Tagged / media

“Six-hit” for PR History

Publishing

Collating and editing six books on the history of public relations is one of the main projects being undertaken by Professor Tom Watson of the Media School during his FIF-supported study leave.

The books will be the first-ever study of PR’s history outside North America. Collectively the series is entitled “National Developments in the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices” and is being published by Palgrave in its new Pivot model.

The first book, Asian Perspectives in the Development of Public Relations: Other Voices, is now in production and will be published in May. It will be followed by Eastern Europe and Russia (being edited), Middle East & Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, Western Europe and a final book of essays on the theorisation of public relations history.

“In public relations literature for several decades, it was assumed that PR was an American invention,” Prof Watson said. “And American scholars nationalistically purveyed that world view. Since the start of the International History of Public Relations Conference at BU in 2010, it was evident that PR and informational/promotional communications have many sources which depend on social, political and cultural influences.

“This series will shift the historiography of PR and related methods of communication away from the US to the ‘other voices’ of the series title. It is an important development that keeps BU as a world leader in PR and media/communication history research, alongside the work of the Centre for Media History.”

Prof Watson says publication of the series should be complete by mid-2015. Each Pivot volume is up to 50,000 words and is published by Palgrave in e-book and print-on-demand formats. The publisher undertakes to publish each book within three months of its submission.

PR education history archive now online

Fusion, REF Subjects

An insight into the first decade of PR education in the UK has just been posted online. It is the archive of the Public Relations Educators Forum (PREF) from 1994 to 1999, its most active years. It can be found at: http://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/historyofpr/files/2010/03/PREF-Archive-1994-1999.pdf

Catalogued by Professor Tom Watson of the Media School, it illustrates the growth of PR education which began in 1987 in Scotland and a year later in England. PREF was founded in 1990 to bring the new cohort of PR educators together and help negotiate the academia-industry connection. As Bournemouth University (then Dorset Institute of Higher Education) was one of the first two UK universities to launch undergraduate studies in PR, the PREF archive also adds to university history.

It wasn’t an easy relationship with particular tension in the mid-1990s over industry’s attitude to the quality of graduates and its desire to impose a skills-led training curriculum on universities. This was resisted by PREF, as correspondence and evidence of meetings shows.

“This archive shows the teething pains of new academic-led education faced with industry’s desired for trained technicians. The positive news is that PR was an academic area in which women took leading roles from the outset,” Prof Watson said. The online archive contains copies of PREF’s newsletters and membership lists which show the rapid expansion of PR education in the UK.

The PREF archive is one of several projects to advance scholarship in public relations history being developed by Prof Watson during his Fusion Investment Fund-supported Study Leave.

 

AHRC a success for BU Part 2: The Media Story:

Awarded & submitted bids, Funding opportunities, R & KE Operations

 

By Alex and Eva

Following yesterday’s Blog post on the Faculty of Science and Technology’s success, we would like to focus today on The Media’s success with AHRC. Over the last few years The Media School have a 44% success rate from 25 projects submitted with 11 funded.

So how can we replicate The Media School success?

Once again, Eva and I got on the bus to Talbot Campus and interviewed successful AHRC grant holder Dr. Bronwen Thomas to find out more…

What was your project about?

We have had two projects funded by the AHRC, the first was a research development award, and the current project supports a research network. Both look at the impact of digitisation on readers and reading.

How is it going?

It’s going well, the network is growing and our monthly blogs have helped to keep the discussion going between our scheduled meetings. We had a very successful public engagement event before Christmas, and we are currently planning a symposium to be held here at BU in June.

What do you want to achieve?

The main outcome for our project would be that the network remains active after the period of funding and that it helps support collaborative projects, including publications, involving our members.

What gave you the edge, do you think?

The fact that our research area is of key strategic importance to the funder, and that we were able to respond speedily and effectively to the call.

In hindsight, what would you do differently, what advice would you give to others?

The funding calls we applied for were limited in terms of the amounts available. The downside of this is that the PI ends up doing quite a lot of admin and planning work, leaving less time for scholarly research.  So anything that could be done to reduce this burden would be helpful.

 Also any other comments/tips from your experience that is worth noting.

We have been successful responding to specific calls under the highlight themes.  Under the current system, this may become more difficult, as typically there are only a couple of months between the announcement and the deadline, but there does appear to be ongoing funding for the highlighted themes, so they are well worth looking at.  It is important to demonstrate that your research is collaborative, cross-disciplinary and with genuine rather than tokenistic public engagement.   But it’s also about showing that you can manage projects, that you are likely to work well together as a team, and that the proposed research and outcomes are doable.

For other hints and tips you should check out Dr Anna Feigenbaum posts on International, Interdisciplinary, Innovative: the AHRC brings grant bidding advice to BU.

~Don’t miss tomorrow’s edition, when we find out more about studentship block grants.

