Impacting policy in the music and screen industries

Our research focuses on impacting policy in the music and screen industries and draws on our expertise in practice-based and applied research. Our mission is to: 

  • produce research that stimulates innovation and economic growth in the music and screen industries
  • to promote social justice, diversity and opportunity.

PRISM’s focus on music and screen is rooted in the University's history. We are based in the building once occupied by the Ealing Technical College and School of Art attended by Freddie Mercury, Ronnie Wood and Pete Townshend.

It is rooted in our world-class expertise in music scholarship and teaching at the London College of Music, founded in 1887, and is one of the leading music and performing arts institutions in the UK.

It is also located in our world-class scholarship and teaching in film. We validate a range of courses at the Met Film School which is based in Ealing Studios, opposite our St Mary’s Road site - the oldest continuously running film and television studio in England founded in 1902.

Our research draws together expertise from four core research groups and networks at the University.

‘Performing Recovery’ knowledge exchange led by Dr Cathy Sloan

Man dancing on a dark stage with his arms extended looking away from the camera. White text says: addiction recovery arts network launch.

On 8 September 2022, London College of Music (UWL) hosted a ‘Performing Recovery’ knowledge exchange event to launch the Addiction Recovery Arts Network. Across the day, addiction recovery arts organisations and artists-in-recovery from across the UK shared examples of practice to an invited audience. This included music, dance, theatre, drama workshops and film, providing guests with an experience of the unique practices of recovery-engaged arts.

This event was supported by the UWL knowledge exchange seed fund and match funded by Theatre Royal Plymouth. The project lead, Dr Cathy Sloan, specialises in addiction recovery arts practice research and is course leader of BA Applied Theatre.

Mykaell Riley IASPM Keynote: "Who's Telling Your Story?"

A screenshot of the online discussion for the keynote in the first session (on Multiculturalism and Diaspora) of the 15th UK & Ireland branch conference of IASPM.

The online discussion for the keynote in the first session (on Multiculturalism and Diaspora) of the 15th UK & Ireland branch conference of IASPM.

This conference was hosted online by the University of West London and this event was at 6pm​ UK time on 19 May 2020.

Research projects

Gender and Work

This is a network of researchers and PhD students at UWL looking at the relationship between gender, technology and work with particular emphasis on the creative industries.

Screen Industries

This research looks at sectors of the screen industries which have been overlooked in most existing work on the film and television industry: advertising, music video and photography.

  • Filmmakers of Screen Advertising

    • Researcher:  Professor Emily Caston
    • Funding body: The British Academy
    • Project dates: 5 April 2021 to 30 June 2022
    • Industry Partner: The Advertising Producers’ Association

    Summary

    Commercials made for television, cinema and the internet have been a controversial but also celebrated part of popular culture discourse in Britain. Yet very little is known about the filmmakers who create them.

    This research project looks at the community of filmmakers employed by specialist film and television companies, many set up in the 1960s following the launch of commercial TV in Britain in 1955. The project investigates the history of this community through the narrative of its little-known professional association, the Advertising Producers' Association.

    Since its launch, the Association has fought for improvements in diversity, education and training, and social responsibility - acting often as a progressive and radical force within advertising.

    This work represents part of Caston’s ongoing research into the ‘hidden screen industries’ in Britain, and the results will be published in a forthcoming book with Routledge.

  • Minority Representation in Screen Advertising

    Sally's research is based around ethical visual representation in advertising, in particular martial arts representational discourse in British advertising.

    She has published and acted as Co-editor for a Special Issue on ‘Advertising China’ for Journalism Media and Cultural Studies (JOMEC).

    Sally recently published a journal article on martial arts in British advertising, and is in the final stages of her PhD. She was also reviewer for Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture’s special issue on ‘Advertising for the Human Good’.

  • The Voice in Advertising Industry

    In this research, award-winning producer Pam Myers conducts a critical exploration of advertising voiceover production in the United Kingdom radio market from 2000.

    The research focuses on the casting and production of voiceovers. This project will produce an expanded account of the domain in which radio advertising is produced, foregrounding the lived experience of stakeholders.

    Pam Myers started her advertising career at Saatchi & Saatchi London. As well as being a Cannes Gold, Silver and Bronze Radio & Audio Lions winner in 2018, Myers served on the Cannes Radio Jury 2015 and 2019.

