UNESCO CHAIR/UNITWIN NETWORK PROGRESS REPORT FORM
Title of the Chair/Network:
Host Institution:
Date of establishment of
Chair/Network:
New Media Forms of the Book
www,unesco.org.uk/BedfordshireChair
University of Bedfordshire
Luton Campus, Luton
January 2012
(mm, yyyy)
Period of activity under report:
(mm, yyyy - mm, yyyy)
Report established by:
(name, position)
January 2012- October 2012
Professor Alexis Weedon
e-mail: alexis.weedon@beds.ac.uk
1. Executive Summary:
Major outcomes, results and impact of the Chair, including on national policies, in relation to its
objectives as stated in Article 2 of the Chair Agreement (between the Institution and UNESCO)
(Not exceeding 300 words)
The establishment of the chair aims to promote research into how the book has successfully
'gone beyond' the codex. Its purpose is to promote knowledge exchange and collaboration to
build upon national focused studies, and to research the effect of cultural exchange and trade
in book adaptation, transmedia storytelling and new media forms of the book with partners
globally.
The research will investigate questions about how the book is being accessed via the internet
and by mobile phones; how the book can retain its identity as a cultural object when it is
adapted from its original and traditional form to delivery over ICTs; and the impact of different
platforms for the book - from paper to mobile technology - which are of direct relevance to
individual countries and cultures.
This report covers three main areas namely a) the research and analysis of adaptation
across media platforms which has been initiated in the nine months of the Chair b) the
development of an augmented story for trial with different partners c) and future plans to
provide a comparative international context to study the effect of new media technologies on
the book trade.
The project will build capacity by linking doctoral students’ research, and postdoctoral
research fellows research projects to a group of leading academics. Through academic
exchange, it will enable the project to network more widely and develop common resources.
The studies will examine the significance of the electronic media as a cost-effective and
geography-independent way of disseminating ideas and sharing resources between
developed and developing countries, and how the book has retained an identity within these
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cultures in an online environment.
2) Activities:
Overview of activities undertaken by the Chair during the reporting period
a) Education/Training/Research
(key education programmes and training delivered and research undertaken by the Chair during the
reporting period, target group and geographical coverage)
i) Education
(leading to certificate)
University of Bedfordshire (UoB) MA Mass Communications: The
Chair-holder contributes to the delivery of the MA degree
programme and is unit leader for the Publishing Culture and
Technology unit
The Chair-holder has 4 doctoral supervisees and 1 masters by
research with 1 successful PhD completion in 2012.
ii) Training
(short term)
iii) Research
The major work this year has been David Miller’s development of
an augmented book directed by the chairholder. This has involved
the writing of a transmedia storyline, and the development of the
database which lies behind the storyworld containing the graphics,
music, stills and animations to provide a parallel story.
Researching the availability, pricing and compatibility of different
makes of mobile phones, researching the most suitable operating
system and open software to provide the optimal balance between
affordances and accessibility across Europe, Asia, Far East and
Africa was our starting point.
The project will examine issues raised in creating and reading
such books. The intention is for different versions of the AR books
to be produced, used and tested in different cultural settings and
international languages. The project investigates the user
experience, accessibility, narrative problems, new types of
aesthetics, and asks the question: how would you read an AR
book?
The chairholder was director of studies for Yang Li’s survey of
Chinese peoples consumption of transmedia stories. The initial
survey was carried out in March 2012.
