Routes to content
Routes to Content addresses the industrial and regulatory challenges faced by the contemporary television industry through qualitative and quantitative audience research. The project focuses on the changing ways in which people discover and watch television, including online video and streaming. Funded by Screen Industries Growth Network/Research England.
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 the Leverhulme Trust.
Film Costumes in Action
Film Costumes in Action investigates how costumes have been designed, made and used in British film from the 1960s onwards. Costume plays a central role in film imagery and is fundamental to understandings of character, atmosphere and setting. Yet little is known outside the industry about how costumes are designed and constructed, and how the profession of costume has changed over the last six decades. The project aims to raise the profile and appreciation of British-led costume design and making, nationally and internationally, and champion expanded notions of screen heritage, past, present and future. Funded by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
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 (ERC).
'What’s on?' Rethinking class in the television industry
‘What's on?’ Rethinking Class in the Television Industry is situated in the context of academic, media, and public discussions about social class and the TV industry. From policy concerns about working class access to the sector, through to class as a prominent point of discussion in BAFTA award winners' speeches, class is important to national conversations about TV. Funded by UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
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.
