Women, Ageing and Media - AHRC funded Research Networks and Workshops Project

Women, Ageing and Media - Included in the AHRC's Impact Task Force Report (2009) as a good example of impact. The report is seen by UK MP’s, civil servants, senior academics and other stakeholders.

The Women, Ageing and Media (WAM) research group has secured Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funding to run a series of workshops and an international conference in order to conduct a sustained investigation into proliferating print and screen representations of older women.

With this shared research agenda the research group has identified a significant gap in knowledge regarding the relationship between older women as consumers, producers and subjects of media. Within the context of the AHRC's funded stream New Dynamics of Ageing it is timely that the research group should network with scholars nationally and internationally working in this and related areas.

One of its innovative features is its aim to link academics from different cultural and intellectual backgrounds and to position emerging research on 'older women' in media and cultural studies alongside established research in healthcare policy, gerontology, economics, social care and sociology that dominates existing knowledge.

 

Each workshop event was designed to involve a mix of newer and more established scholars. The final element was an international conference in December 2008, which brought together the participants of the workshops with a selection of international scholars.

WAM is comprised of academics from the University of Gloucestershire, the University of York and the University of the West of England and is now collaborating with colleagues at the Universitat Graz, Austria. The project also includes involvement with the University of the Third Age.

 

 

The Principal Investigator is Dr Ros Jennings (University of Gloucestershire) and the co-investigators are: Dr Joanne Garde-Hansen (University of Gloucestershire), Dr Josephine Dolan (UWE), Dr Kristyn Gorton (University of York) and Dr Sherryl Wilson (UWE). For more information on the team go to Who's Who.