Transport in the Media: write-up

I’m just finishing my visit to Lancaster University’s Centre for Mobilities Research in May and June, in my role as a 2013-4 Visiting Research Fellow. It’s been a great chance to catch up with people, meet some new people and generally get some good head space for research.

On the 9th and 10th June I organised a symposium on Transport in the Media. This was a pretty intense, in-depth event with around thirty of us nattering till 7pm in the event (and then till some time later, in the pub!) on the Monday and most starting again at 9:30am on the Tuesday. I then participated in the CeMoRe research event on Tuesday afternoon. A very intellectually stimulating – albeit tiring! – two days.

At Transport in the Media, we had presentations, workshops, and roundtable discussions. Our themes included:
– methods for studying ‘new’ and ‘old’ media
– how transport academics could or should engage with the media
– what we understand and theorise ‘media’ in relation to transport
– the impact of social media on academia and policy
– media coverage of controversial transport topics
– how (and if) media coverage can lead to policy change
– the media as transport campaigners

I’ve got a bunch of stuff from the sessions which I hope may be of interest to people – there are links to slides and audio below. There’s also plans for a future collection called Mediatised Mobilities, bringing some of these ideas together with other perspectives and case studies. For example, at the event we didn’t focus as much as we’d have liked on broadcast media, and we covered some transport modes more than others, so I’d seek to rebalance those issues in the collection.

Material

Monday June 9th
Controversial Transport Topics: the role of the media (Chair: Robin Lovelace)
Presentations with Q&A
Geoff Vigar: Media Reporting of Road Pricing Proposals. Slides (pdf file) plus audio
Siân Berry: The Media and Road Building Schemes. Slides (pdf file) plus audio –

Andrew Evans: Rail Safety in the Media. Slides (pdf file).
Can and Should Academics Engage in Transport Campaigning? (Chair: Siân Berry)
Open discussion, including short contributions by Steve Melia and Alan Munro, discussion & debate. Audio –
Media Research Methods (Chair: Geoff Vigar)
Part 1 – short presentations with Q&A. Gaurav Dubey and Ronald Roberts on transport in the print media. Gaurav and Ronald’s slides (pdf) and audio –
Cosmin Popan on researching cyclists in social and print media. Cosmin’s presentation (Prezi link).
Part 2 – Workshop led by Tim Ryley on ‘Content analysis of newspaper articles: transport applications’. Tim’s lead-off audio – (mp3 file)
Transport Academics in the Media
Part 1 (20 minutes) – Cristina Irving Turner (Emerald) on the practicalities of communicating research findings to the media. Slides (pdf file), audio (mp3 file)
Part 2 (1 hour 10 minutes) – roundtable discussion (Chair: Alan Munro) with participants (including Robin Lovelace, and Colin Pooley) drawing on personal experiences of academics engaging with the media about research and policy. Audio – (mp3 file)

Tuesday June 10th
opening comments including from Bruce Bennett, discussion. Bruce’s audio (mp3 file)
10:00-12pm – From Media Coverage to Policy Change? Session co-ordinated & chaired by Tom Cohen.
Part 1: brief presentations by Tom, me and Ian Walker on analysis of coverage of cycle safety in London and Bristol. Tom’s slides (pdf); my slides (pdf) and Ian’s slides (pdf).
Audio from Tom –
Audio from me –
Audio from Ian –
Discussion with all three – audio (mp3 file)
Part 2: The Times and cycling: when media organisations become transport campaigners, with Roger Geffen (Campaigns and Policy Director, CTC). Roger’s audio (mp3 file)
Background on the Times campaign from Roger:
The Times’s campaign (link)
CTC’s coverage of the Times campaign: main page and other stories (links)
CTC’s coverage of the Get Britain Cycling inquiry (link)
Final discussion – audio (mp3 file)