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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.
We have worked as media and cultural historians, archive experts and media producers, and collaborated with a variety of public institutions and communities of interest, to draw attention to neglected histories, to respond to the opportunities afforded by new digital technologies, to disseminate archived material, and to interpret it for wide audiences. Through our work we have contributed to an improvement in the understanding and practice of media history, in particular the exploration and archiving of, and engagement with, the popular cultural artefacts which index its lived experience. Most noteworthy has been our contributions to the development of online and offline communities of interest by integrating processes of knowledge exchange into our research, in order to promote co-curation, and discussion about cultural value, memory and collecting. Our impact is measured in the development of popular practices of preservation, in the circulation of media products we have created from archive material, and in our engagements in public projects and with cultural institutions, audiences and policy makers. This work has regional, national and international reach.
Key questions face Western military establishments and governments concerning the likely form of future defence needs and, consequently, the size and shape of their armed forces. Following dashed hopes of a long-term `peace dividend' after the collapse of the USSR, came recognition that defence remained a fundamental concern, but that military needs might be manifested in different ways. The debate about a `war on terrorism' post-9/11 further intensified questions about the nature of future conflict. Through his research on strategy, and his guiding role in the Oxford "Changing Character of War" programme, Sir Hew Strachan, Chichele Professor of the History of War (since 2002), has made a major contribution to these debates and has helped to shape military policy making in the UK and the USA.
Neil Wynn's research on America and African Americans during World War II has made a particular contribution to the public understanding of the impact of the war on race relations, both at home and abroad. Wynn's work has reached general members of the public, minority group members, librarians, school teachers and pupils, documentary film and radio producers, and those with a personal interest in the subject area through publications, public speaking and broadcasting. Bringing together American history with British national and local history, and placing US race relations within the transatlantic frame, he has enhanced the understanding and awareness of the role of African Americans and West Indians in World War II, expanded the range and quality of evidence available for public debate, widened appreciation and enhanced public understanding of black American and black British history and culture.
This case study presents the impact of two book chapters, one book and an extended journal article written by Professor Matthew Stibbe on related aspects of gender relations, mobilisation for war, and wartime captivity in twentieth-century Germany. The Weimar and Nazi periods continue to be extremely popular subjects at all levels of the education system. Through sixth-form master classes, A/AS-level and GCSE day conferences, and a magazine article aimed at sixth-formers and their teachers, Stibbe has used his research findings and profile to influence the way that modern German history is understood by school students, taught by school teachers, and presented to school audiences by professional actors, examiners and textbook writers.
Nirmal Puwar's project, Noise of the Past, has sought to transform the public imagination of war by bringing post-colonial stories into the UK's national memory of World War II. At the same time it has worked to re-imagine the research process and its relation to publics. It has shown how the `noise' of the past, derived from narratives and situations that are usually excluded, can move cultural memory beyond a nationalistic, militaristic consensus. The research produced an award winning film, `Unravelling,' and a live musical performance, `Post-colonial War Requiem'. They were launched in 2008 at a large public event in Coventry Cathedral, opened by Martin Bell (OBE, UNICEF ambassador). On 14 November 2010, Noise of the Past was invited back to Coventry Cathedral to mark the 70th anniversary of the Blitz. The highly affective moving film (20 min) has won international awards and been screened at festivals, museums and public events and is submitted for viewing along with this ICS. Significantly the call-and-response methodology initiated by the project engaged artists and creative practitioners in music, poetry and film as active collaborators in the research process and also engaged publics not simply as audiences but as dialogic participants.
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 influential playwright and screenwriter, Colin Teevan's work and its impact have continued to develop since he joined the Department of English in October 2008. His writing for verbatim/documentary theatre and broadcast scripts has had impacts in the cultural sphere, nationally and internationally, in schools and in military circles. This case study focuses on his work relating to conflict in the Middle East. Drawing on sustained research into international political conflicts, his plays have been broadcast on radio and TV, and performed in stage productions across Britain and the US. One of his plays, The Lion of Kabul, was performed to high-level military officers in both England and America.
James' ethnographic research on the fortunes of war-displaced communities from the Blue Nile region of northern Sudan generated unique insights that have been crucial in providing a long-term contribution to the work of the United Nations, and to humanitarian agencies assisting Blue Nile refugees: firstly, in 2008-11, during their resettlement from Ethiopian camps; and secondly, from late 2011 to mid-2013, during their renewed flight, mostly over the new border to South Sudan. The research has contributed to: (a) improving public understanding of the Blue Nile crisis internationally and within Sudan, while also providing detailed background on recent refugee history to field-based agencies; and (b) promoting cultural continuity among the refugees themselves, particularly Uduk speakers who have resettled in the USA. The multimedia project `Voices from the Blue Nile' has opened up rich research-based materials, including video, audio, photographic and cartographic material, to Blue Nile refugee communities and to educational and cultural projects worldwide.
The impact is based on research challenging conventional approaches to state-media relations in multicultural societies, with particular reference to Russia. The body of research has (a) informed the work of policy makers and NGOs by providing them with a more nuanced view of media-state relations in Russia, and of their implications for international affairs, including the rise of new cold war tensions; (b) made these groups aware of the importance of inter-ethnic and interfaith tensions to Russian media practices, and of parallels with media practices elsewhere; (c) contributed to the enhancement of public comprehension of the complexities of the Russian media environment.