Bangkok conference “a big success”

Fusion

Speakers and delegates from 10 mainly Asian countries voted the 1st International Corporate and Marketing Communication in Asia Conference, held in Bangkok on November 18-19, “a big success”

The FIF-supported conference went so well that planning is already under way for the 2014 conference, also to be held at Chulalongkorn University in the Thai capital.

Representing BU at the conference were Prof Tom Watson, a co-organiser, and Dr Ana Adi, both of the Media School. Tom was a second day keynote speaker while Ana presented the outcome of research by her and Nathaniel Hobby on social media monitoring in higher education.

The conference, held at the Faculty of Communication Arts, was opened by the host’s Vice-President, Assoc Prof Dr Sittichai Tudsri. Including the Thai and UK organisers, 30 papers were presented by academics from Australia, Egypt, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

“The conference especially sought Asian perspectives: alternatives to Anglo-American models of theory, practice and education. In this aspect it succeeded to everyone’s satisfaction,” Prof Watson said. “I believe that several international joint research projects will develop from the 2013 conference, which is also a major step forward.”

He said that delegates had welcomed the conference as filling a major gap in corporate and marketing communication academic discourse in Asia. “This reflected well on BU and I’m grateful for the FIF support that helped us devise and develop the conference. It’s an investment that has long term reputational and research value.”

Already, a Media School team researching CSR has linked with colleagues at Chulalongkorn University and a further connection with an Indonesian researcher may follow soon. The BU-Chula link was confirmed at the conference.

(L-R) Conference organisers Prof Tom Watson and Assoc Prof Jirayudh Sinthuphan with keynote speaker Prof Dr Ansgar Zerfas (Leipzig University)

Research website training sessions

Training

On Monday many of you will have seen Rebecca Edwards’ blog post giving more information about the new research website. It explains why BU is developing it, when the site will be live, how it will work and addresses some frequently asked questions that have cropped up in discussions.

If you missed this post you can view it here.

The new website will have a host of additional features, making it easier for you to update and add your own content. It provides a considerably improved platform for integrating a wider variety of content, such as image galleries and videos.

Research website screengrabTraining sessions are taking place over the next two months. You can book a session online or contact Rebecca Edwards for more information.

Using the website is surprisingly easy and in the sessions you’ll learn how to upload, edit and tag content. Rather than carrying out training sessions with ‘dummy’ test material, we would like to use the time for you to upload relevant content to your research theme.

We’d be grateful if you could please have something available that you can upload during the training session. Examples could include:

–          New or recent images

–          Videos

–          Details of a new research project

–          Details of successful grant applications

–          A profile of a post graduate researcher

–          Information about planned or recent public engagement activity

Rebecca Edwards or I will be happy to answer any questions in the meantime, so do get in touch. We look forward to seeing you at one of the training sessions.

New Book Announcement: Protest Camps

Publishing

Protest Camps hits indie bookshops and digital shelves worldwide today. Co-authored by Bournemouth University’s Dr. Anna Feigenbaum, Fabian Frenzel (Leicester) and Patrick McCurdy (Ottawa), Protest Camps takes readers on a journey across different cultural, political and geographical landscapes of protest.

From Tahrir Square to Occupy, from the Red Shirts in Thailand to the Teachers in Oaxaca, Protest Camps covers over 50 different protest camps around the world over the past 50 years, offering a ground-breaking and detailed global investigation. Drawing on a wealth of original interview material, the authors argue that protest camps are unique spaces in which people enact new forms of democratic politics.

Protest Camps is now available at local booksellers and for online order  in the UK. To find out more on the broader Protest Camps Research Network visit protestcamps.org  and follow the project on twitter @protestcamps

 “Feigenbaum, Frenzel and McCurdy’s wonderful book brings a fresh perspective to our understanding of contemporary political action … A fine achievement.”

– Professor Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science

 “This book provides a captivating cartography that helps heal the chasm between how we live our everyday life and what our political ideas are, how we protest against the old world whilst proposing new ones.” 

 -John Jordan, co-founder of ‘Reclaim the Streets’ protest movement

To celebrate the launch of Protest Camps, the authors are participating in events across the UK and beyond:

October 19th – London Anarchist Bookfair, Queen Mary University of London
October 21st –The Organisation of the Organisationless – Talks in Digital Culture #1, King’s College London
October 26th – Edinburgh Independent Radical Book Fair 2013
October 29th –New Perspectives on Anarchism and Management, Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy at University of Leicester
October 30th –Protest Camps and Dissent PR Speaker Series at Bournemouth University
October 31st –Institute for Protest and Social Movement Studies at Technische Universitaet Berlin
November 2nd –ESRC Festival of Social Science event, Creating Worlds Together: A workshop on Experimentations and Protest Camps, Birkbeck, University of London
November 8th – tbc, Johannesburg, South Africa, Wits University
November 13th to 14th –PSA Media and Politics Group Conference, Bournemouth Univeristy
November 20th to 21st – Leicester, Generations of Protest Conference, DeMontford University

FIF-backed PR History network launched in Barcelona

Fusion

The European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN), which has been supported in its formation by FIF, was launched at European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) Congress in Barcelona on October 3-5. The event, held on Friday October 4, was attended by 29 delegates from 12 countries.

