Wednesday 1/05/13
2:00-3:00pm 2pm – Speaker: Sam Coley - BCU
Title: David Bowie on the radio

Wednesday 1/05/13 3:00-4:00pm
3pm – Speaker: Oliver Carter Title: Short term pain for long term gain”: A pragmatic approach to completing a PhD while working full time.

Click here for full PDF.

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Wednesday 15/05/13 2:00-4.00pm
2pm – Speaker: Dr John Mercer - BCU Title: Acting and Behaving Like a Man: Rock
Hudson’s Performance Style

3pm – Speaker: Annette Naudin - BCU Title: An exploration of personal agency in
cultural entrepreneurs

Click here for full PDF.

My Colleague Andrew Dubber is currently in the process of writing his next book Radio in the Digital Age.  He had received some very good feedback from the publishers, and ‘anonymous peers’ about the latest manuscript, along with a bit of a fright.  You can visit Andrews site here for more information.  He discusses some very interesting issues ranging from understanding the meaning of music, to conferences in budapest he has attended.

Click the image for the full PDF.

-Wednesday 17/04/13 2:00-3:00pm

2pm – Speaker: Stephanie Pitts – University of Sheffield Title: Understanding live listening

Dr Stephanie Pitts is a Reader in Music with research interests in musical participation, concert audiences and music education. She is Director of Student Experience in the music department, having previously served a year as Acting Head of Department (2011-12) and three years as Assistant Director of Learning and Teaching for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities.

-Wednesday 17/04/13 3:00-4:00pm

3pm – Speaker: Dr Andy Williams – Cardiff University Title: The Value of UK Hyperlocal News: Findings form a content analysis

The crisis in local news in the UK has been developing for a long time, but it has worsened in the last decade. Mainstream newspaper publishers have primarily dealt with challenges to their business models, and declines in their audiences, by cutting staff and reducing the resources previously devoted to news. This has had serious consequences on the volume, nature, independence, and “localness” of the news people read about where they live.

The University of Liverpool School of Music has recently announced a new department blog from the staff and PhD students which you can find at

It is hoped that the blog will host a range of items to interest a variety of people: news items for those in the local area; reflections on current and future research projects, including PhD projects; ‘food for thought’ items. It should gradually become an online reflection of our offline world. There are only a few posts up at the moment, but a number of things are in the pipeline….

In case you’re interested, you can subscribe by email for updates. The blog is organised by Dr. Freya Jarman, Senior Lecturer, Director of Undergraduate Studies, School of Music, University of Liverpool

Here is a presentation by ‘Marco Mulcahy on ethics’ from our March Research Seminar.
A look at how journalism and media ethics can vary by country and what influences those differences

Click here for the accompanying slides to the presentation.

Click for Full PDF

Wednesday 13/03/13 2:00-4:00pm
2pm – Speakers: MA Cultural Industries students from Budapest University of Technology and Economic
Title: BLAT

The Blat-project examines the ways subcultural and creative communities are organised, function and interact, and on the basis of this, the ways alternative culture is produced, disseminated and con- sumed in an urban environment. We especially focus on the sharing of material and non-material resources which is enhanced by informal so- cial networks. What we are trying to achieve is to create a more ‘formalised’ network for these small-scale, self-organising communities, where collaboration, cooperation and the sharing of resources can take place – according to our plans this will take the form of a workshop/ festival and an online platform in the near future.

Wednesday 20/03/13 2:00-4:00p
2pm – Speaker: Marco Mulcahy Title: Cross cultural media ethics: How journalism practices vary by country.

Marco Mulcahy has served as a supervising editor and news producer for the past seven years at The Associated Press Nerve Center, the coordination and quality control desk for the wire service’s headquarters in New York.

Prior to that he worked at more than a dozen newspapers throughout New England, Missouri and Japan, before turning to teaching. In 2002, Mulcahy wrote his master’s thesis on media ethics in Eastern Europe. In 2004, he helped establish the first journalism school in Mozambique. He is the co-author of a Brazilian media ethics book, written in Portuguese. He also conducted a study for the European Union in 2001 on perceptions of the euro in Sweden, Denmark and Germany and how newspapers in those countries influence public opinion on the topic.

