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Mowlabocus' research (2006-present) on gay men's social-media-use practices and new sexual-risk behaviours has led to new understandings of the role of media in health interventions. It has also led to changes in the health promotion and intervention practices of sexual health charities including the Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), as well as in statutory services, including those offered within Brighton and Hove City Primary Care Trust, which covers an area with the highest UK percentage LGBT population and a very high incidence of HIV diagnosis and infection. These changes include, in the case of THT, the development and use of a new information website and intervention toolkit — designed to decrease the spread of HIV amongst those engaged in unsafe behaviours — which is being used in training for its staff across its 31 regional offices in the UK.
Professor Gill's research on the sexualisation of culture has had a significant impact on education, public discourse and policy-making concerned with young people, media and sexualisation. These ideas have been disseminated via the media through programs such as Thinking Allowed and Woman's Hour; have impacted on understandings of Internet safety and sexualisation among governmental and non-governmental bodies (e.g. the police, the NSPCC); and have directly informed policy debate via Professor Gill's expert witness statements to Parliamentary enquiries in 2008, 2010 and 2011.
Dr Alberto Mira's (Reader, Oxford Brookes University 1999-Present) research bridges the gap between academic studies and ideas within the gay movement and non-homophobic media needing concepts and evidence to construct discourse. Dr Mira's work on cultural history of homosexuality and gay authorship and spectatorship have had an impact on public perceptions. Dr Mira's work has also been used in non-academic writers' conferences, librarians' associations and a number of gay groups. Key areas explored by Dr Mira's work includes: gay vs queer paradigms, appropriation as a mechanism of gay spectatorship, gender as a cultural position, how gendered voices are constructed and articulated textually, ideology and construction of gender images, spectator's investment in gay characters, reading and interpreting gender in film, gay subtext, camp. Dr Mira's work has engaged with academic debates and illustrated them in divulgative talks and articles.
The research has had a demonstrable impact in Italy, in the UK, and elsewhere, in the areas of Civil Society, Public discourse, and Cultural Life. Specifically, it has a) supported LGBTQ community initiatives; b) helped LGBTQ individuals to meet societal challenges and thereby improved their well-being; c) increased public awareness and understanding of human rights infringements experienced by LGBTQ individuals in Italy; d) generated publications and debates on the incorporation of the term `queer' in Italian discourses; e) directly influenced the writing practice of a contemporary Italian novelist and indirectly her readership. Beneficiaries: individuals and groups studied in the ethnographic research; LGBTQ populations in Italy and elsewhere, and sections of the public concerned with the politics of sexuality and gender.
Research by geographers at The Open University (OU) in the three research clusters, Space and Power, Culture and Practice and Environment and Politics, has led to changes in how global issues, including environmental change, are portrayed in the media, particularly by the BBC. Building on the notion of `interdependence', the research generated fresh thinking at a strategic level, leading to changes in the tone of broadcasts and the commissioning of new programmes, as well as introducing discussion of `interdependence' into wider public debate. These impacts have been rooted in geographical thinking about spatial relationships in producing places and publics, and media representations of these interrelations.
Gregory Woods has located gay literature throughout the mainstream canon, broadened the canon of gay literature, and demonstrated in creative practice the potential depth and complexity of gay literature. His work has exerted a significant impact on gay creative/critical practitioners, on teachers, arts administrators, booksellers, etc., as well as on the general reader, gay or not. Evidence shows that he has both interpreted and created cultural capital that enriches and expands the lives, imaginations and sensibilities of individuals and groups, particularly those disadvantaged or marginalised because of their sexuality. He has also significantly informed and influenced the content of education beyond his host university.
Professor of Film John Smith has completed over 30 films, videos and installations since joining UEL in 1984. The non-academic impact of this body of work arises from Smith's innovative narrative and filmic aesthetic, which combines carefully-crafted nonchalance with concerned political consciousness. Smith's videos use ordinary environments to raise awareness of and engagement with geo-political conflict, an approach exemplified by the consideration in his 2008 work Hotel Diaries of conflicts in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Iraq. His work's deceptive informality and casual, playful manner achieves broad public engagement, thereby enhancing UK film's innovative reputation and contributing to national artistic heritage. This achievement has been acknowledged by Smith's receipt of many international awards, notably the 2011 Paul Hamlyn Distinguished Artist Award and 2013 Film London Jarman Award.