MCS News

Major international conference on communication and environment held at the University of Leicester

The School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester was delighted to host the 2017 Conference on Communication and Environment in June and July, with the theme Democracy, Borders and Public/Political Engagement: Challenges for Environmental Communication. It was the fourteenth biennial conference run by the International Environmental Communication Association, whose mission is 'to foster effective and inspiring communication that alleviates environmental issues and conflicts, and solves the problems that cause them'.

The conference was hugely successful, welcoming 240 delegates to the University of Leicester, and featuring a rich and diverse programme of presentations, panels, workshops, posters and artwork, including a wide range of contributions by MCS researchers. The stellar line-up of keynote speakers included Professor Graham Murdock of Loughborough University, Natalie Bennett of the Green Party of England and Wales, Roger Harrabin of the BBC, Dr Amanda Niode, the Indonesian President's Special Envoy on Climate Change, Sönke Lorenzen of Greenpeace International (and the IECA), and Dr Adam Corner of Climate Outreach.

Conference Chair Anders Hansen, Associate Professor in the School of MCS, said: 'The conference brought together leading environmental communication scholars and practitioners from around the world for four days of vibrant discussions about how to address the key challenges facing the environment and environmental communication in these times of rapidly shifting political landscapes'.

The University of Leicester was exceptionally well-placed to host this conference, given its long-time and long-term commitment to environmental awareness, research and education. It has recently updated its Environmental Sustainability Strategy (2015-2020), embedding it into the heart of what we teach and research. The city of Leicester itself was designated Britain's first Environment City in 2000, in recognition of its work to promote green spaces, sustainability and recycling. The local academic organising committee – which included Anders Hansen, Bernhard Forchtner, Giovanna Puppin, Vincent Campbell, and Julian Matthews - endeavoured to make the conference as green as possible.

The wide range of international delegates to Leicester participated in vibrant and critical discussions about how we - as researchers and practitioners - can help address the challenges facing the environment and environmental communication, not least in light of the significant national and global political shifts of recent times. The rich and generative conversations that took place at COCE 2017 will help to inform, catalyse and inspire future research and practice in this critical field, the importance of which is ever-increasing.

Galina Miazhevich, Lecturer in Media and Communication, has been awarded AHRC Fellowship funding. The 24-month project, starting in January 2018, has an anticipated full economic cost of £248, 244. It is entitled: '"A Quiet Revolution?" Discursive Representations of Non-Heteronormative Sexuality'.

In April, Lecturer in Media and Communication Alison Harvey was awarded a Research and Development Grant (€9,950) from the European Cultural Foundation, for the project: 'The Games Box: Migrant Storytelling Through Game Design'. Dr. Harvey will be developing a toolkit for game design for creative expression to be used by migrant community groups across Europe. This toolkit will be rolled out via qualitative research and user testing with participating community organizations in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden to better understand the potential of amateur, DIY game-making for storytelling and social cohesion.

Lecturer in Media and Communication Maria Touri has been awarded a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant for her project on 'Communication and Human Development in Alternative Food Networks: Digitally connecting global food producers and consumers'. The project engages with the politics of global Alternative Food Networks (AFNs) and the need for innovative ways to connect farmers in the Global South with consumers in the North, which is AFNs' original development and social justice tenet. Using a participatory research approach, the project works with a team of 20 Indian farmers who are using storytelling methods to create their own video stories. These stories are shared with consumers in UK and Germany through an online platform. The project uses development communication theories to offer a fresh conceptualization of global food networks, and explore the possibilities communication can create for sustainable human development.

Maria Touri has also been awarded a grant from the University's Enterprise Travel Fund to support building relations with German SMEs that are keen to boost their social entrepreneurship and increase the consciousness of customers for sustainably grown food products. It will specifically be used to explore new avenues for income generation through consultancy.

