07 June 2017
Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life
Our free online course, Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life starts next Monday, 12th June.
Learners have already started introducing themselves on the welcome page for the course. So far, we've had comments from learners in Ukraine, Germany and Costa Rica, as well as from the UK, USA and Canada. Our group of learners includes students, teachers, journalists and others working in fields such as Human Rights and Communications and Marketing. Political views and past experience vary - a common link is an interest in understanding more about communication and current affairs, and the ways in which values are influenced and formed.
The course has been developed by the British Library, in partnership with the Centre for the Study of Political Ideologies at the University of Nottingham and hosted by FutureLearn. Lead Educators are Maiken Umbach, Mat Humphrey, Sascha Auerbach and Ian Cooke.
The course is run as a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which gives us the opportunity to draw on the experiences of our learners, and this is an important element. The steps in each week give insight to current academic research, from across disciplines in the humanties and social sciences. In addition, learners are asked how the concepts discussed relate to their personal experience and everyday lives - we are interested in the ways that ideologies are expressed and reinforced in situations that we may not normally think of as "political". Each week, we ask learners to share images that they associate with the themes being discussed: freedom, justice, community, nationhood and consumerism. You can see some of those images on our Flikr group.
An important element of the course is that it explores the differences in the political beliefs that we hold, and also highlights areas of common ground; for instance in the value that we place on freedom and on community. Already, learners have started talking about the ways in which people react to news or opinions that challenge their political views. A strength of this course is that it provides a forum in which we can talk critically about important political questions in a group where we don't share the same the political views.
Registration for our course is open now, and you can join at: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/propaganda. Our learners include "avid MOOcers" and those coming to FutureLearn for the first time. No prior knowledge or training is required - just an interest in the way that political ideologies are formed and expressed.
03 June 2017
What can the Archived Web tell us about politics and society in the 21st century?
Visualisation of links between websites from the UK crawled during 1996, generated by Rainer Simon
On Wednesday 14th June, we'll be discussing the potential of the archived web in understanding contemporary society and politics.
Our event is chaired by Eliane Glaser, author of Get Real: How to see through the Hype, Spin and Lies of Modern Life, and features contributions from Andy Jackson (British Library), Jefferson Bailey (Internet Archive), Jane Winters (University of London) and Valérie Schafer (French National Centre for Scientific Research).
The first web archive, the Internet Archive, began in 1996. Since then, many university and national libraries around the world have started web archiving initiatives. The British Library began in 2004, and, since 2013 has collected an annual snapshot of all UK web sites. As such, there are very rich collections built up around the world that have documented political and social movements both at international and local levels. For example, the Library of Congress has led collections on the Arab Spring, and the UK Web Archive has collections on past General Elections.
As libraries have gained more experience with building collections of the archived web, so researchers and other users of web archives have developed new methodologies and tools for analysing the collections. As advances are made, so new challenges arise and are identified. The web itself is changing, with one of the biggest challenges for archiving being the use of social media - generating huge amounts of data, but often being highly time dependent and reliant on specific software and hardware to interpret.
As with any large and complex collection, context remains an important consideration. Web archive collections are informed by curatorial or academic judgement on what might be the most significant websites, and may not reflect the most popular sites at a time. When it comes to reporting current events, social media and the web can be portrayed as more "democratic" and open to wider participation than more traditional news media. However, communication on the web includes rumour, satire and misdirection, alongside eyewitness reports and a whole range of data sources and types. Technology to archive the web lags behind the technology to create web sites, so some elements of a web page may be missed by web archiving tools. Additionally, web archiving at a national level often takes place within a legal framework that restricts collecting within national borders. The omissions of web archives can be a useful and interesting source for understanding the structure of web, but, as with other forms of analysis, researchers need information on what decisions were made, and under what conditions, a collection was made.
These are some of the issues that we'll be discussing on 14th June. We'd love you to join us and contribute to the debate. More details and booking can be found on our Whats On pages.
