INCLUDE+ Network
INCLUDE+ is a network exploring how social and digital environments can be built, shaped and sustained to enable all people to thrive. The five-year programme of activities (2022-2027) will build a knowledge community around in/equalities in digital society that will comprise industry, academia, the public and third sectors in response to the UKRI Equitable Digital Society theme. Funded by UKRI’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
MUSICSTREAM: Music Culture in the Age of Streaming
The very nature of music as a cultural practice is changing across the world. MUSICSTREAM examines why and how this is happening, and the implications for the role of music in people’s lives. Hundreds of millions of people across the world now experience music via ‘streaming services’, which offer on-demand access to vast catalogues of music, either ‘free’ (advertising-supported) or via subscription. Meanwhile, other ways of experiencing music, via radio, television and live performance, are changing. Social media and short video play key roles that are still poorly understood. A new system of music production, distribution and consumption has developed, and there are many controversies about it. Yet there has been no sustained, integrated analysis of this system, the considerable international variations within it, nor its effects on musical culture. MUSICSTREAM provides such analysis, focusing especially on Europe, North America and China, but also bringing together research from across the world via symposia and collaborative publication. Funded by European Research Council.
Women, Ageing and Machine Learning on Screen
What does ageing on screen look like in UK screen cultures when AI is doing the looking? How inclusive can film and TV become if ML analyses the texts and reports back on visual ageism to industries? When ageing on screen is computed through inclusive research methods, working across disciplines of media and communication, sociology and computer sciences, how can ‘ageing on screen’ become meaningful to researchers and beneficiaries of the research? This research project offers a new exploration for media and screen industries of using machine learning to analyse texts at scale and the algorithm will be open source. Funded by Leverhulme Trust.
Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms
PSM-AP was a three-year research project (2022-2025) that examined how public service media (PSM) organisations, regulators and policymakers are adapting to a new platform age dominated by the likes of Netflix, YouTube, Apple and Amazon. It asked how this might alter the social and cultural values of PSM and its ability to operate in the public interest. PSM-AP focused on television, which remains at the heart of PSM. compared data gathered within and across six countries: Belgium (RTBF, VRT), Canada (CBC), Denmark (DR, TV 2), Italy (RAI), Poland (TVP), UK (BBC, Channel 4, ITV). Funded by UKRI, United Kingdom; FWO, Belgium; DAFSHE, Denmark; and NCN, Poland.
