It is transparently important,” she told a media literacy seminar in 2004, “that they should be helped to get the most from all those screen hours, and be protected from what we know are some of the worst excesses”. She went on to ensure that, from 2006, the BBC Charter also contained requirements to promote media literacy.

Where did it go so wrong?

The key to understanding the marginalisation of media literacy as government policy is the role of the Department for Education – once known as the Department for Education and Skills(DfES). Media education was not seen as a serious curriculum priority at the DfES, and – despite New Labour’s early insistence on “joined-up government” – enthusiasm for media literacy never spread beyond the confines of DCMS.

There was widespread ignorance about media education among civil servants within DfES, many of whom had had highly traditional educational experiences themselves. A preoccupation with “driving up” standards, measurability and international comparison provided little incentive for the promotion of a field of study concerned with recognising and understanding forms of popular (or “low”) culture. This was despite the apparent economic value being attributed to the “creative industries” at the same time.



Read more:
Tessa Jowell’s call for greater access to experimental cancer treatments is right – here’s why

The byzantine operation of the DfES also made change of any kind difficult – particularly where it touched on what was actually taught in schools. In this case, there was the added disincentive of a policy being driven by a separate –and junior – department. Ultimately, media literacy was never to be widely embraced as an educational project in the way that Jowell had hoped.

Media literacy remains on the statute book and Ofcom continues to have a responsibility to promote it. But the way it is defined – and the level of resources provided to support it – ensure that it has largely been reduced to a form of market research, an undead policy. Jowell once proclaimed:

I believe that in the modern world, media literacy will become as important a skill as maths or science. Decoding our media will become as important to our lives as citizens as understanding literature is to our cultural lives.

It may be too much to hope that media literacy could yet be reclaimed as one of Tessa Jowell’s essential legacies.

Richard Wallis, Principal Academic in Media Production, Faculty of Media & Communication, Bournemouth University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Government areas of research interest

BU research, Funding opportunities, Impact, policy, Research news

Did you know that government departments publish their areas of research interest?  This is a guide to where research funds might go, and is useful if you are thinking about policy impact.

The collection is here, and four new ones have been added today:

The DCMS one says “It is designed to encourage researchers and academics to explore those topics that could be of benefit to DCMS and our sectors and act as a starting point for future collaboration.”

There are strategic themes and long lists of specific questions – if you’re working on any of these, you might want to read our blog from earlier today and contact the policy team. 

CQR Seminar for this Wednesday cancelled

BU research, PG research, Uncategorized

Sorry to inform you that this Wednesday’s ‘In Conversation’ CQR Seminar is cancelled due to illness.

Mark you diaries now, however, for the next Seminar on Wed. 11 April at 1 pm in RLH 208 presented by the ‘Gang of Four’.

Curious?  More information will follow. Stay tuned!

Here are the Seminars for the rest of the academic year:

BU Briefing – Locating the ‘third voice’: participatory film making and the everyday in rural India.

BU research

Our BU briefing papers are designed to make our research outputs accessible and easily digestible so that our research findings can quickly be applied – whether to society, culture, public policy, services, the environment or to improve quality of life. They have been created to highlight research findings and their potential impact within their field. 

This research reflects on practice-led research involving a community video project in southern India – Andhra Pradesh. Four of the women involved in this project were asked if they would use their cameras to film their everyday lives.

The aim of this paper was to build on current practice by combining participatory filmmaking with traditional observational documentary techniques and video diary interviews to locate a ‘third voice’ in order to create an engaging narrative and new perspectives on life in rural India.

Click here to read the briefing paper.

For more information about the research, contact Dr Sue Sudbury at smsudbury@bournemouth.ac.uk.
To find out how your research output could be turned into a BU Briefing, contact research@bournemouth.ac.uk.