Project Title: From Pen to Print: Tracing the Evolution of Poverty Narratives in The Times Over Centuries
Principle Investigator: Dr. Ran Tao, Co-Investigator: Dr. Jin Zheng, Co-Investigator: Prof. Adrian R. Bell
Project Summary: The project analysed The Times newspaper articles from 1875 to 2012 – 18,521 articles in total – having first used Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to convert article files in PDF format to editable and readable text. The project team was then able to chart the frequency of certain poverty-relevant terms used within the newspaper articles using ‘topic modelling analysis’ and machine learning. There were 8 different terms searched for including “Workhouse Conditions”, “Unemployment”, “Poor Relief” and “Child Poverty”. For the original aims and abstract of the project please refer to our Seedcorn projects page.
Project Findings: The project reported that “Among the eight different topics, we find that the topic of ‘Workhouse Conditions’ was mainly discussed in the 19th century, whereas the ‘Unemployment’ topic became prominent in the 20th century, as it was recognized as one of the main structural factors linking to poverty. We also observed an increasing trend in discussions of “Poor Relief” during the 20th century.
To further understand the determinants of ‘Unemployment’ and ‘Government Policies’ newspaper coverage, respectively, we performed an Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression analysis. The results show that the time-series variation in ‘Unemployment’ articles is positively associated with the past 12-month cumulative returns of the UK equity index, after controlling for the past 1-month return, past 12-month stock return volatility, recession periods, and year-fixed effects. This suggests that journalists’ coverage of economic-related topics largely depends on macroeconomic conditions. However, we did not find any interesting pattern between the number of ‘Government Policies’ articles and UK political party turnover.
One of the biggest challenges we have is that poor print quality has resulted in a large number of OCR-converted words being unrecognizable. For example, ‘I wouldnotba iqwita him to conne to my house,’ which probably means ‘I wouldn't invite him to come to my house.’ This issue frequently occurs in the early samples of our textual data and prevents us from conducting further textual analysis (may have affected our topic modelling accuracy).”
The Future for the Project: The next step for the project will be to potentially use AI to fix OCR issues and increase the number of readable articles that can be used in the project. The project team will also look further into what poverty terms and determinants would be useful to analyse to shed further light on the role of the media in poverty narratives.
Project Title: Developing A Net-Zero Vulnerability Index for the UK
Principle Investigator: Dr. Ed Atkins, Co-Investigator: Dr Sean Fox, Co-Investigator: Dr Caitlin Robinson, Co-Investigator: Professor Martin Parker
Project Summary: Those affected by the transition to net zero in terms of employment will be people currently working in the fossil fuels sector and related positions, as well those working in high emission industries, for example, some manufacturing and building construction businesses. Therefore, the project focused on a way of developing a vulnerability index and ranking system to identify local authorities most at risk of net zero’s economic consequences as jobs transition between now and 2050. For the original aims and abstract of the project please refer to our Seedcorn projects page.
Project Findings: The project reported the following - “This project developed a net-zero vulnerability index (NZVI) to reveal the people and places that are most at risk of experiencing negative economic shocks in the transition to net-zero … The novelty of this work is found in how our NZVI is made up of four core components: Complexity, Relatedness, Reliance, and Population: each highlighting core points of vulnerability and resilience of local economies to net zero’s economic consequences. Advantages of this approach are via a focus on not just the vulnerability to an economic shock (characterising previous research) but on determining the resilience of the local economy: its ability to bounce back, refocus and provide new jobs for those affected. In doing so, we have identified several LADs as particularly vulnerable:
These LADs a broader geography across the UK and are reliant upon a variety of sectors. However, key themes do emerge: first, many are found in old industrial areas that suffered previous economic shocks driven by deindustrialisation. Second, many are located within existing Combined Authority areas.
A challenge encountered is the need for more funding for DI time to support Tom in subsequent impact work and the development of materials for dissemination listed in our initial proposal. This is due to the constraints of previous funding and the time required of Tom to develop the NZVI. To remedy the challenge defined above, we are submitting a proposal for ESRC IAA Seedcorn funding to secure additional funding for Tom to work with Ed and develop materials for dissemination and impact.”
The Future for the Project: The project reported the following - “Findings have been shared with policy-makers in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government and the Department for Business and Trade to support current policy-design, as well as the think-tank IPPR. The sharing of preliminary findings have created important conversations and opportunities for collaboration and sharing work directly in a policy-making setting. The methodology used in the creation of the NZVI created can be adapted to include sectors at risk of automation and the rise of artificial intelligence, allowing further reach.
Our next steps, with ESRC IAA funding, are to fulfil the outputs defined in our initial application to BPI. These are to develop an interactive geo-spatial map of Britain according to the NZVI: highlighting key regional and local variations in vulnerability and resilience, to be published online alongside a PolicyBristol briefing summarising key findings. We will also develop an illustrative slide-pack with visualisations to be distributed to central government and Combined Authorities: highlighting key findings and methodological underpinnings.
An important outcome of this work has been capacity building: supporting Tom’ development [Tom Cantellow, the Research Assistant on the project] as a researcher within a broader, interdisciplinary research team pursuing research impact. We will also write-up this work in an academic journal article, with Tom as lead author.
Lastly, this work will also support next steps for Ed Atkins in developing a research programme in this area through a proposal to the ESRC Responsive Call, which will adopt longitudinal and qualitative research methods in several key sites of emergent green work in south-west England. Ed will also use NZVI findings to develop collaborations with the Jean Golding Institute via their Seedcorn Funding call to develop travel-to-work area visualisations of vulnerable areas identified by Tom’s work.”
Both projects recently presented these findings at our Seedcorn showcase event, which you can read about and see pictures from via our showcase blog post!
Interested in applying for BPI Seedcorn funding? Please visit our Seedcorn funding page to find out more about the 2024-25 academic year call.