Our panel discussion forms part of the Digital Conversations series and also connects to a week of conferences, hackathons and other events in London that talk about recent advances in web archiving and research on the archived web.You can follow discussions from the conferences on Twitter, using our hashtag #WAweek2017
28 March 2017
Report on Rebels
Polly Russell, Lead Curator for Politics and Public Life, reports on our event to mark International Women's Day 2017: 'Rebels in the Archives'.
Earlier this month, to mark International Women’s Day, the British Library hosted ‘Rebels in the Archives’, a sell-out panel discussion with four women who, in different ways, have uncovered the hidden histories of women’s lives in Britain’s past.
The evening kicked off with Heidi Safia Mirza, Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith’s College and author of Young Female and Black. Heidi discussed how Women of Colour have been rendered invisible by the absences and omissions which characterise most representations of the past. Attend to the archive, look beyond the obvious and take responsibility for finding and accounting for Women of Colour when researching women’s lives was her message.
Next up was Abi Morgan, BAFTA and Emmy Award winning writer and producer whose film Suffragette introduced cinema audiences around the world to the story of how working class women fought to get the vote in the UK. Abi described the process of writing the film’s script, how libraries and archives held the key to the narrative and character and of the totemic importance of archival objects – she described the tiny purse Emily Wilding Davison was holding when she fatefully stepped in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby on the 4th June 1913 and how this brought to life the fragility and courage of ‘extraordinary sacrifice made by the ordinary’.
From left to right the 'Rebels in the Archives' Panel: Heidi Mirza; Abi Morgan; Margaretta Jolly; Debi Withers; Jill Liddington. Image courtesy of Polly Russell.
Writer and historian Jill Liddington followed Abi and heroically compressed a life’s work into a splendid 15 minute presentation. Jill, the author of a seminal account of northern working-class women’s contribution to the Suffragist movement, One Hand Tied Behind Us, detailed how archives and libraries held the key to a history of women which had previously been omitted from historical record.
The final speaker of the evening, curator, researcher and digital expert Debi Withers, brought us bang up to date with a discussion of how digital archives and catalogues have the potential, if opened up to tagging and searching, to widen access to and enable links between feminist archives.
The evening’s discussions were expertly chaired by Margaretta Jolly, Reader in Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex and someone directly responsible for increasing the number of women rebels in the British Library archives – Margaretta contributed 60 Women’s Liberation Movement oral histories to the British Library as part of the Sisterhood & After project she led in 2013.
After audience questions Margaretta concluded the evening by noting that though the panel employed diverse approaches to understanding the past, worked across different formats and spoke to different audiences, their work was evidence that archives and libraries are places where the rebels of the past could b e uncovered so th at rebels of the future may thrive.
You can see a short video of the evening’s highlights and a podcast of the evening is also available on the British Library's SoundCloud channel.
The event was developed in association with the University of Sussex and was supported by the Living Knowledge Network.
01 March 2017
Women’s Marches Echo Suffragette Struggles: Campaigns, Cats and Collections
By Rachel Tavernor, PhD Researcher, University of Sussex.
On 21 January 2017, millions of people across the world marched for gender, racial and economic equality. The recent Women’s Marches are the latest chapter in a long fight against misogyny and national and international patriarchy. The heritage of these struggles was echoed by the campaigners who dressed as suffragettes, and carried placards that reminded us that these struggles have been fought before:
“I will not go quietly back to the 1950s!”
“My arms are tired from holding this sign since the 1970s”
Women's March on London, 2017.
Recent events have brought the inequality women experience on a daily basis to the fore. Whilst reflecting on, and reacting to these political changes, I was completing a PhD Placement at the British Library which included researching stories of the suffragette movement. For me, the resistances, rebels and revolutions archived in the Library’s collections became a source of hope. At a time of political uncertainty, my time spent reading suffragette letters, news reports and protest ephemera, were a reminder to me that histories are made by both politicians and protests.