    She is Creative Director of Rorschach Radio, producing commercials and audio content for the UK’s largest advertisers and agencies and has been lecturing at UWL since 2015.

    Myers P., (2015) “From bladder stones to brand sound”, New Vistas 1(2). 

  • Advertising Industry

    Professor Emily Caston is conducting research on the British advertising industry that evolved in the last 50 years, as a distinctive sector of the independent film and television industry cluster in Soho, London.

    The research is being conducted in collaboration with the Advertising Producers Association and will be published in a forthcoming book for Routledge (2022).

  • Music Video Industry

    Professor Emily Caston is conducting research on the global music video industry, contributing a chapter on to Paul McDonald’s The Routledge Companion to Media Industries (forthcoming, 2021), serving as the editor of a new Cambridge Companion to Music Video, and as a regular contributor to the Sky Arts series, Video Killed the Radio Star.

    Her research focuses on music video canon and genres outside Europe and the USA, particularly on political protest videos in nation-states.

  • Drawing, Dancing and Dreaming: Presenting Fifty Years of Innovation in British Music Videos on the Global Stage

    Illustrative banner showing student work

    A Follow-on Funding grant was awarded to Professor Emily Caston by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) to take curated programmes of British Music Videos on a world tour (2017-2019).

    It involved a series of workshop collaborations with the Danza Contemporanea de Cuba, Cuba rapper / hip hop artist Telmary Diaz and British music video director WIZ in Cuba in May 2018.

    Read more about Drawing, Dancing and Dreaming.

  • British Music Video: Assessing Industry, Influence and Impact 1966-2016

    close-up of the equaliser section of a high-end mixing desk

    In 2015, an Arts and Humanities Research Council award was made to a team of researchers led by Professor Emily Caston and Professor Justin Smith to examine the history of British music video since the 1960s.

    The project ran 2015-2018 and was conducted in partnership with the British Film Institute.

    A summary of the work and all of the outputs of the research (three journal special issues, a monograph and a limited edition DVD of 200 landmark music videos) can be found on the British Film Institute (BFI) website.

    Read more about British Music Video: Assessing Industry, Influence and Impact 1966-2016 .

  • Colourful World: A Game for Sustainable Development Education for Children

    An Erasmus-funded project with 6 European partners.

    • Duration: 2018 – 2021
    • Project value: €264,423
    • Project Co-Ordinator: Jeremy Strong

    UWL is the lead institution for this project which will create a computer learning game to support the education of sustainable development for children aged 6 – 10 and to raise their interest in STEM in formal and informal learning contexts.

    The goal is to raise environmentally-conscious European citizens, knowledgeable about sustainability challenges, and ready to act and contribute to sustainable European and global societies.

  • Aesthetics, Industry and Innovation in Twentieth Century Photography: The Ilford Archive

    AHRC-funded research project on the Ilford Photography Archive awarded to Professor Michelle Henning to run 2018-2019, value £103,564.

  • Research and Design for PJ Harvey's the Hope Six Demolition Project

    Artwork courtsey of Dr Michelle Henning

    Professor Michelle Henning researched and produced designs for PJ Harvey's album ‘The Hope Six Demolition Project’ (Island Records).

    The project was a visual response to the music and benefited from a collaborative relationship with the artist.

    Read more about Research and Design for PJ Harvey's the Hope Six Demolition Project.

Music

Research in music comprises a number of strands: practice as research in composition and recording, musicology, record production, and performance research.

  • Rhythm Symposium

    Rhythm Symposium is a study day dedicated to rhythm in composition, performance and theory, encompassing a conference of academic talks, lecture-recitals, and live performances.

  • Haptic Authoring Pipeline for the Production of Immersive Experiences (HAPPIE)

    A diagram of an audio user map

    In 2019, Innovate UK (part of the new UK Research and Innovation group) awarded £1 million to the “HAPPIE” project (Haptic Authoring Pipeline for the Production of Immersive Experiences).

    This project is being conducted by a consortium comprising Generic Robotics Ltd, Numerion Software Ltd, Science Museum Group, Sliced Bread Animation, Open University and the University of West London.