“After more than a year’s planning, EPRHN is now in operation and has 50 active supporters from 18 countries across Europe”, said Prof Tom Watson of the Media School. “FIF has enabled it to get to the take-off stage and aided the very positive response found in Barcelona.”

Prof Watson also organised a panel session (the only one approved for the Congress) on developing the history of PR in Europe. It drew leading scholars from universities of Leipzig (Germany), Bucharest (Romania), Pompeu Fabra (Spain), as well as Prof Watson. It was chaired by the Italian practitioner/commentator Toni Muzi Falconi.

Refereed papers from Prof Watson and Drs Tasos Theofilou and Georgiana Grigore, also Media School, were presented at the Congress in well-attended sessions with several requests for copies of the papers afterwards, especially for the research on engaging employees with organisational Corporate Social Responsibility planning.

EUPRERA PR History Panel: (l-r) Toni Muzi Falconi (Italy); Prof Adela Rogojinaru (Romania); Prof Tom Watson (BU), Prof Jordi Xifra (Spain) and Prof Gunter Bentele (Germany)

Dr Tasos Theofilou (l), Dr Georgiana Grigore (c) and Prof Tom Watson (r) at EUPRERA Congress, Barcelona

I’ll bet you it’s a baby!

 

 

The new royal baby has been born.  Good news for Kate and William and also for the betting shops.  Apparently a large number of people bet on a girl being born on the estimated due date July 13th, and the punters seem to believe the gender would be female.  As a consequence, a large amount of money was made by UK betting shops.   The next bet is, of course, on his name.  Some websites seem to suggest the bookmakers favoured the name James, such as a website in the Netherlands (http://wereldnieuws.blog.nl/politiek/2013/07/19/britse-baby-kan-nu-ieder-moment-komen).  A Canadian website suggested a few days before the birth that “James or George were the favourites” for a boy (http://o.canada.com/2013/07/17/escape-from-royal-baby-media-circus-leads-to-londons-betting-shops/.  On the webpages of one of the UK’s larger betting shops today’s  (22nd July) top 13 boys’ names were: George, James, Alexander, Louis, Arthur, Henry, Phillip, Albert, Spencer, David, Thomas, Richard & Edward.

 

Betting on aspects of the royal birth and baby is a way of being involved in the same way that betting on your football team to win its first away-game of the season is part of being a supporter for some.  Luckily, there are many more options to waste your money, punters can also put money on the colour of his hair, baby’s first word, and if you want to wait a little longer for your money:  the name of his first love, age of first nightclub visit photograph, first official visit overseas, whether the prince will ever compete in the Olympics, and the university where he will study.

 

 

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

Centre for Midwifery, Maternal & Perinatal Health

School of Health & Social Care

Bournemouth University, UK

 

 

 

 

 

Squeezing the pips from a conference with social media

Please forgive the self-publicity, but I would like to share my recent use of social media to promote BU, research, a conference and papers.

Last week, I attended the annual International Public Relations Research Conference (IPRRC) in the US, where I presented three papers, one with a US co-author. It’s the largest conference in the field, drawing 101 papers over three days and attendance in the order of 150-175 academics, graduates and some practitioners.

To broadcast involvement in the conference, I used my personal blog to present a daily summary of interesting papers:  http://fiftyonezeroone.blogspot.co.uk/. The blog posts have had over 210 visits so far and were also circulated on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. There have been many re-tweets (RTs), plus appreciative emails and direct messages via Twitter.

A short summary of “top 10 research tips” was written for the prmoment.com website which has around 30,000 users, worldwide. It was posted on the site’s blog and is included in this week’s publication: http://blog.prmoment.com/ten-pr-research-tips-from-bournemouth-universitys-professor-tom-watson/

The outcomes of this type of activity will be long-term and hard to measure, but as I was the only UK delegate at IPRRC this year, it has given BU, our research and industry knowledge an international platform of expertise and insight to present ourselves. The capital cost was almost nil, as I used my own netbook, Wi-Fi was free and the time component was less than an hour a day. Try this approach at your next conference or internal event.

Tom Watson presenting at IPRRC 2013

Euro PR history network backed by Fusion

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion

IHPRC at EBC - Scene for first EPRHN meeting

A proposal to develop an innovative Europe-wide network of researchers in the history of public relations field has been supported by the Fusion Investment Fund (FIF).

