Category Archives: conferences

Hyperlocal publishing – some statistics

Posted on by Dave Harte
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This is a cross-posting from the website for a new project that the research centre is involved with – ‘Media, Community and the Creative Citizen‘. A key research strand within it is about Hyperlocal publishing in the UK. It’s early days for the project but already its outputs are generating interest

I was pleased to be asked to talk at the BBC’s Connecting Communities conference on 24th May 2012. I used my 10 minute slot to announce the findings of some research this strand of the Creative Citizenship project had been doing into the scale and scope of Hyperlocal publishing.

Below are the audio and slides (also as PDF) from the event. There’s a report to follow (once proofed and tidied up) which outlines the methodology in detail and I’ll share the spreadsheets in due course also. But for the meantime, here’s the presentation and below that the main findings:

Sample

  • The research sampled a list of 432 active websites 8th till 18th May 2012.
  • ‘Active’ was defined as a website having posted at least once in the 5 months prior to the sample period.
  • 313 published at least one article in the sample period.
  • 119 did not publish an article in the sample period.

Publishing

  • The average number of posts of those sites that published was 12.2 posts per site.
  • The median number of posts of those sites that published was 7.
  • 3819 items were published in total
  • 75% of the items are produced by a third of the sites
  • 58% of items were produced by 20% of the sites.
  • 39 sites produced just one story
  • 133 (42.6%) sites produced 5 or less items. These were responsible for 9.3% of the posts

Frequency

  • Overall, an average of 15 items per hour were produced by Hyperlocal wesbites.
  • During weekday daytimes this average rose to 24 items per hour, close to one story every two minutes.

Geographic distribution

  • 400 sites were located in England, 15 in Wales, 13 in Scotland and 3 in Northern Ireland
  • Collectively, London Borough’s 48 websites that produced a story during the sample period produced 483 items
  • Birmingham’s 15 sites that published during the sample period produced 92 items

 

SITES OF POPULAR MUSIC HERITAGE – SYMPOSIUM
 CFP

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Venue: Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool

Date: 8–9 September 2011
We invite proposals from a broad range of academic disciplines for a 2 day symposium examining sites of popular music heritage: from institutions such as museums, to geographic locations, websites and online archives. Papers are welcomed that explore popular music within narratives of heritage and identity, real and imagined geographies, cultural memory and contested histories.

 

The event will focus on three thematic areas:

Popular Music Heritage in the Museum

In recent years museums have increasingly engaged with popular music heritage, as evidenced in a proliferation of exhibitions including those in the UK such as Kylie: The Exhibition at the V&A and the British Music Experience at the O2. Museum interaction with popular music heritage enables methods of narration beyond traditional written histories, engaging visitors with objects, sounds and images. The place of popular music in the museum raises issues of how music is both represented and used to represent and explore social histories, personal and collective identities, memories, and geographies. Possible themes for papers include:

  • Popular music and locality in the museum
  • Disseminating popular music heritage in museums beyond text
  • History and memory in popular music exhibitions and collections

 

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Acquiring Rights and Righting Wrongs: The Copyright Clearance of Northern Soul

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Ady Croasdell
Rare Records and Raucous Nights: Investigating Northern Soul symposium, University of Salford, 4 November, 2010

Ady Croasdell went to this first “Old Soul” all nighter in 1969 and now bosses the longest running Northern Soul club/all nighter of all time (31 years and counting) at the 100 Club in London’s Oxford Street. He has worked for Ace Records since 1982 compiling Northern Soul LPs and CDs for their Kent subsidiary. He oversees the production of these from concept to product and actively seeks and negotiates deals with the US owners.

Nostalgia, Symbolic Knowledge and Generational Conflict: Contentious Issues in Contemporary Northern and Rare Soul Scenes

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The first of a series of papers from the recent Northern Soul symposium at The University of Salford.

Dr Lucy Gibson at the Rare Records and Raucous Nights: Investigating Northern Soul symposium
4 November, University of Salford

Lucy Gibson is a temporary lecturer in Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her doctoral research explored popular music and the life course, which included ethnographies of Northern Soul and rare soul, rock music, and electronic dance music scenes and interviews with over 70 adult fans. She is particularly interested in how ageing shapes participation in music scenes and music taste and is currently working on publications in this area.

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Call for Papers – Birmingham Cityscapes

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An Inter-disciplinary Urban Research Conference
Saturday 18 June 2011
Seacole Building, City South Campus

Keynote Speakers:
Dr Mike Beazley, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies, University of Birmingham
Paul Slatter, Director of Chamberlain Forum Limited, Birmingham

Engaging with current issues facing urban research in Birmingham, the Birmingham Cityscapes conference will provide a forum for academics, scholars, practitioners, community leaders and local residents to discuss urban research in the city. The conference will facilitate the development of new research networks and provide an opportunity for theoretical and applied knowledge transfer across the public, private, voluntary, and academic sectors.

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Music, Heritage and Cities at Un-Convention

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Members of the Interactive Cultures research group attended/took part in a panel at the recent Un-Convention event in Salford writes Paul Long.

Jez Collins, the originator of the Birmingham Popular Music Archive chaired a panel consisting of: Dr Marion Leonard, who was the curator of Liverpool’s The Beat Goes On, and who oversees on ongoing project to examine how museums collect and preserve (or not) popular music; Alison Surtees of the Manchester District Music Archive; Eve Wood, the director of the documentary (2001) and Mike Darby of Bristol Archive Records.

Speakers offered insights into each of their projects, revealing the variety of practices in this field, the public appetite for music heritage and the innovations and connections that curation has been making. Surtees for instance outlined how the online MDMA had generated input from around 2000 individuals, half of which regularly posted material on the site. Some of these were members of the bands featured and indeed, these explorations of music past also connected with the present scene in ways that avoided the potential necrophilia of such work.

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Call for Papers – Home of Metal

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CALL FOR PAPERS

Home of Metal: Heavy Metal and Place
Capsule and the University of Wolverhampton

Location: University of Wolverhampton

Date: 1st – 4th September 2011

Key note speakers:
Prof. Scott Wilson, Kingston University (TBC)
Prof. Deena Weinstein, DePaul University (TBC)

The Heavy Metal movement is littered with accounts of its birth, not
only concerning the origins of the sound, but also the geographical and
political locations from which the music evolved. The now global
phenomenon of Heavy Metal culture has seen much change in the sounds,
styles and fashions over its 40 years of history, but is simultaneously
acutely aware of its origins in Birmingham and The Black Country (UK).

This conference on Metal and place aims to explore and evaluate the
important role that location, heritage and place have in the origins of
Heavy Metal and music in general. It will serve to engage in debate
concerning values, histories and myths in the foundation of this
movement and looking at the wider role of archiving music histories and
current practice surrounding this.

Home of Metal aims to celebrate the musical heritage of Birmingham and
The Black Country. This conference forms part of the “Home of Metal”
exhibitions and festival taking place across Birmingham and The Black
Country in the UK throughout 2011.

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