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arch Materialities Theme Pamphlets Now Online

After much delay, a collection of research cluster-specific takes on the 2019-20 Materialities research theme are now available digitally here.

These pamphlets bring together a wealth of perspectives on materialities, and showcase the breadth and depth of thinking that exists across multiple BCMCR research clusters. Credit goes to Maggie Urbaniec for her work on the final designs.

A limited run of physical copies will follow in late 2021.

An edited collection of essays emerging from the theme, co-edited by Iain Taylor and Oliver Carter and entitled Media Materialities: Form, Format and Ephemeral Meaning will be published by Intellect Books in 2022.

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arch Rate and Review – A Replicable Method For Podcast Research

Along with my BCMCR colleague, Dr Simon Barber, I’m currently writing a journal article around the use of podcasts in contemporary music reception practice.

The research behind the article has involved the collection and analysis of data related to podcasts in the Apple Podcasts charts for music. During the course of undertaking this work, I have developed a replicable workflow for gathering, analysing and visualing that data.

For the purposes of the article we are writing, we gathered data on ~9,000 podcast episodes and ~16,000 reviews, and then ran the data through a number of unsupervised machine learning algorithms, including Topic Modelling and Sentiment Analysis. The results are displayed in this interactive document which has enabled us to explore the contents of the reviews and the overall results of computational analyses.

The article is currently in peer review and we hope to have positive news on that soon. In the article, we make the case that the replicable workflow developed as part of this research has potential uses for other researchers interested in podcasts. Towards that, I have created a series of tutorials that provide walkthroughs and all code required to replicate to workflow we used. These are available over on my personal website:

  • Part 1 – Describes the collection of data.
  • Part 2 – Walks through the process of analysing the data using Topic Modelling and Sentiment Analysis.
  • Part 3 – Visualises the results of those analyses.
  • Part 4 – Describes how to create an interactive document enabling exploration of results.

If you are interested in researching podcasts, please feel free to use, share and adapt any of the code or processes contained within the tutorial series.

Dr Craig Hamilton

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arch Riffs – Volume 5, Issue 1 – Popular Music Fiction.

We are pleased to announce the launch of Volume 5, Issue 1 of Riffs- Experimental Writing on Popular Music. 

This issue is guest edited by Ash Watson, from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, UNSW Sydney, and it focusses on Popular Music Fiction. The issue contains 7 pieces that use fiction to explore ideas related to record collecting, AI in music, and more.

This particular issue comes with a choice of front covers – Dystopian and Utopian – which reflects the broad themes explored by our fantastic team of contributors. Both versions of the cover art are displayed below, along with a download link to a free copy.

Riffs Vol5 Iss1 Utopian

Riffs Vol5 Iss1 Dystopian

For more information on Riffs, visit the journal website.

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arch Inaugural Issue of Makings Journal Released

We are excited to announce the inaugural issue of the Makings Journal, Volume 2, Issue 1.  

The journal is the rebranded Creative Industries Cluster Journal (CICJ), which has previously published two issues focusing on cultural ecologies of the creative industries and practices on the margins of the cultural spaces. Although the remit of Makings has remained the same, that is, creative and cultural industries and cultures of production, we hope to broaden our base, reaching out to researchers at all levels and around the world. 

The journal is currently edited by Vincent Obia and Kateryna Sivak; two of the Centre’s postgraduate researchers.  Contributions to the new issue revolve around ‘Alternativity’, in line with the central theme for BCMCR in 2020/21. The seven articles from researchers across the UK present diverse ways how alternativity as a concept can manifest itself in varying contexts and highlight the significance of the various alternative practices for the creative and cultural industries. 

 The issue also includes a new addition to the journal, a section which we call Studio, dedicated to the publication of shorter think-pieces, observations, and experimental works in different multimedia formats. As a kick-off, in June 2021, we published the first Studio material – a video podcast that critiques the conditions of toxic/alternative masculinity in Pakistan. You can view the podcast here.

All the articles and the editorial can be found here. 

Makings would like to thank all authors for their contributions and reviewers for their time and helpful feedback. 

Ideas for the next issue are already underway. In the meantime, please enjoy Makings Volume 2 Issue 1.

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arch Check Global – Invitation to quote for evaluation consultancy and partner management work

Check Global is a program run by Meedan in partnership with Birmingham City University, with funding from Swedish International Development Agency (Sida). We are advertising for someone to undertake evaluation and partner management work on a consultancy basis, starting as soon as possible but no later than August 1st 2021, through to Dec 31st 2021.

The Check Global project aims to improve digital literacy, community-building and political engagement skills for citizen journalists, activists, journalism students, civil society organisations and human rights defenders, thus strengthening their role as investigators and contributors to the public sphere. We provide training, develop software, run programming, and conduct research with a global network of independent media and human rights organizations, fact-checking initiatives and journalism schools in Latin America, East Africa, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and the North Africa/West Asia (NAWA) region. As we come to the end of our three-year Check Global project, this role will undertake project evaluation and report writing, alongside some management of relations with our NAWA partners.

Please see the full description and application instructions in this PDF.

If you would like to be considered for this contract please submit a written response including a cover letter and CV to dima@meedan.com and jerome.turner@bcu.ac.uk by July 21, 2021

 

 

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arch Recording of the launch of ‘Punk Now!! Contemporary Perspectives on Punk’ now available

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arch Recording of the ‘Craft Entrepreneurship’ book launch now available

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arch Recording of ‘Re-launch of “Makings: A Journal Researching the Creative Industries” now available

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arch Recording of Eugen Pfister’s ‘Why History in Digital Games Matters / Historical Authenticity as a Language for Ideological Myths’ now available