In the news
Dr Richard
Howells of the Institute of Communications Studies was
a studio guest on BBC Radio 4’s The Message. The
discussion focused on researchers attempts to divide the
digital TV audience into six distinct tribes. According
to Dr Howells this is a "huge over-simplification".
After giving up television for Lent, Dr Richard Howells
was back on Radio 4 to discuss how he coped without the
medium closest to his heart. Dr Howell’s experiences were
reported in a diary on the BBC website. After the first
week he appeared to struggling, when he wrote: "I
feel like a man who hasn’t gone outside while everyone
else is talking about the weather. I’m not sure what I’m
missing, but I’ll bet it’s brilliant." However Dr
Howells said that throughout the fast he hadn’t cheated!
The Yorkshire
Evening Post reported the opening of the new £500,000
disability centre, as featured in Reporter 464. Head of
Disability Services Judith Russell said, "We now
have twice the national average of disabled students studying
here. Our new centre will enable us to extend the scope
and quality of these services significantly."
Leeds Neurosurgeon
Nick Philips at the LGI received local press interest
for a new £1m website which uses virtual reality to help
doctors train on the Internet. The site, created by Dr
Philips using an EC grant, could revolutionise the training
of neurosurgeons by providing on-line demonstrations of
virtual operations.
Plans to increase
the number of student doctors in West Yorkshire from Asian
backgrounds was covered in the Yorkshire Evening Post.
A new £1m scheme will create a course in which medical
students start on clinical sciences studies at Bradford
University and transfer to medical school after a year
(see page 3).
Jacqui Brown
from the Postgraduate Admissions Department appeared in
the Mail on Sunday highlighting the advantages
of postgraduate study. As the workplace gets more competitive
and more students than ever gain degrees, the use of postgraduate
courses to advance studies is growing. According to Jacqui,
"Postgraduate study places great importance on the
development of transferable skills such as communication,
analysis, problem solving and teamwork. They also give
students excellent networking opportunities."
Dr David Gauntlett
has been causing a storm down under after a national newspaper,
The Australian featured information about his website
www.theory.org.uk
The award-winning site turns intellectual figures, such
as Germaine Greer, into action figures and trading cards.
According to Dr Gauntlett, "Making action figures
of serious social theorists is probably the silliest thing
you can do with them. But at the same time it raises their
profile to an audience who enjoy silly websites more than
they enjoy books with titles such as Modernity and Self-Identity.