Lecturer in Media and Communication Qian (Sarah) Gong was awarded £3,822 from the CSSAH Research Development Fund for her project 'Communicating smoking-related health risks – a scoping study of professional and lay understandings in China'. This study investigates Chinese smokers' understandings of smoking and smoking-related health risks (both general and genetically specific), as well as the socially situated character of their understandings. It also investigates how the risks are communicated in clinical practices with a focus upon the interaction between professional and user understandings.

MCS: first international agreement

The School's first international agreement was recently signed with Sisu (Shanghai International Studies University). The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences allowed Giovanna Puppin, Lecturer and Programme Director of the MA Media and Advertising, to travel to China and meet the Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication, prof. Guo Ke, as well as other colleagues who visited Leicester. She discussed future collaborations and exchange opportunities for both students and staff, and delivered a guest lecture for their MA students entitled "China's 'Emotional Bond' to Africa: Exploring China-Africa Mediated Relations in CCTV- 9’s Documentary African Chronicles (Feizhou jishi)" (8 June).

MCS international visiting scholars

Alison Harvey and Kaitlynn Mendes were both recently invited to teach at the Harvard-Yenching New Media and Gender workshop at Fudan University in Shanghai, China, in June 2017.

International book launch

A triple book launch featuring Mark Banks entitled 'Culture, Work, Resistance' was held at the McLuhan Centre for Culture and Technology, University of Toronto, on the evening of May 30th, in conjunction with the Canadian Communication Association annual conference being held at Ryerson University. Over 50 people crammed into the small Coach House on the UoT campus, in the office where Marshall McLuhan wrote many of his famous works. Our own Mark Banks's new book Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality was introduced and discussed by McLuhan Centre Director, Sarah Sharma.

Visiting fellowship

Galina Miazhevich won a prestigious Visiting Fellowship of the Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki, where she spent two months in Spring 2017. During her visit, Galina got involved in the Media Lab project - an interview with her can be seen here. She also established a number of very promising collaborations, and finalised an article on Russia Today's (RT) strategies in the post-broadcast era.

New website for prestigious ESRC project

The ESRC research project 'The Frames of Altruistic Action' (2017-2019), which is co-led by Pierre Montforte, now has a website. The project seeks to analyse what motivates volunteers to engage with charities that support asylum seekers and refugees, as well as how they define their engagement and reflect upon their experience.

Recognition

In March 2017 Ipek Demir won an award from the Centre for Kurdish Progress (based in London) for her work and publications on Kurdish diaspora. The award ceremony was held at the Houses of Parliament, and was attended by senior British politicians and MPs, including the leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott.

Jane Pilcher's 2016 article 'Names, Bodies and Identities', published in the journal Sociology, was shortlisted for the 2017 SAGE Prize for Innovation and Excellence.

In April, Sociology PGR student Cara Dobbing was successfully elected to the committee of the Social History Society as its postgraduate representative.

MCS media appearances

Jacqueline Sanchez Taylor appeared on the BBC World Service in May 2017, where she talked about cosmetic surgery: The History Hour: The Invention of Liposuction.

In April, Jane Pilcher appeared on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme to talk about forenames.

Newly-appointed Associate Professor in Journalism Tor Clark spent part of his first week in the School working as election night political pundit for BBC Leicester. Tor, a political journalist for 30 years, has covered every UK General Election since 1992. He provided live commentary on the unfolding events from 10pm until 6am.

Athina Karatzogianni participated in a panel discussion on TRT World's flagship current affairs television programme Roundtable . The discussion explored how technology is exposing democracy's vulnerabilities, particularly in hacking attempts to influence elections. Other panellists included Nigel Inkster, formerly of the British Secret Intelligence Service; Rick Falkvinge, founder of the Swedish Pirate Party; and Mustafa Al-Bassam, former black hat hacker who was one of the six core members of LulzSec, Anonymous. The video can be viewed here.

Athina also published articles in the Leicester Mercury (republished by the university) and Prospect magazine (with Richard J. Aldrich).

