The Media School

'Keeping it Real' with the latest media

10 September 2010

Bournemouth University’s ‘Keeping it Real’ symposium examined the role of narratives within politics, social media and broadcast to inform and engage audiences.

The Narrative Research Group’s symposium drew academics together from as far afield as Germany, to share their thoughts on narratives of ordinary and extraordinary people.

Discussions included material from Victorian England, social networking tool Twitter, popular television show Come Dine With Me, the internet, political manifestos and much more.

Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Literature, Dr Bronwen Thomas was one of the event organisers. She said: “I think the theme really captured people's imaginations and brought people together from disciplines that rarely come into contact with one another.”

Dr Ruth Page from Leicester University presented a study of celebrity stories on Twitter. Ruth examined the use of episodic narratives as well as explaining how celebrities create temporal ambiguity on the popular social media site.

Dr Darren Lilleker’s talk, ‘Wondrous stories: Political narrative and political marketing,’ looked closely at the different types of narratives used in the Conservatives’ manifesto for the May general election, and compared this with David Cameron’s speech in July 2010.

The event closed with a performance of ‘Little Boy’; a piece by Bournemouth University’s scriptwriter in residence, John Foster, whose credits include Z-Cars, Emmerdale and The Bill. This captivating monologue told the story of one of the pilots who dropped the Hiroshima bomb.

Dr Thomas added: “We're hoping to run a follow up event in the spring, in the meantime we will continue with our programme of research seminars, including speakers from within and outside the university.”