Information School News

University of Sheffield Information School PhD student Wasim Ahmed was interviewed by BBC Radio Sheffield on Thursday 20th of January on Rony Robinson’s  'Baring All' feature. Wasim’s talk centred on overcoming social anxiety, and the excellent support services at the University of Sheffield, and about his PhD.  Wasim noted that if students were struggling with mental health that there is support available, and that the university is here to support its students.  The interview is available here , and begins at the 1 hour 35 minute mark.

Dr Paul Reilly and Dr Elisa Serafinelli organised a workshop with colleagues from  Euro-Med Seismological Centre (EMSC)  in Paris on 10th January, as part of the Horizon 2020 funded project IMPROVER. Delegates from organisations such as SNCF and VISOV were invited to give their views on the role of social media in disaster response. Thanks to Grigore Havarneanu and the International Union of Railways (UIC) for hosting, and for Laura Petersen and Laure Fallou for their facilitation of the focus group. 

Dr Giuliana Tiripelli has joined the Information School as a Research Associate . She  will work with Work Package leader Dr Paul Reilly  on the EU FP7 project ' CascEff .' Giuliana will help develop educational resources for the project and will also be responsible for co-authoring peer-reviewed outputs. We would like to welcome her to the Information School and look forward to working with her over the next seven months.

Doctoral student, Wasim Ahmed , recently delivered a 3 hour workshop at Leeds Becket University. The event was a part of the British Sociological Association (BSA) Digital Sociology group. Wasim is a member of the Social Media Research Foundation , and a specialist in Social Network Analysis. The event turned out to be ex tremely popular which attendees from academia and industry, and the feedback was very positive.

We are pleased to announce the publication of Politics, Protest, Emotion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. A Book of Blogs, which Dr Paul Reilly co-edited with Anastasia Veneti (Bournemouth University) and Dimitrinka Atanasova (Queen Mary, University of London). The origins of this book of blogs can be traced back to “ Politics, Emotion and Protest, ” an interdisciplinary workshop co-hosted by Bournemouth University’s Centre for Politics and Media Research and Civic Media Hub, the Department of Media & Communication at University of Leicester, the Politics and Media Group of the Political Studies Association, and the Protest Camps Research Network . This event, held on 9-10 July 2015, brought together researchers from a variety of disciplines in order to discuss the intersections between power, politics and emotions. The publication features contributions from 37 academics from across the globe. It presents a range of disciplinary perspectives on politics and emotions, including t...

Our Senior Lecturer in Social Media & Digital Society Dr Paul Reilly has written an article entitled “Is the medium more important than the message? Communicating with disaster affected populations in the Information Age”for the publication France Forum, which was published last month (December 2016). The article (published in French) can be viewed below:

Information School MA Librarianship graduate (1994) Ciara Eastell has been awarded an OBE in the New Years Honours list, for services to public libraries in Exeter and Devon. Ciara is the Chief Executive of Libraries Unlimited, a new social enterprise running libraries across Devon, and is the former President of the Society of Chief Librarians. She was the first librarian to achieve a place on the Clore Leadership Programme. Read more at the Exeter Express & Echo here .