Engagement

John Williams is currently working as a consultant with Sporting Equals on two new projects: with England Hockey he is looking at the development of hockey for young British South Asians in East London. This involves interviews with local stakeholders and parents and surveys and focus groups of young people in local schools in the area which have been targeted by England Hockey. A short film can be viewed here. John has also started some work on equality and diversity in rowing clubs in England. This is supported by British Rowing and involves focus group work with members and administrators at a range of rowing clubs around the country.

On the 5th of June 2017, PhD students from the School hosted a one-day workshop at the Attenborough Arts Centre entitled Reconnecting Struggles. The event, organised by Sara Thornton, Mirjam Twigt and Mette Stendevad, connected people across three different schools at the University of Leicester - the School of Media, Communication & Sociology, School of Geography, and School of History, Political Science and International Relations.

The day unfolded with six different interactive sessions divided into four segments. Participants were invited to speak and reflect upon crucial topics such as structural and inter-subjective racism(s) and their history in the US, colonial histories in Denmark, Native American females' struggles and resistance, local experiences of discrimination, connection/disconnection and the politics of listening.The workshop connected and re-connected people from at least 3 different continents: from Nebraska to Denmark, Leicester to Gaza (Palestine), and Germany to North Dakota. The organisers connected people involved with the daily and constant labour of resisting oppression and raising awareness of inequalities, atrocities and colonial durabilities in our unjust world. Furthermore, they connected people working across a range of disciplines such as artists, scholars, independent journalists, and activists in order to find a common ground with the intentions to craft a solid societal critique. 

The goal of the workshop was to create interactions between the speakers and the participants through alternative methods of presentation and representation. The workshop closed with a roundtable discussion amongst all the speakers, which gave the chance for the audience to engage further with them with respect to their subjective matter.The organisers would like to thank the speakers who came all the way from Nebraska, Berlin, and Copenhagen. Furthermore they would like to give special thanks to Dr Leah Bassel, Dr Alison Harvey, Professor Clare Anderson, Dr Lory Dance and Sukhraj Randhawa. Also thanks to the funders, namely University of Leicester's Geography Department; Professors John Goodwin and Jason Hughes via their Departmental Development Fund; Dr Lory Dance through her discretionary project, research, and travel accounts from Lund University (Sweden) and the University of Nebraska (Lincoln); School of Media, Communication and Sociology Research Support; and lastly the Graduate School Researcher Development Fund. 

The organisers are now working on a special volume while publicising podcasts and footage from the workshop. 

They are also working on a Reconnecting Struggles volume 2 to take place in 2018 - so watch this space!

Books

Leah Bassel (2017) The Politics of Listening: Possibilities and Challenges for Democratic Life. Palgrave Pivot. 

This book explores listening as a social and political practice, in contrast to the more common focus on voice and speaking. The author draws on cases from Canada, France and the United Kingdom, exploring: minority women and debates over culture and religion; riots and young men in France and England; citizen journalism and the creative use of different media; and solidarity between migrant justice and indigenous activists. Analysis across these diverse settings considers whether and how a politics of listening, which demands that the roles of speakers and listeners change, can be undertaken in adversarial and tense political moments. The Politics of Listening argues that such a practice has the potential to create new ways of being and acting together, as political equals who are heard on their own terms.

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Andy Furlong, John Goodwin, Sarah Hadfield, Stuart Hall, Kevin Lowden, Henrietta O'Connor, Réka Plugor (2017) Young People in the Labour Market: Past, Present, Future. Routledge.

Framed by the ideas of Norbert Elias, Young People in the Labour Market challenges the idea that changing economic landscapes have given birth to a 'Precariat' and argues that labour insecurity is more deep rooted and complex than others have suggested. The book focuses on young people and the ways in which their working lives have changed between the 1980s recession and the Great Recession of 2008/2009 and its immediate aftermath. Driven by the question "how did precarious work come to be the 'new normal' for young people?", the authors trace changing working conditions in the UK, Denmark and Germany from the mid-1970s. This ‘long view’ exposes the suffering inflicted on young people by successive government policies and sets a new research and policy framework within which young people’s lives can be built.