     Principal Investigator; Professor Justin Paterson

    Find out more about the HAPPIE project.

  • Classical Music Hyper-Production and Practice

    AHRC funded Classical Music Hyper-Production and Practice As Research project.

    • Principle Investigator - Professor Simon Zagorski-Thomas
    • Run - 2015,
    • Value - £40,101.
  • Performance in the Recording Studio

    AHRC funded Performance in the Recording Studio Research project.

    • Principle Investigator - Professor Simon Zagorski-Thomas
    • Run - 2012-2013
    • Value - £35,561
  • Innovation in Music

    The Innovation in Music conference is a European music industry conference bringing together researchers and professionals alike who are interested in the future of the music industry, from the artist through to the consumer.

    It was co-founded in 2013 by Professor Justin Paterson with a scope that included innovations in music: creation, technology, production and business, through to sound engineering, games music, post-production and particularly cross-disciplinary themes.

    The 2019 conference was held at the University of West London and chaired by Paterson and showcased a world first in remote performance.

  • The Interactive Album App

    Two shoppers at a record stall looking at records

    In 2014, Professor of Music Production Justin Paterson was awarded £80,000 funding, in collaboration with Professor Rob Toulson from Anglia Ruskin University, Director of its Cultures of the Digital Economy (CoDE) research institute.

    The research was funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) via its 'Digital Transformations' theme to a total value of £80,000.

    The project investigated the app as a potential album-release format of the future with algorithmically controlled playback to ‘automatically remix’ the music live, to lure the consumer away from the ‘single-track download’ mentality.

    Find out more about The Interactive Album App 

  • The Commercialisation of Interactive Music

    A young musician pictured using a DAW in a music studio

    In 2015, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded a follow-on research project called The Commercialisation of Interactive Music, led by Professor Justin Paterson – this time releasing music from several international Warner Music Group artists in the variPlay format.

    Find out more about variPlay.

  • Towards a Paradigm of New Musical Performance

    UWL seed funding provided Professor Justin Paterson with the chance to collaborate with Swedish innovator Håkan Lidbo in 2018.

    The work was to model traditional Swedish musical instruments from the Swedish Museum of Performing Arts in virtual reality, and allow users to easily interact with them and play algorithmic music via authentic recordings of the actual museum instruments in an ensemble of other such traditional instruments from the collection.

  • 21st Century Music Research Practice Network

    A singer records vocals in a recording studio using a pop shield in front of the mic

    The London and SE 21st Century Music Practice Research Network was established by Professor Simon Zagorski-Thomas of the University of West London in the summer of 2016.

    The aim was to encourage and disseminate research and scholarly collaboration that includes all areas of contemporary musical activity. In particular the network aimed to stimulate discourse between disciplines: bringing together scholars from popular music, musical theatre, performance studies, music for visual media, recording, electronic and electroacoustic music, live sound, ethnomusicology and composition to discuss broad themes that are relevant across subject boundaries. 

    Find out more about 21st Century Music Research Practice Network 

  • Joy Division and New Order

    Mike Exarchos, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in the London College of Music has conducted research on British bands Joy Division and New Order.

    Beginning 22 October 2020, the eight part pod-cast series ‘Transmissions: The Definitive Story’ featured Dr Mike Exarchos and also exclusive interviews with the band; Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert and Peter Hook, plus contributions from iconic guests and narrated by Maxine Peake.

    ‘Transmissions: The Definitive Story’ podcast was available from 29 October 2020 via Spotify, Apple Music, and Youtube, Amazon Music.

  • The Music Room

    The Cuban Music Room and the UWL Music Room (UWL seed funding £3,000, UWL University Teaching fellow Funding £700).

    The Music Rooms are low-tech immersive music systems created by Professor Sara McGuinness and Professor Simon Zagorski-Thomas in conjunction with a team of Cuban academics and practitioners.

    It provides in-depth access to performances set within their ‘home’ settings at a relatively low cost.

    A pilot recording of top Cuban rumba group ‘Los Muñequitos de Matanzas’ has been displayed with great success. Just before COVID-19 lockdown, they began work with UWL staff and students on a UWL based version of the project. They also captured a performance of acclaimed British Jazz trumpeter Byron Wallen and his Hurricane Bells project, creating music inspired by bells cast to the coordinates of Hurricane Katrina as it headed towards New Orleans. 

