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April 2010

John Law joins CRESC

Professor John Law is joining CRESC in April 2010. Following Tony Bennett’s departure, John is moving from Lancaster to the Chair of Sociology at the Open University. He’ll be working closely with OU colleagues Marie Gillespie and Sophie Watson as a CRESC Centre Director, and he’ll be convening the new Social Life of Method (SLOM) research theme with Evelyn Ruppert and Mike Savage.

29 September 2009

An alternative report on UK banking reform Experts propose and the public mood supports banking reforms more radical than those proposed by the Labour government and the Conservative opposition. This report explains this gap:
• The key political obstacles to reform stem from the influence of the distributive coalition in and around the City of London which has co-opted the political leadership of both major parties.
• The ‘distributive coalition’ pursues regulatory closure and narrows policy choice by constructing a narrative about the social value of finance which ignores the costs of bail out and exaggerates job creation.

The report then presents a radical analysis of what went wrong in banking before the financial crisis and identifies:
• The problem of “banking for itself” as retail and wholesale banking fused into a giant ‘transaction generating machine’ which benefited senior wholesale bankers in a kind of joint venture with shareholders.
• How the pre-2007 result was the wrong kind of credit and debt which inflated asset prices unsustainably rather than generated any increase of resources from debt could be repaid.

It ends by proposing more democratic control of finance:
• Reverse the policy bias towards finance by engineering a smaller, safer wholesale sector and installing a new kind of retail regulator to curb “selling to” households.
• Add a vision of what a different kind of finance could and should do to address fundamental issues about how to create jobs in a low carbon economy and how to support retirement for all.

The report is organised into six sections. The main findings are summarised below and keyed to specific pages and exhibits: The undemocratic influence of the distributive coalition is demonstrated by
analysis of the Bischoff and Wigley reports on City competitiveness. Here “finance reports on finance” by pitching a story about the many benefits of finance:
• The Bischoff group collectively had 662 years of work experience and 75% of those years had been spent in City occupations or servicing City needs. (p. 24)
• Wigley called expert witnesses but 90% of its witnesses came from finance or consultancy with revenue links to finance. (p. 25)
• Earlier public inquiries into finance from the Macmillan Committee of 1931 to the Wilson Committee of 1980 had all been pluralist and open. (pp. 26- 27)

The City’s story about the social value of finance works by exaggeration and the selective use of evidence:
• Tax revenues from the finance sector are offset by the costs of bank and market bailouts. On our calculations, £203 billion in taxes over five years up to 2006/7, against the costs of the UK bailout which is £289-£1,183 billion according to the IMF. (pp. 32-33)
• The whole finance sector directly employs no more than 1 million workers (mainly in retail) and numbers employed did not increase in the boom years. Indirect employment in consultancy, accounting and law adds no more than an extra half million or so. (pp. 35-36)
• Retail banks control employment costs and numbers while the business model and the geographical clustering of wholesale activity concentrates rather than diffuses employment opportunities. (p. 37)

Banking has become an industry that operates “for itself” and generates unsustainable shareholder value:
• Finance and insurance generated more than 30% of FTSE 100 profits in the bubble years when British banks had ROEs of 15-25%. (pp. 42-43)
• Through financial innovation senior wholesale bankers could increase transactions and turnover as the comp ratio gave them an average 45% of net turnover. (p. 46)
• Retail was about mass marketing as performance pay for disposable white collar workers on the high street provided incentives to sell to retail customers. (p. 50)

What should be done? If banking reform is to succeed, it will only do so by building a democratic political alliance for reform which makes immediate demands that are intelligible and actionable:
i. Top slice the lump of revenue now allocated to the senior wholesale workforce under the comp ratio. (p. 54)
ii. De-risk the sector by simplifying wholesale and explicitly engineering shorter transaction chains. (p. 55)
iii. Shrink the sector by reversing the long standing policy bias in favour of finance. (p. 55)
iv. Introduce a new kind of regulator in retail, broadly advised by a retail banking committee drawing on the expertise of SMEs, Trade Unions and NGOs. (p. 56)

Finally the report presents a mobilising vision of how sustainable finance could address problems about creating jobs and supporting retirement by applying credit to productive and socially worthwhile purposes:
During the credit boom productive business investment accounted for just 10% of GDP from 1996-2008; whilst bank lending to productive business declined sharply from 30% of all bank lending towards 10% as bank lending to financial institutions and real estate took precedence. (p. 65)

About the authors:
The report is unique because it comes from a 12 strong working group of practitioners and academics based at the ESRC funded Centre for Research in Socio Cultural Change (CRESC) at the University of Manchester. The practitioners include a venture capitalist, a manufacturing manager, a trade union
officer, a governance activist and a management journalist. The academics include the CRESC based team of researchers best known for their work on Financialization.