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Patrick White (2017) Developing Research Questions. (2nd edition). London: Palgrave.

Developing Research Questions steers readers through the complex process of starting a research project. The book explains how to break down initial ideas from broad topics into appropriate research questions, and gives detailed guidance on how to refine questions as the research project develops. Each chapter is packed with handy hints, tips and examples that show how to avoid common mistakes and pitfalls in the research process. Linking hypotheses and questions with research design and methods at every step, this text takes readers from the start through to the final stage of answering their questions and drawing conclusions.

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Jane Pilcher and Imelda Whelehan (2017) Key Concepts in Gender Studies (2nd edition), London: SAGE.

The new edition of Key Concepts in Gender Studies is a lively and engaging introduction to this dynamic field. Thoroughly revised throughout, the second edition benefits from the addition of nine new concepts including Gender Social Movements, Intersectionality and Mainstreaming. Each of the entries begins with a concise definition, outlines the history of each term and the debates surrounding it, includes illustrations of how the concept has been applied within the field, and offers examples which allow a critical re-evaluation of the concept.

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J. Mair, Tor Clark, N. Fowler, R. Snoddy & R. Tait (eds.) (2017) Brexit, Trump and the Media. Abramis. 

A new book co-edited by Tor Clark looks at the impact of Brexit and Donald Trump on the media, and includes analysis of the 2017 UK General Election. Brexit, Trump and the Media, is co-edited by Tor Clark, Associate Professor in Journalism, alongside TV producer John Mair, newspaper editor Neil Fowler, Richard Tait, Professor of Journalism at Cardiff University, and Raymond Snoddy, the doyen of UK media commentators, and published by Abramis. Discounted copies of the book at £15 are available to colleagues from the School by emailing Richard@Abramis.co.uk

JOURNAL SPECIAL ISSUE

Maria Rovisco and Anastasia Veneti (eds.) (2017) Special issue: Picturing Protest – Visuality, Visibility and the Public Sphere, Visual Communication, Vol. 13 (3).

This special issue is concerned with how and why certain visual images picturing protest events and social movements are rendered visible or invisible in the public sphere. 'Picturing Protest: Visuality, Visibility and the Public Sphere' responds to the growing interest in a new protest culture and new ways of ‘doing politics’, ranging from Arab revolts to the Occupy Movement, and anti-austerity protests in Europe. The issue includes the paper by co-editor Maria Rovisco 'The indignados social movement and the image of the occupied square: the making of a global icon'.

journal ARTICLES, CHAPTERS AND REPORTS

Jane Pilcher (2017) 'Names and "Doing Gender": How Forenames and Surnames Contribute to Gender Identities, Difference and Inequalities', Sex Roles: A Journal of Research.

Vincent Campbell (2017) 'PEBs in 2017: Not gone, but largely forgotten?' in Thorsen, E., Jackson, D and Lilleker, D. (eds.) UK Election Analysis 2017: Media, Voters and the Campaign, CSJCC/PSA

Qian Gong and G. Rawnsley (OnlineFirst) Media Freedom and Responsibility in South Korea: The perceptions of journalists and politicians during the Roh Moo-hyun Presidency. Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism.

Athina Karatzogianni, Galina Miazhevich and Anastasia Denisova (2017) 'A Comparative Cyberconflict Analysis of Digital Activism Across Post-Soviet Countries', Journal of Comparative Sociology, 16:1, pp. 1-25. Brill. 

Athina Karatzogianni (2017) 'Evil Intermediation Platforms', short article co-authored with Jacob Matthews, special issue Evil Infrastructures, edited by Christopher Kelty, Cultural Anthropology, April 2017.

Melanie Kennedy (2017) 'Miley Cyrus and the Murder' of Hannah Montana: Authenticity and Young Female Celebrity. In: O’Connor, J. and Mercer, J. (eds.) Childhood and Celebrity. London: Routledge.