Suffragette Struggles
Suffragettes, like many campaigners, marched to demonstrate the strength of their movement and to pressure the government for political action. The demonstrations were also used as a space to mobilise the public. Many marched with striking and bold banners to communicate their campaign. In June 1908, some 40,000 women marched in London to pressure Herbert Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister, to support the women’s suffrage bills in parliament. However, Asquith maintained an aggressive anti-suffragist position. The Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU) retaliated by adopting “more violent, law-breaking deeds” (Purvis 2016). In the following years, the suffragettes’ militant approach was met with police brutality and frequent arrests were made. Yet, the women were not treated as political prisoners, which ensured better conditions and would have acknowledged that their acts were political, but as ordinary criminals. Incarcerated suffragettes surreptitiously produced letters detailing their lives on toilet tissue. In the British Library collections, you can read some of the letters that have been preserved (2 files).
In 1909, imprisoned Marion Dunlop, a member of the WSPU, began a hunger strike with the motto ‘Release or Death’. Several days into her hunger strike, Dunlop was released from prison, as authorities feared that she may die and become a martyr. Many suffragettes went on hunger strike. However, authorities soon decided that imprisoned suffragettes, when necessary, would now be force fed. This was a practice that was previously only used on clinically insane patients in asylums (Williams 2008). Suffragettes’ communicated their accounts of force feeding to the public, which shamed the government.
“The pain was so horrible I felt as if my nose was being pulled off, and I struggled violently”
Quoted from an account of force feeding (The Suffragette 1913)
On 25 April 1913, the authorities stopped force feeding and introduced the Prisoner’s Temporary Discharge of Ill Health Act (commonly known as the Cat and Mouse Act). Once suffragettes reached a level of extreme weakness, they were released from prison, watched by authorities and re-arrested as soon as they had recovered from their hunger strike. The authorities positioned themselves as the watchful cat that was ready to pounce on the suffragette mouse.
Pussycat Power
Poster, Made by the Women’s Social and Political Union (1914)
In posters, produced by the WSPU, the Cat and Mouse Act (1913) was used to further the suffragettes fight for equality. The poster represented the male Liberal government as a savage cat, which the public needed to ‘keep out’. Suffragettes represented themselves as vulnerable women at the mouth of an aggressive and abusive government. The posters were popular and “[p]art of the reason for the lasting power and fame of the image may be the ways it overturns long-established associations between women and cats” (Amato 2015: 102).
Anti-Suffragette Postcards (circa 1908)
Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.
Prior to the Cat and Mouse Act (1913), postcard publishers that opposed gender equality, represented suffragettes as irrational cats. The gendered representation of cats, and their association to the domestic sphere, was used to “portray suffragettes as silly, infantile, incompetent, and ill-suited to political engagement” (Wrenn 2013). The relative cheapness of the postcard, and the humour used, ensured that the images widely circulated (similar to internet memes).
Humour was also used by the suffragettes to subvert gendered prejudices. Suffragette Annie Kenney recalls that they were taught “always to get the best of a joke, and to join in the laughter with the audience even if the joke was against us” (in Cowman 2007: 278). Campaigners’ ability to deploy humour, to subvert messages and to undermine politicians are tactics that are still used today.
Top: Dale Cruse, January 21, 2017, Women’s March San Francisco, Creative Commons 2.0
Bottom: January 21, 2017, Women’s March London
The placards, hats and costumes produced for the Women’s Marches show how people can creatively fight prejudices. Like the suffragettes, pussycats prominently featured in the visual representations of the campaign, in response to comments that Donald Trump made about women. Campaigners crafted ‘pussyhats’ and placards to fight back against this dehumanising and sexually oppressive view of women.
Archiving Activism
Unlike large NGO organised demonstrations that distribute branded placards, the Women’s Marches represented a range of grassroots protest voices. In the UK, the Bishopsgate Institute recognised the importance of archiving these placards: “people took to the streets to highlight the particular issues they were passionate about… In years to come, the placards and messages from this March will be essential in understanding the concerns of large sections of the UK population at the beginning of 2017” (Dickers 2017). Not only are the subjects of the placards of interest but also how they are made. The time campaigners spent knitting hats, painting signs and sewing costumes, contribute to understanding the craft of the protest.