The European Public Relations History Network (EPRHN) was formed in mid-2012 by Prof Tom Watson and backed by EUPRERA (European Public Relations Education & Research Association) as a priority project for the next three years. It was set up to identify archives and resources, undertake collaborative research, and prepare bids to European research bodies and PR industry organisations.

The field of public relations history has been developed at BU over the past four years, mainly through the establishment of the International History of Public Relations Conference (IHPRC).

Prof Watson said: “there has been increasing interest in the conference and PR historical research in Europe over the past 3-4 years but it has largely focused on national histories, personalities or phenomena. Collaborative research, across national boundaries, has yet to emerge. There is little shared knowledge of archival resources, where they exist or can be created.”

So far, 35 academics and practitioners from 12 countries have shown their interest in EPRHN. Its first publication, a catalogue of archives and resources in seven countries has just been published.  A EPRHN planning meeting will be held at BU after IHPRC in June.

Within The Media School, the network will also help develop European aspects of the Centre for Media History (CMH). CMH is already developing relationships with universities in Sweden and northern Germany. CMH and EPRHN will, it is hoped, foster the recruitment of PGR students interested in media and communication historical research.

The Fusion funding will allow EPRHN to hold a planning event at BU after IHPRC in late June and for Prof Watson and Dr Tasos Theofilou, who is working with him on both PR history projects, to attend EUPRERA’s annual conference in Barcelona in October. At EUPRERA, they will hold the network’s first formal meeting and workshop. [Photos by Minna-Liisa Nurmilaasko, PROCOM Finland].

IHPRC 2012

Fusion supports new PR research collaboration in Asia

Awarded & submitted bids, Fusion, REF Subjects, Research themes

Prof Tom Watson teaching at Chulalongkorn University

For several years, the Media School (TMS) has been developing a relationship with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand. Chula, as it is known, is rated as the No.1 university in the kingdom.

The SMN award allows the development of a collaborative project between TMS and the Faculty of Communication Arts at Chula to organise an academic conference on public relations in Asia in Bangkok on November 18-19.
The conference will provide a platform for academic research on public relations history, current theory and practice, and future trends. In particular, it will investigate Asian (i.e. non Anglo-American) perspectives of public relations and will be the first dedicated conference to do so.

Prof Tom Watson, who is a co-chair of the conference, says the SMN funding “will lead to the development of a sustainable academic and research partnership between the two universities. It will enable BU staff participation in cross-cultural research with Thai colleagues. The conference will also place BU in a leadership role on research into cross-cultural communications and international public relations.”

Dr Ana Adi is working with Prof Watson on the project. She taught at Chula in mid-2012 on a staff exchange. She and at least one other TMS academic will be attending the conference and presenting papers.

The conference collaboration started with attendance by Chula’s Dr Napawan Tantivejakul at the International History of Public Relations Conference 2011 at BU, which began a dialogue about a joint conference with an Asian focus. This was cemented when Prof Watson visited Chula in November last year as a visiting professor and negotiated the arrangements. It is hoped that there will be 16 speakers, plus two keynotes, and 50 delegates at the November event.

Science and the Media – Invitation to participate

The new ‘Science and the Media’ research cluster, situated in the Media School, is holding a mini-conference on Wednesday, 12 December from 2 to 4:30 pm (in CG01, Christchurch House).

We are hoping to involve all BU colleagues and doctoral students engaged in research on a topic related to this broad theme, so please consider joining us.

If you would like to make a short, informal presentation describing what you are researching (15 minutes or so, followed by questions), kindly get in touch with one of us asap. We will be pleased to add you to the afternoon’s programme.

Many thanks, and with best wishes

Stuart (and Shelley and An)

 

Brief bios:

Stuart Allan’s science-related publications include Environmental Risks and the Media (co-edited, 2000), Media, Risk and Science (2002), and Nanotechnology, Risk and Communication (co-authored, 2009). Recent co-written journal articles have appeared in New Genetics and Society (2005), Science Communication (2005), Health, Risk & Society (2007), Public Understanding of Science (2009), and Journal of Risk Research (2010), amongst others. In 2011, he edited a special issue of Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism focusing on the topic ‘Science Journalism in a Digital Age.’

Shelley Thompson lectures in Corporate and Marketing Communications in the Media School at BU. Shelley’s current research explores the framing of nanotechnology in the mainstream press, in both print and online contexts. Her research interests around science primarily link to communicating science to a non-specialist audience, especially looking at the ways the mainstream media frame emerging science and technology.

An Nguyen is Senior Lecturer in Journalism in the Media School at BU. His research interests include public engagement in science debates in the media and the role of journalists in facilitating that process. An area where he has explored these issues in-depth is public connections to climate change. He is writing a book, Science News and the Public, for Bloomsbury Academic.