Next week centre director, Prof Tim Wall, is off to Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong as a member of a group engaging with Chinese arts organisations. The delegation is made up of representatives from the following organisations: Artfinder, Sage Gateshead, Culture 24, RSC, WKCD and Roundhouse, Tate Research, Nesta, The Literary Platform, Philharmonia Orchestra, BC Creative Economy and UKTI. It’s a real honour for our centre to be represented in this company. Tim was selected and is being funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) who hope that we can establish some collaborative projects with the Chinese arts institutions we will visit. We’ll be visiting and participating in events at the following institutions: National Museum Arts and Palace Museum; China Millennium Monument Museum of Digital Arts  (CMoDA); China Art Museum, Shanghai; Shanghai Concert Hall; West Kowloon Cultural District Authority; HK Philharmonic Orchestra; ALiVE lab; Science Park, Shatin; LCSD, Cultural Centre; HK Arts Administrator’s Association; Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre.

Click For full PDF

 

Checkdesk – Developing Citizen Journalism in the Arab Region

Tom Trewinnard – Research and Communications Manager, Meedan - January 17, 2013

The Arab spring can be seen as product of a rapidly changing information ecosystem: With the advent of social media, authoritarian states lost the ability to stifle dissenting narratives of election fraud, corruption, police brutality, and protest. The growing dissonance between state media and coverage by citizen journalists and an increasingly bold private media, and the resulting outrage at cases such as those of Khaled Said, Mohammed Bouazizi, and Egypt’s farcical 2010 parliamentary election made societal change and reform inevitable.

Although across the Arab region authoritarian regimes have fallen or reluctantly embraced reform, the multi-faceted legacy of decades of authoritarianism remains: Undeveloped media literacy in the Middle East is impeding the ability of the citizen, and especially the young citizen, to sort fact, opinion and rumor, make informed choices, and hold their governments to account (Saleh, 2009) (Townson, 2012)[1]. The 2011 uprisings demonstrated how digital media can provide an effective channel for dissent but, in this critical phase of constitutional and governmental transition citizens need support to nurture transparency and accountability through evidence-based journalism and to democratize political communication. In response to these needs, Meedan has sought to develop open source tools for newsrooms that encourage journalists, citizen journalists and media consumers to collaborate in asking questions of media, to check the credibility of citizen and mainstream sources, and to acknowledge and propagate the best and most accurate journalistic reporting.

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[1] Interview with media literacy expert Magda Abu-Fadil.

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Read the full report in PDF form here.

 

Dr Daniel Ashton (Bath Spa University) blogs about his recent research seminar presentation:

Noting the ‘affective, risky, networked, creative turn’ in Media and Cultural Studies, this presentation explores how extending concepts of ‘employability’ present ways to locate ethical concerns as relevant for students. The aim is not to overlook or dismiss the investments and understandings that students hold, but to utilize the higher education experience to locate these alongside grounded accounts of the challenges of the their future cultural work contexts.

Focusing on the ‘Creative Contexts: Work placements, peer learning and professional practice in the creative industries’ (Higher Education Academy funded) project, this presentation explores how undergraduate students on courses relating to a range of media and creative industries can share their experiences and stories from work placements through creating ‘reflections films’.

The Creative Contexts website hosts short films through which students can share with each other experiences, insights, tips, and questions from their placements on areas including: Identifying and securing work placements; insights into working with others; activities undertaken; how work placement experiences connect together; challenges encountered and responses; and feelings and experiences of ‘fitting in’.

This presentation will introduce the project in relation to the wider context of work placements in higher education, and look to initiate discussion evaluating the ‘reflections films’ approach, and use themes and issues raised by students in the films (such as: best practice for placements, quality of learning opportunities, issues of pay and hours) to debate how higher education and students can engage with the unethical and amoral aspects of cultural work raised in critical scholarship and industry practice.

Creative Contexts from creativecontexts on Vimeo.