The Women’s Marches across the world were primarily organised and promoted online. They were also documented on websites and social networks: on Facebook pages, Twitter feeds and blogs. The way in which activism is organised, and represented, further contribute to understanding the politics and practices of a movement. Civil rights campaigner Angela Davis, in her Women’s March speech in Washington, said “history cannot be deleted like web pages” (Davis 2017). Davis’ speech was a call for people, as agents of history, to resist the Trump administration. For me, it was also a reminder that the preservation of our protests are also vulnerable.
Webpages are constantly changing and can be deleted but they can also be preserved in archives. Since 2013, the British Library archive the entire UK domain every year (websites that end with .uk), which can be accessed via the reading room computers at the Library. The Library also has permission, under the terms of the Non-Print Legal Deposit Regulations (2013), to archive websites published in the UK (which do not end with ‘.uk’, for example, the Women’s March on London website). However, this is a manual process and the UK Web Archive invite YOU to nominate websites that are published in the UK but are not part of the UK domain. In doing so, you can contribute to preserving the webpages that document stories of sisterhood, struggle and solidarity, in the hope that these archives will inspire people who could be part of the next chapter of the movement.
International Women’s Day 2017
On 8 March 2017, the British Library is hosting a conversation on the power and potential of archiving feminist movements with Jill Liddington, Abi Morgan, Heidi Safia Mirza and Deborah Withers. Margaretta Jolly, project director of Sisterhood and After: An Oral History of the Women’s Liberation Movement, will chair this panel of influential feminists as they debate questions of politics, representation and preservation.
The Living Knowledge Network are hosting live-streams of this event at libraries in Middlesbrough and Exeter.
Rebels in the Archives is part of a series of events to celebrate International Women’s Day.
21 October 2015
Enduring Ideas 3: The Problem of Prejudice
The third lecture in our Enduring ideas series takes place on the 17th November. Following Matt Flinders on democracy and Ha-Joon Change on capitalism, our exploration of the key concepts and ideas that underpin our understanding of society continues with Dominic Abrams on prejudice. Recent and continuing reactions to the refugee crisis in Europe highlight the importance of our understanding of the problem of prejudice. Professor Abrams will address questions such as whether a tendency to judge and stereotype is an inherent part of human nature, an inevitable aspect of society or something which could be prevented through better education and focused social policies. His talk will also discuss whether our tendency to pre-judge others means that any attempts to aim for sustained societal harmony in our increasingly diverse communities are simply far too optimistic.
Dominic Abrams is Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Centre for the Study of Group Processes at the University of Kent. We’re delighted to be joined by Professor Dame Helen Wallace, a European Studies specialist, British Library Board member, and Foreign Secretary and International Vice-President of the British Academy.
The Enduring Ideas series takes place in collaboration with the Academy of Social sciences. It starts at 1830, in the Terrace Restaurant. Booking information is available via this link here Enduring Ideas. Look forward to seeing you there!
04 October 2015
Animals Inspired Events at the British Library
Update: Book now!
As it is World Animal Day, I thought I'd take the opportunity to introduce two animal-related events that are taking place next month at the British Library as part of the Being Human festival. These two events were motivated by our current Animal Tales exhibition which shows how animals have come to play such an important role in literature and in human life and culture more broadly.
The Being Human festival begins after the exhibition itself closes, but these two events are still linked to some of the themes of the exhibition. The first, on 13 November is ‘From Animal Tales to Animal Tags’ which is a virtual, drop-in event which hopes to involve interested members of the public in curating our online collection of images which is held on Flickr through tagging images of domestic animals. We have 1 million out of copyright images as part of our Flickr collection which are held under a creative commons license. The more the public are involved in tagging and grouping these images, the more user-friendly the collection becomes to researchers and other interested individuals and groups. If you have a Flickr account, or are able to set one up, it should be easy to participate in this event.