Sex, Power, Love and Money: Media and Sexualisation of Everyday in the Post-Soviet spaces

This workshop, co-organised by Galina Miazhevich, dealt with the topical issue of mediation of sexuality and its utilisation for various ends in the Russian Federation and its neighbouring states. This is particularly important in the context of recent legislative (e.g. 2013’s ‘anti-gay law’ in Russia) and societal changes triggered by an ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis (e.g. a reinforced ideology of patriotism and the militarised narrative within the New Cold War rhetoric (Hartmann, 2014)). By looking at recent TV series, talk shows, films, online narratives the workshop addresses the increasing mediatisation of the sex/uality in the region. The keynote was given by Professor of Cultural Studies, Communication and Media Feona Attwood and the discussion was by Professor of Russian Studies Stephen Hutchings.

The event was sponsored by the British Association for Slavonic and Eastern European Studies (BASEES), within which the event's co-organiser Galina Miazhevich has co-established a (Digital) Media and Culture working group, whose primary focus is in the arts and humanities, cultural studies, film and media. The supplementary focus on digital culture is determined by the rise of multiplatform networked systems for producing and delivering media content.

Growing Up Married

In May 2017, Alison Harvey organised and chaired the event Growing Up Married: a screening and roundtable discussion of Eylem Atakav's documentary film of the same name about child brides in Turkey. The panel included Dr Eylem Atakav (University of East Anglia), Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece, Professor Karen Boyle (University of Stirling) and Dr Hannah Hamad, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of East Anglia.

The Jungle Factory Symposium

Athina Karatzogianni was the main organiser of The Jungle Factory Symposium, which brought together theorists, researchers and artists to explore questions of productivity, political imagination and resistance in the current era.

This crossdisciplinary event invited activists, academics, artists, and performers to engage conceptually with 'jungle' and the human factory producing jungles. It can be an inquiry of the notion of jungle, a recording of a feeling, a thought, a situation, a piece of sound or music, or an expression in the mind factory to reflect on the jungle problematique.

Participants included: Alan Read, Gigi Argyropoulou, Gary Anderson, Maria Rovisco, Agnieszka Jakimiak, Marta Keil, Mita Pujara, Debora Minà, Maria Lalou, Grey Filastine, Emma Lee, Manos Karatzogiannis, Georgina Dimopoulou, Kathy O' Hare, Massimo Conti, Felix Blume. The event was hosted by the School's Digital Networks and Communication cluster, alongside the Media Cultures cluster and the Migration Research Network, in collaboration with artists Despina Panagiotopoulou (Athens) and Andrew Fremont-Smith (NY).

Becoming and Belonging: The Significance of Personal Names 

Jane Pilcher organised a one-day research symposium in July 2017 on personal naming practices. This event provided a unique opportunity for an exchange of ideas about the social and cultural significance of personal names, and aimed to contribute to a step-change in their interdisciplinary study. Bringing together scholars from a range of social science disciplines, it offered a programme of talks and discussions focused on personal naming practices. 

New Directions in Media, Communication and Sociology

Postgraduate students in the School held a conference in July 2017 that was aimed at rethinking the role of social science research situated within the fields of Media, Communication and Sociology. It sought to consider how our research can potentially contribute to social change. The dark(er) times that we live in not only need enlightenment, but also entertainment. It asked how can we be engaged and unite without becoming depressed or discouraged, and incorporate elements of play and care within our research.

CAMEo events

The CAMEo Institute has recently held a number of events involving MCS researchers, including Mark Banks, Helen Wood, Jilly Boyce Kay, Melanie Kennedy, Stevie Marsden, and Paula Serafini. 

In May it hosted ‘Wealth and Status in an Age of Trump: The Cultural Production and Consumption of the Super-Rich’ which featured external speakers including Jo Littler (City) and John Armitage (Southampton); in June the CAMEo research strand 'Texts and Trends', led by Helen Wood, hosted ‘The Money Shot Revisited: Changing Dynamics of Media Spectacle, Intensity and Excess'. 

