News Archive
July 2006
UK's insatiable Appetite for Sports News
Poetry Meets Politics at Stirling
UK’s Insatiable Appetite for Sports News
Date released: Thursday 6 July 2006
It seems that the UK can’t get enough of sports journalism – whether it is print, broadcast or online. According to new book by University of Stirling researcher Dr Raymond Boyle, sports journalism has come to occupy an increasingly visible space and is set to grow in impact in the coming years.
Sports Journalism: Context and Issues, provides an in-depth analysis of sports journalism today. The book is the first major study of one of the most expanding areas of journalism in the UK and is based on extensive interviews with journalists working across print, broadcast as well as online sports journalism.
Dr Boyle said: “Despite its poor press over the years the range of journalism about sports and sports related issues has mushroomed over the last decade. From Rooney’s metatarsal to the politics of staging the London Olympics or the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, sports journalism has grown in profile and importance.”
The book examines the commercialisation of sport and the impact this is having on sports journalism and looks at the growing relationship between public relations and journalism. It also considers the gendered nature of the industry and the impact of digital technology on professional practice.
Lesley Pollock
Media Relations Manager
(01786) 467058
For further information:
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Professor Raymond Boyle University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA UK |
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| > | Tel: +44 (0)7884448423 |
Poles Apart
Date released: Monday 10 July 2006
University of Stirling environmental and ecological scientists will be heading off to the Arctic and the Antarctic during the International Polar Year (2007-8) thanks to grants worth a total of £600,000 from the UK Natural Environment Research Council.
Dr Philip Wookey, Reader in Ecosystem Science, is an expert in the ecology of the Arctic and will be leading a team investigating the decomposition of organic matter in soils in the Arctic and how this process, which releases carbon dioxide as a natural by-product, is affected by environmental change. Meanwhile Head of the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Professor David Hopkins will be working in the remote regions of the Antarctic where environmental conditions are extremely harsh because of the low temperatures and dryness.
Dr Wookey noted: “The polar regions are predicted to undergo the most rapid climatic changes as a result of the greenhouse effect, and the organisms that inhabit them may also be especially vulnerable to change. Another frequently ignored issue is that the Arctic stores enormous amounts of carbon in soils. There are real concerns that much of this carbon could end up in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, which are both powerful greenhouse gases”.
The International Polar Year (http://www.ipy.org) is an initiative by the worldwide science community to work intensively on the specific environmental questions in Polar Regions, in particular how these extreme and remote parts of the Earth are both reacting to, and contributing to, environmental changes, such as climate change.
Lesley Pollock
Media Relations Manager
(01786) 467058
For further information:
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Dr Philip Wookey University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA UK |
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| > | Tel: +44 (0)1786 467804 |
Poetry Meets Politics at Stirling
Date released: Monday 10 July 2006
More than 240 poets and speakers from across the globe will gather at the University of Stirling this week for a conference dedicated to Poetry and Politics (13-16 July 2006). Readings will be given by a diverse range poets, from the literary great Adrienne Rich to the distinctive Jamaican-style dub poet and reggae artist Linton Kwesi Johnson.
Adrienne Rich’s poetry and prose are taught in literature, creative writing, gender and gay studies courses across the country and abroad. She has said that her poetry seeks to create a dialectical relationship between “the personal, or lyric voice, and the so-called political – really the voice of the individual speaking not just to herself, or to a beloved friend, but to and from a collective, a social realm.”
Reggae poet Linton Kwesi Johnson came to the UK in 1963 from Jamaica. While still at school he joined the Black Panthers and helped to organise a poetry workshop with the movement. Speaking of the equal rights struggle, Johnson said: “My choice of language was political. I saw poetry as a weapon in our struggle for black liberation.” In 1970s he was awarded a fellowship to become the writer-in-residence for a London borough and had his first poems published in the journal Race Today. In the 1980s he launched his own reggae record label and in 2002 became the first living poet and the first black poet to have his work published in Penguin’s modern classic series, under the title Mi Revalueshanary Fren: Selected Poems.
Other poets and plenaries include: Moniza Alvi, Eavan Boland, Marilyn Hacker, David Norbook, Deryn Rees-Jones and Jo Shapcott. Delegates will debate a range of subjects from ‘Unlawful Politics in Contemporary Israeli Poetry’ to ‘Poetry and Political Dissent after September 11, 2001’.
Lesley Pollock
Media Relations Manager
(01786) 467058
For further information:
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Professor Glennis Byron University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4LA UK |
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| > | Tel: +44 (0)1786 467509 |