b) Conferences/Meetings
(key conferences and meetings organized by the Chair or to which its Chairholder contributed)
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Media Communication and Cultural Studies Association annual conference, January 2012
University of Bedfordshire, http://tinyurl.com/bt2hwcm
Under the Mask: Gamer Conference 2012 http://tinyurl.com/cfopyqm
Political Studies Association Media Section, Luton 2012 http://bedspsa.org.uk/
The chairholder was plenary convener HEA Embedding Research in teaching 12th June,
Oxford Brookes
Invited speaker: Progressing Book History and Publishing Studies" 28th October, Oxford
Brookes
The chairholder put together a panel to represent at the International Society for the history
of Authorship Reading and Publishing, Dublin, session 5.5 http://sharp2012.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/01/Programme-for-web-21.pdf
New Media Forms of the Book. Chair: Alexis Weedon (University of Bedfordshire)
David Moorhead (University of Bedfordshire) Contemporary adaptation – from script to film
Claudio Pires Franco (University of Bedfordshire) Inside relations between publishers,
broadcasters and the games industry in digital storytelling
Souvik Mukherjee (Shiv Nadar University) Rewriting unwritten texts: After-action reports and
videogames
c) Interuniversity Exchanges/Partnerships
(principal exchanges/partnerships between the Chair and other institution’s including UNESCO
Chairs/UNITWIN Networks)
The chairholder is Head of Journalism and Communications with managerial responsibility
for the newsroom and radio facilities at University of Bedfordshire which hosted the AfricaUK Journalism Education Exchange 11-13 April an event organised by Prof Ivor Gaber for
UNESCO UK and the Polytechnic of Namibia, funded by UNESCO's International
Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), the Association for Journalism
Education (AJE) and the University of Bedfordshire.
Work with Jadavpur University, and Monash University over the trialing of the AR story is
being planned. Communication University of China and Nanjing University will follow.
d) Publications/Multimedia Materials
(major publications and teaching/learning materials)
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Please tick relevant fields of
output and indicate volume of
output:
[tick]
[no.]
Books
Books (edited)
Books (chapters)
Monographs
Research Reports
Journals edited
Conference Proceedings
Occasional Papers
Teaching/Learning Materials
Multimedia Materials (CD-Rom)
Multimedia Materials (Video)
Multimedia Materials (Other)
Give details of major publications and materials including full citations.
The project has been documented online http://augmentedwonder.blogspot.co.uk/ at conferences
SHARP, July Dublin session 5.5 http://sharp2012.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Programme-forweb-21.pdf. Political Studies Association conference, Luton 2012 http://bedspsa.org.uk/
The chairholder co-edits the quarterly refereed journal Convergence: The Journal of research into
new media technologies (Sage)
e) Cooperation with UNESCO Headquarters, Field Offices
The chairholder attended the UK National Commission for UNESCO experts Colloquium on Tuesday
13 March this year.
f) Other
(any other activities to report)
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3. Future Plans and Development Prospects:
Outline of action plan for the next biennium and short/medium and long-term development prospects.
Please do not hesitate to refer to difficulties that the Chair has experienced
(Not exceeding 300 words)
We will now seek to publish and use in the classroom the AR book ‘Sherwood Rise’ with
international educational testers. Then we will publish an edited book on new media forms of
the book which will focus on the technological and cultural implications of the book’s
adaptation to the particular media environment of different societies. It will include research
the production and reception of book adaptations. In addition we will analyse the survey
findings of cross-cultural consumption and transmedia storytelling and to see how we can
develop this survey further.
Longer term the project’s aims are
1. To contribute to aims of education for all by employing appropriate technologies to
augment the physical book, improving access to knowledge and provide accessible,
affordable and multiplatform resources
2. To support development by surveying and analysing trends in the use of mobile
media and internet technologies as a cost-effective and geography-independent way
of sharing book resources and provide knowledge transfer opportunities via industry
links
3. To preserve the cultural heritage of national book cultures in new e-book
developments
Specific objectives
a) select and verify case studies of great cultural significance providing evidence of
book publication across multiple platforms
b) provide an quantitative and qualitative analysis of users access to adaptations in
different cultures
c) develop models which will aid the understanding of the role of the book as a source
text for other contemporary media industries and communicate them though
knowledge transfer activities.
d) apply insights from this analysis to practice-led research into electronic or digital
forms of the book
End of the Form