You can take part using your own device at home (e.g. via a tablet, laptop or PC) or can take your device along to one of the participating public libraries within the BL’s BIPC network (more details to follow), or our St Pancras site, to bring a sense of the collective to the event through tagging animals in this collection alongside other members of the public.
Image taken from page 81 of '[Travels through the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire in 1793 and 1794. Translated from the German [by F. W. Blagdon]. MS. notes.]'
Our second animal inspired event, ‘Humans and their non-humans’ is on the evening of the 19 November at the Terrace Restaurant at our St Pancras site. This event will explore something very close to the hearts of many of us – the relationship between humans and our pets. For this event, we are very lucky to have a fantastic panel of experts to talk about different aspects of the human-animal relationship through the research they have undertaken.
From the biological to the sociological, this event will address issues such as: our emotional engagement with pets, pets as family members, pets as enablers and their role in health and, wider sociological questions about the changing nature of the human-pet relationship. Our chair for the evening will be Professor Claire Molloy, Director of the Centre for Human Animal Studies at Edge Hill University, who has written extensively about the representation of animals in film and other media.
Our speakers for the evening are Dr John Bradshaw, Professor Nickie Charles and Professor Daniel Mills, whose diverse expertise and interests will make this a informative and fun evening for all of us interested in the human-animal relationship. The event starts at 18.30 and will be followed by a pay bar until 21.00. It includes time for audience questions and is aimed at the public, so there is no need to come with any prior knowledge of the topic. This event is charged and can be booked via our What’s On pages. We hope to see you there!
23 July 2015
PhD placements available!
Are you:
-an ESRC-funded PhD student?
-interested in social science research and policy?
-interested in learning more about the British Library’s collections?
-interested in working alongside expert curators?
-keen to learn about public engagement with research?
Then we may have a funded, three month ESRC placement for you!
Working at the Library is an amazing way to find out about the scope of the collections we have here and to be exposed to unique and unusual research materials that cannot be found elsewhere. The British Library has hosted a number of ESRC placements in the past, including projects on diverse topics such as sports archives, ageing and the body, migration, health studies and the use of the web in social science research. Previous placements have produced a range of useful outputs such as topical bibliographies, reports, webpages and events for the public and academic audiences.
There are 5 placements currently open to ESRC-funded PhD students. They are each funded for a three month period. These are outlined below. For more information and how to apply, please see full details on the RCUK website. The deadline for applications is 16:00 BST 28 August 2015.
We are also offering up to three placements for MRC or NERC-funded students and one placement for AHRC-funded students. For more details see the RCUK website.
Above: The British Library, aerial view. Public Domain image.
Outline of projects for ESRC-funded placements
Mapping the 20th Century
Contribute to a major exhibition launching in November 2016 that will explore key aspects of national and international government policy, boundaries and identities through the 20th Century. You will focus on developing part of the exhibition narrative that discusses the role of maps in geopolitical contexts e.g. boundary mapping used to establish new national borders; the role of mapping in communicating the work and supporting the existence of supranational bodies such as the UN, EEC etc. (One placement available, open to ESRC students).
Social Science Now!
Develop the concept for a public event that makes social science research and policy accessible, exciting and relevant. The intern will work with an experienced team to research, plan and deliver an event as part of the BL’s public programme. You will work closely with high-profile speakers to develop format and content, liaise with BL teams to engage in targeted promotion and post-event evaluation and other outputs (e.g. podcasts, videos). Time-permitting, you will also undertake research into a specific aspect of use of policy information in our collections relating to social science (One placement available, open to ESRC students).
UK General Election 2015 – the Web Legacy
The British Library is part of a consortium that has formed a collection of 7500 archived websites relating to the 2015 UK General Election. This is a unique resource for political and social research. You will be involved in improving discoverability and presentation of the collection using cutting edge web archiving tools; negotiating permissions from rights holders to make archived sites openly available worldwide as well as quality checking of gathered sites. You will have the opportunity to carry out research using the collection (e.g. analysing the role of the Internet in political communication) and to disseminate your findings through BL blogs and other routes (One placement, open to ESRC students).
