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Dr Paul Grainge (Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies, Nottingham, 2001-present) and Dr Catherine Johnson (Associate Professor of Film and Television Studies, Nottingham, 2010-present) have been pioneering the study of the promotional screen industries, raising the status of a vibrant sub-sector of the global creative industries. Through engagement with key media practitioners, they have:
Ben O'Loughlin led and participated in a series of grant-funded collaborative projects that explored the nexus between media and security, provided a foundation for innovations in political communication theory and practice, and impacted upon government, business and media organisations. The iteration of projects and outputs integrated qualitative and quantitative, behavioural and interpretive methodologies, which in turn revealed emergent relationships between policy, media and publics in global, multilingual media ecologies. O'Loughlin's collaborations with Linguamatics Ltd, the BBC World Service and the House of Lords have led the application of these new methodologies and created policy debate on the ethics of their use.
An exhibition stimulated reflection on and provided new knowledge and perspectives on migration — historical and contemporary — for audiences in Nottingham and Glasgow. Linked teacher resources enhanced the capacity of local teachers to deliver challenging content on cross-curricula themes such as displacement, migration and asylum.
Physical material and cultural capital (individual and group memory as embodied in audio-visual oral histories) which would otherwise have disappeared have been preserved and transformed into educational material for a local Ukrainian community organisation, adding to its resource base and capacity. A national Polish diasporic community organisation has benefitted from access to research and advice to enhance its capacity to engage new audiences with its work and histories.
Impact derived from Prof Maggie Andrews' research was through collaboration, since 2008, with the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) in Staffordshire and, latterly, with archival and heritage organisations in Worcestershire and Staffordshire, to increase public involvement in practices of remembrance, memorialisation and commemoration and to enhance experience of them — both for those directly affected and for the general public. Andrews' collaboration with the NMA influenced development of the UK's first, national centre for remembrance during critical years of its evolution. Through assisting the NMA to envision and understand its role in the context of contemporary culture, her input informed the NMA's approach to supporting visitors' experience and framed and informed its developing approaches to visitor interpretation. Her collaboration with organisations in Staffordshire and Worcestershire supported development of approaches to forthcoming, national centenary commemoration of World War 1.
Professor Kelly`s studies of national identity in Russia seek to challenge stereotypes about enduring traditions of political oppression and social decay as the culture`s main characteristics. Focusing on everyday life rather than high politics, they work towards an understanding of change within Russian culture, and of the part played by factors such as generation and locality in producing often very diverse forms of self-expression and self-understanding. A central topic is the role of social memory, whether as a force of solidarity or as an engine of argument. Kelly`s work draws directly on collaborations with Russian scholars and informants and has been widely noted in media and online discussions within the country, as well as informing media discussion of Russia and social policy work in the UK and elsewhere in the West.
Memory of Fire, the 2008 Brighton Photo Biennial, shown across nine venues, had public impact, as measured by audience figures, audience comment on the website and in gallery comment books, attendance at public events and in education programmes, and the analyses of the event in an independent audit and Audience & Visitor Evaluation Report. Its longer term impact derives from the stimulation of discourse about the role of imagery in the conduct of war, over a period in which the UK has continually been at war, and in which the media's treatment of war has been of pressing public concern.
Our research on the way Arab media laws and policies translate into multiple layers of censorship and self-censorship in Arab journalism and media production has informed and influenced international policy debate about Arab media development. It has provided evidence and argument for awareness-raising reports issued by UN agencies and a Euro-Mediterranean intergovernmental body, for the international outreach activities of two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and for planning and evaluation at the government-funded Danish body, International Media Support.
Since 2007, Open University (OU) researchers have been examining the BBC World Service (BBCWS) from the perspectives of its diaspora broadcasters in London and its diaspora audiences worldwide. Multilingual migrants have always enabled the BBCWS to broadcast in many languages, creating a cultural bridge to global audiences. Increasingly, BBCWS audiences themselves are diasporic: living outside territorial `homelands'. The research made the BBC aware of its diasporas for the first time. By demonstrating their significance, it led to changes in BBCWS strategy, editorial practices, human resources management and institutional memory. The historic collaboration between the BBC and the OU has acquired new dimensions.
There is enormous public interest in the Russian Revolution and Soviet Communism. Robert Service's biographies of the three early Soviet leaders - Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky - together with his general histories of twentieth-century Russia have reached an international mass public and, in particular, have had a deep influence on the teaching of the subject in secondary schools and universities through the central place they occupy on A-level and degree-level history syllabi. In addition, Service is regularly invited to lecture to parliamentary select committees, the FCO, the Defence Academy and national business organisations.
University of East London (UEL) research on media policies has contributed to policy submissions made to the UK government, Leveson Inquiry, politicians and regulators, and to supranational organisations such as the European Commission. The research has particularly informed the development of policies adopted by civil society organisations and has influenced regulatory outcomes, policies and policy debates, especially where these relate to product placement, cross- media promotion, and media ownership and pluralism. Proposals on media plurality have informed UK policy debate, particularly via their reference in oral evidence provided by Dr. Jonathan Hardy to the 2013 House of Lords Select Committee on Communications. These policies on media ownership have also influenced Labour Party policy debate and formulation, and have been adopted by the TUC and other organisations.