Finally, CAMEo hosted Professor Justin O’Connor (Monash) for a week in May, which included a public lecture on ‘Cultural Industries in Shanghai Modern’ attended by over 70 people, including many of our own MCS students and many China-focussed researchers from University of Leicester and beyond.

KEYNOTES AND PAPERS: HIGHLIGHTS

A number of MCS researchers gave papers at the 14th biennial Conference on Communication and Environment at the University of Leicester in June (see the headline feature of this newsletter). 

Athina Karatzogianni was invited speaker at a number of recent events, including: the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust Summer Seminar, Eastbourne (June); 2nd International Conference SFB 1171: Affective Societies – Dynamics of Social Coexistence in Mobile Worlds, at Freie Universität Berlin (April); and she gave the invited talk 'Fake News and Algorithmic Curation on Social Media' at the RightsCon Conference, Brussels, (March). She also gave the paper 'The Digital vs. Analogue False Binary: Cyberconflict Durations in Activist Rhetoric' at American Geographers Association Annual meeting, Boston, MA (co-authored with Michael Schandorf (MIT)).

An invited talk that Athina Karatzogianni gave at Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) 2017: The Age of the Intelligent Machines can be viewed below:

Pierre Montforte gave the talk 'Hospitality and its limits. The origins and challenges of the 'Refugees Welcome' movement' as part of an invited roundtable discussion at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence on 12th May 2017.

E. Anna Claydon gave the paper 'Film Music and the Intergeneric Movie' at BAFTSS, Bristol April 2017, as well as the paper ''Yes I Can'? Advertising and Parodying the 2016 Paralympics' at Screen, Glasgow, June.

Helen Wood gave the invited keynote talk at 'Authenticity, Performance, and ('Post')Truth in Theatre, Film, Television and Interactive Media', a postgraduate symposium held at the University of York, in June 2017. Her paper was entitled 'Reality Celebrity as Illegitimate Cultural work? Brokering the conditions of visibility'.

Mark Banks gave a keynote on 'Creative Justice and the Cultural Economy' at 'The Industrialization of Creativity and its Limits' conference in St. Petersburg, hosted by the Higher School Of Economics at Moscow University, 23/24 June. In April, he contributed the opening talk at the ‘Cultural Economy Futures’ international workshop held at Monash University, Melbourne and organised by CAMEo Institute partners the Culture, Media, Economy research centre.

PhD student Cara Dobbing gave a seminar in the 'History of Medicine' series at the University of Leicester, entitled: '"My Mind at Present is Suffering From Lack of Will Power Through Cutting Down Food": Eating and the attitude to food in the Garlands Lunatic Asylum, 1862-1909' (in Feebruary). You can read more about Cara's research here. She also gave a paper at the Spring conference of the Local Population Studies Society, entitled: ‘The Circulation of Pauper Lunatics and the Transitory Nature of Mental Health Provision in the Late Nineteenth-Century’

Giovanna Puppin gave the guest lecture 'Advertising and Creativity in China: a diachronic study' at the workshop Looking Eastward: Culture and Communication in China, organised by the University of Bergamo (10 April). She also gave the paper 'Branding China through Olympic Public Service Announcements (PSAs): An Exploration of the "Beijing Opera Series" (Jingju xilie 京剧系列)' at the Association of Business Communication Asia-Pacific Conference, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in June. Giovanna also gave the paper 'The Return of the Oppressed: an Historical Account of the Rehabilitation of Advertising Creativity in China' at Competition and Collaboration in the Cultural and Creative Industries, University of Southern California-Shanghai Jiaotong University Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry (ICCI) (June).

PGR student Anna Zsubori gave the paper 'Monstrous feminine in fairy tales: the embodiment of childhood fears in Disney's Cinderella (1950 and 2015)' at the conference 'All about Cinderella', June, University of Bedfordshire.