American Foreign Policy - a User’s Guide to the BL
The Eccles Centre for American Studies at the British Library houses one of the world’s foremost collections of American books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers and sound recordings. You will develop a resource that will enable researchers to get the most out of the collections related to American foreign policy. The resource could take the form of bibliographies, case studies, learning resources or a web exhibition. You will also be involved in engagement and publicity work to promote use of this resource. (One placement available, open to ESRC students).
Asia, Africa and International Development
International partnerships are fundamental to the British Library’s activities, including those in Asia and Africa. As well as hosting vast collections from these areas ourselves, it is our aspiration to support cultural institutions across Asia and Africa whose own collections are at risk from war or civil emergency. More broadly, the Library’s international projects and partnerships seek to generate social and economic impact. This internship would involve drawing on the intern’s knowledge and research of current best practise in international development to produce a report to the BL with recommendations about how it could more actively and more usefully engage in this area. (One placement, open to ESRC students).
01 July 2015
Call for Papers
The importance of early years, childhood and adolescence: Evidence from longitudinal studies
Monday 30 November 2015
British Library Conference Centre
www.closer.ac.uk/event/conference2015
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 27 July 2015
________________________________________________________
We are delighted to invite proposals from researchers using longitudinal data to explore the broad theme of: The importance of early years, childhood and adolescence. Submissions will be considered for an oral presentation or poster. Analyses involving cross-study comparisons are particularly encouraged.
Important Dates
Deadline for receipt of submissions: 27 July 2015
Notification of acceptance: Early Sept 2015
Registration Opens: Mid Sept 2015
Deadline for final camera-ready copy: 9 OCTOBER
CLOSER CONFERENCE: 30 November 2015
Selected submissions may be considered for publication in a "Conference Edition" of Longitudinal and Life Course Studies.
A prize for best Student Poster, as judged by the Conference Programme Committee, will be awarded during the conference.
_________________________________________________________
The UK’s longitudinal studies are leading sources of evidence on how our early circumstances and experiences affect our paths through life and our outcomes in adulthood. CLOSER is bringing together researchers from across disciplines to showcase outstanding longitudinal research in the importance of early years, childhood and adolescence. It is an opportunity to share ideas and innovations with longitudinal researchers from across disciplines and sectors, both from the UK and abroad. It will also showcase the latest resources for research, including a new cutting-edge metadata search platform.
About CLOSER
Image: copyright CLOSER, reproduced with permission
Promoting excellence in cohort and longitudinal research
CLOSER (Cohort and Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources) aims to maximise the use, value and impact of the UK’s cohort and longitudinal studies. Bringing together nine leading studies, the British Library and the UK Data Service, CLOSER works to stimulate interdisciplinary research, develop shared resources, provide training, and share expertise.
Studies
- Hertfordshire Cohort Study
- 1946 MRC National Survey of Health and Development
- 1958 National Child Development Study
- 1970 British Cohort Study
- Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (Children of the 90s)
- Southampton Women’s Survey
- Millennium Cohort Study (Child of the New Century)
- Life Study (the new birth cohort)
- Understanding Society
CLOSER is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Medical Research Council.
Social Science blog recent posts
- Documenting the Olympics and the Paralympics, 6- 7 July
- British Library 2020 Food Season: plans to continue the conversation
- The 2019 Annual Equality Lecture: Jack Halberstam
- Archiving Activism Website
- The Power of Documentary: John Pilger at the British Library 9- 10 December
- The Annual Equality Lecture: The Persistence of Gender Inequality
- Bringing Voices Together: the importance of independent Black publishing
- Bringing Voices Together: Inclusivity in Independent Publishing in Contemporary Britain, 7th September
- Propaganda and Ideology in Everyday Life
- What can the Archived Web tell us about politics and society in the 21st century?
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