  • The Phantom of the Opera

    Robert Sholl has been involved in a practice-based research project on the Phantom of the Opera.

    A podcast of some of his improvision is on YouTube. The full ten episodes will include original music in late-nineteenth century style (three arias and one opera scene performed using a period piano) which he composed plus some further improvisations. The podcast was produced by Dr Leslie McMurtry at Salford University.

     

PhD research projects

  • The Transparent Womb: Gestational Labour, Reproductive Technologies, and the Politics of Visual Culture (working title)

    • PhD student - Holly Isard (Wellcome funded)
    • Principal Supervisor - Dr Helen Hester

    Using social reproduction theory as a framework, this project starts from the position that all gestation can be thought through a lens of labour.

    Framed around a number of case studies gathered from UK-based archives, it will explore the gendered and racialised politics of the visual representation of historical and emerging reproductive technologies, and the effect of this representation on the cultural imagination.

    Find out more about this project

  • Spatial Labour and the Politics of Place in Revolutionary Rojava (working title)

    • PhD student - Charlotte Grace (Bursary)
    • Principal Supervisor - Dr Helen Hester

    This project explores the sociospatial particularities of the Kurdish struggle for self-determination in Rojava, Northern Syria, which centres feminist, anti-colonial and ecological principles.

    Through this site I am developing the concept of Spatial Labour as a way to visibilise gendered labour practices done with and through space, thereby contributing to existing feminist and sociospatial discourse both in the region and elsewhere.

  • Embodied Emotions and Collective Struggle: Hashtag Feminism as Digital Consciousness-raising in Brazil (working title)

    • PhD student - Gabriela Loureiro
    • Principal Supervisor - Dr Helen Hester

    My thesis explores the emotional work of online disclosure in two hashtags that went viral in Brazil in 2015 (#FirstHarassment and #MySecretFriend).

    The hashtags are interpreted as digital forms of consciousness-raising that made use of narratives about emotions and the body to raise awareness about gendered violence (#FirstHarassment) and irony and the pleasures of revenge to seek accountability in informal and non-punitive ways (#MySecretFriend).

  • Communicating a New Economic Paradigm: Deconstructing Hegemonic Narratives Around Economic Growth and Creating a New Frame for the Steady State Economy (working title)

    • PhD student - James Palmer
    • Principal Supervisor - Dr Helen Hester

    This research project will look at the entrenched hegemonic idea that economic growth is inherently good, studying how this consumerist ideology has been communicated since the rise of neoliberalism and how it might be challenged in the face of the climate crisis.

    The aim of the project is to formulate practical recommendations for the communication of alternative economic models where endless growth is not a desired outcome, particularly the steady state economy.

  • An Investigation of Martial Arts Representation in British TV, Film and Advertising from the 1960s-1990s (working title)

    • PhD student - Sally Chan
    • Principal Supervisor - Professor Emily Caston

    This study uncovers how the portrayals of Chinese on TV and film may have attributed to their subsequent stereotyping on British TV commercials during the 1960s to 1990s, focusing on the influence of martial arts tropes in TV and film.

  • The Revealed Soul; A Critical Exploration of Advertising Voiceover Production in the United Kingdom Radio Market from 2000 (working title)

    • PhD student - Pam Myers
    • Principal Supervisor - Professor Emily Caston

    This project will produce an expanded account of the domain in which radio advertising is produced, foregrounding the lived experience of stakeholders.

    In particular, this research will focus on the casting and production of voiceovers, the unseen speakers who represent the characteristics and personality of the advertiser; the revealed soul of the product or service for whom they speak. The research will document the culture and business practice of not only advertising agencies but also of their suppliers (the voice artist agents, studio engineers and the voice artists themselves) and interrogate the extent to which their individual roles have a demonstrable influence on the voices we hear represented in radio commercials.

PRISM Partnerships

The logo for Recording Academy Grammy Music

The University of West London has been named an official university affiliate of the iconic Los Angeles-based GRAMMY Museum®. The partnership is co-ordinated by the Policy and Practice Research Institute for Screen and Music. Read about our affiliation with the GRAMMY Museum.

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