Joining Up Images of Life in the Army

Follow the link below to read The Journal article regarding Dr Trish Winter’s current research on perceptions of Army life:
Article Link
Also, please see link below to take you directly to the project page:
http://photoarmy.ncl.ac.uk/

Prof. John Storey Interviewed in ‘Delo’

Research Seminar – Dr Andy Ruddock (Oct 2nd)

Title: New Audience Research and Public Health: Thinking about Binge Drinking
Dr Andy Ruddock (Liverpool John Moores University)
Abstract
This paper argues that alcohol awareness interventions should be
informed by knowledge of how audiences frame and narrate risk. Recent work on public information campaigning stresses that people only act on issues when they feel their relevance. Combined with critiques of significant gaps in health communication research, this creates a space that can be occupied by qualitative audience studies drawing on critical media theory. It is important to understand what alcohol “means” to drinkers. Drinking can be framed in both personal and collective terms; we can look at the damage drinkers do to themselves (rendering themselves vulnerable to disease or assault) or to others (anti-social behaviour, the long term burden on the health system). Scholars have suggested these frames are likely to be media influenced. Many have pointed to the highly ambiguous messages that circulate around alcohol.
Using survey and focus group data gathered as part of an drink-awareness campaign in Liverpool, I will argue that this ambiguity is reflected in a general audience framing of alcohol within the themes of violence and celebrity. While young drinkers in this study acknowledged the dangers of excess, prioritising the threat of violence also allowed them to either absent themselves from national concerns over binge drinking, or understand their role in the problem as a natural, transitional phase.
The highly publicized death of ex-footballer George Best from alcohol-related causes should, at face value, have pierced the belief that drinking is something that young men naturally grow out of. That it did not exemplifies some of the problems in using popular culture as a vehicle for messages about wellbeing. The conclusion from this, however is that more research is needed on how ideas about healthy drinking are developed through audience centred narratives that draw on media resources.
Andy Ruddock is author of ‘Understanding Audiences’ (Published by Sage) Click on book cover to access Amazon.

Call For Papers – MeCCSA Deadline Extended

Due to the number of late entries for the above, we have decided to extend the deadline for papers/panel proposals/workshops until 30 September, so everyone has the same opportunity to submit beyond the original deadline. Please note, however, that submissions received after 30 September will NOT be considered. I set out below the original CFP.
The call is now open for submissions to the forthcoming annual conference of MeCCSA/AMPE which will take place in Coventry, 10-12 January. We welcome submissions which focus on research and/or practice relating to any aspect of our broad field including media, communication, culture, film, television and radio studies, digital technologies, sound and new media, including proposals for workshops, roundtables, themed screenings and panels as well as individual papers.
Whilst the MeCCSA/AMPE conference is typically open to any and all topics, some of the themes we would like to explore in the 2007 meeting include: cross-cultural research (within Europe and globally); the role of research in political/social action; envisioning the field in 2010; media convergence; and the citizen-producer. We welcome practice-oriented papers including those which focus on: the experience/s of developing a vocational discipline within an academic
framework; lens-based media; working with sound; practice as research, and reflections on teaching methodologies in practice. As Coventry is also hosting an international film festival immediately after the conference, we especially welcome submissions which are film/production oriented, including screenings, as we hope to encourage a cross-over audience for both the conference and the festival.
Deadline for submissions is 30 September. Please send submissions by email only to:
Jane Wynn – j.wynn@coventry.ac.uk.
For any further information, please contact Karen Ross – k.ross@coventry.ac.uk

Call For Papers – What Is Media History?

Call for Papers: Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture
What is Media History? (Volume 4, Issue 3) Autumn, 2007
Over the past three decades the study of media history has emerged from the academic shadows into an interdisciplinary limelight. No longer the sole preserve of subaltern scholars in the fields of history, literary or media studies, the subject has grown in importance and in scope encompassing a wide range of genres across a variety of media forms. As the discipline of media studies increasingly discovers its historical hinterland, so too historians have come to view the media as much more than simply useful primary sources, but rather as fundamental actors in the historical process and thus worthy of study in their own right.
The rise of new media technologies has led to claims of an unprecedented democratisation of the study and recording of the past, while the relationship between the mass media and historical representations, whether fictionalised or factual, is one that often engenders controversial debate in both the film and broadcasting industries. Moreover, in an era of media globalisation there are questions to be asked about how academics approach the study of the historical development of communications that moves beyond national boundaries to engage with global and comparative accounts.
As a consequence Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture invites submissions from a wide range of backgrounds that operate in or seek to problematise the study of media history and the numerous ways in which it is approached. In addition to theoretical reflections we especially encourage original empirical research that highlights epistemological/methodological issues whilst engaging with actual historical experience.
Possible topics include but are not limited to:
Global Media Histories;
Comparative Media Histories;
History, Media and Memory;
Time, Place and the Media;
Newspaper History;
Broadcasting History;
­Film History;
History and New Media.
Applicants may submit abstracts of no more than 250 words to Daniel Day
at dayd@wmin.ac.uk. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is Friday 22nd December 2006. For accepted articles the deadline for submission is Monday 30th April 2007. Further
details of WPCC are available at http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/page-880