Melanie Kennedy gave the paper '"Trust us, Lindsay […] we knew your Mean Girls days were long gone": Terry Richardson and the spectacle of young female celebrity' at The Money Shot Revisited: Changing Dynamics of Media Spectacle, Intensity and Excess. University of Leicester. 12 June. At the same event, Jilly Boyce Kay gave the paper 'Spectacles of worklessness: reality celebrity and the value of "illegitimate" leisure'.

Melanie Kennedy, Jilly Boyce Kay and Jessica Bain gave the paper 'Beyond "Whitestream Feminism": Teaching Feminist Media Studies in the Transnational Classroom' at the Gender and Education Association Conference, Middlesex University, 22 June.

Alison Harvey gave the talks "'It's Not a Nice Place to Work’: Innovation, Diversity, and Work-Readiness in Game Design Higher Education" at the
Canadian Game Studies Association Symposium, Ryerson University, Toronto; and “From Intervention to Development: Funding Priorities, Social Justice, and Academic Freedom.” Canadian Communication Association Conference; Ryerson University; Toronto, Canada (May); and “Cultivating Games Workers: Challenges and Opportunities in University-Industry Partnerships” DiGRA UK, MediaCity Salford *With Nick Webber (May).

Alison Harvey was an invited participant at Refiguring Innovation in Games and Representation, Games and Representation workshop, UCL Knowledge Lab, London, May 2017, as well as at Women in the Media Industries: Inputs & Influences, De Montfort University, April.

Helen Wood and Jilly Boyce Kay gave the paper '"I am against Americanizing England": Class, public anxiety, and women’s responses to the arrival of commercial television' at the Gender and Transnational Broadcasting workshop, Bournemouth University, July.

PGR student Lidia Salvatori gave a paper 'Transnational feminism: drawing connections between feminism in Italian and Post-Soviet spaces' at Sex, Power, Love and Money: Media and Sexualisation in the Post-Soviet Spaces, University of Leicester, June.

Kaitlynn Mendes and Jessica Ringrose gave the keynotes 'Digital Feminist responses to rape culture: Affect, 'safe space' and platform vernaculars' at Gender, Sexuality and the Sensory, University of Kent (May), and ‘Digital Feminist Activism: Girls and Women Fight Back Against Rape Culture’, #NotAskingForIt, at Middlesex University (February).

Kaitlynn Mendes has also recently given a number of invited talks, including ‘SlutWalk: Feminism, Activism and Media’ (Birmingham City, May); ‘"It takes a lot of energy, it really does": Feminist Organisers’ Experiences of Activism,’ (Anglia Ruskin, April); ‘"I’m going to tell them that they’re all fat" - Feminist Organisers' Experiences With and Responses to Online Misogyny', (Loughborough, April); and ‘Rape Narratives and Digital Feminist Activism: A case study of #BeenRapedNeverReported, Hollaback!, The Everyday Sexism Project, and Who Needs Feminism?’, Intersectional Narratives of Rape, Lund University (April).

PUBLIC TALKS AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Ipek Demir gave an invited public engagement talk on 'Brexit and the Kurdish community in the UK' to the members of El-Com Community Centre, London in March 2017.

Alison Harvey ran a community engagement event with a session on "Feminism and Gaming" with the Leicester Riot Grrrls Community Group, Leicester, United Kingdom, April 26.

In May, Jane Pilcher delivered a training workshop on qualitative research methods and research ethics to community researchers from Leicester Ageing Together.

Melanie Kennedy ran an event for International Women's Day: 'Four Women, Five Stories: Film Screening with Kajal Nisha Patel and Dr Melanie Kennedy', 7 March 2017 at the University of Leicester.

In July, the School's Unit for Diversity, Inclusion and Community Engagement (DICE) hosted an event in association with CivicLeicester and the Race Equality Centre (TREC) entitled 'Policing a Multicultural City'. Leicestershire Police Chief Constable Simon Cole offered his personal and professional insight on policing the multicultural city.