A copy of ‘An Alternative Report on UK Banking Reform’ can be downloaded from
the web site at http://www.cresc.ac.uk/publications/documents/AlternativereportonbankingV2.pdf

Contacts: Prof Karel Williams via and mobile 07775 514173; or Dr Adam Leaver via and
mobile 07903 666035; or Ismael Erturk mobile 07796 951788.

March 2009

The University of Manchester’s Centre for Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) is to receive another 5 years of funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

The boost of £4.5million ensures the Centre’s core funding will be renewed for a further period of five years, from 2009-2014.

CRESC, based at The University of Manchester and the Open University, is the only major British social science investment to explore issues of culture and social change.

It has developed close links with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, the BBC, the Office of National Statistics, and with private sector partners such as KPMG.

CRESC has carried out internationally acclaimed academic work including 'Culture, Class, Distinction' published by Routledge earlier this year. Carried out by Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal and David Wright, the study is  the most systematic account of people’s cultural tastes and practices in the areas of music, television and film viewing, reading, the visual arts, sport, and eating out ever conducted in the UK.

CRESC's work on financialization and financial innovation, led by Karel Williams with Ismail Erturk, Julie Froud, Adam Leaver and  Johnna Montgomerie has been prescient in the current financial crisis

CRESC has also revived the study of elites by focusing on new groups of the working rich in and around the financial markets.

As an example of CRESC's burgeoning user profile, Penny Harvey has developed a research partnership with the international design and consultancy engineers ARUP, to explore their use of 3D digital modelling in relation to the reconfiguration of urban public space.

In taking over as Chair of CRESC's Advisory Board, Professor Nigel Thrift, Vice Chancellor of Warwick, called CRESC a 'great institution'.

Prof Karel Williams, of Manchester Business School, taking over as Convening Director said: “Having established ourselves in our first five years, we now have a series of great new themes interrogating the nature of social and cultural participation,  the cultural dimensions of the current crisis of capitalism, and the role of expertise in shaping social change.

“We are pursuing these with international partners from across the globe and with leading public and private sector user groups.

"It is going to be an exciting time.”

March 2009

GENERATION 2012: THE NEW COSMOPOLITANS?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The last time the Olympics were held in Britain, in 1948, the world travelled to London to compete. Sixty years later the world, in all its diversity, is already here.

London’s GENERATION 2012, young people who will come of age in Britain at that time, but whose cultural, ethnic, religious and linguistic backgrounds span the globe, are symbolic of London’s cosmopolitan status at the start of the 21st Century. Similarly, the BBC World Service is representative of this very diversity and provides a unique prism through which to open up and examine stories of migration among the young people who make up GENERATION 2012.

To celebrate the Economic and Social Research Council’s  Festival of Social Science (6-15 March) the Open University and the BBC World Service (BBCWS) have joined forces to organise an Open Day at Bush House, the home of overseas broadcasting, for a group of 30 young Londoners who speak one of the languages broadcast by BBCWS.

In a day packed with journalistic and broadcasting activities, such as studio, interviewing and online training and visits to individual language services, this group will be challenged to examine their own sense of identity and the impact the 2012 Olympic Games will have on their lives as Londoners.

The young people of GENERATION 2012 represent a body of opinion about what it is like to grow up in Britain today that deserves to be heard. They, as much as anyone else, will bear witness to the challenges facing the country as the Olympics approach. The Bush House Open Day is intended to inspire and develop their ability to communicate their opinions to the rest of the world.

Media Invite

The event takes place on Friday 6 March, from 0930 at the BBC World Service, Bush House, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH. Media will be welcome to attend part or all of the event by prior arrangement with organisers.  Please contact Alban Webb (details below) for further details

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Open University:

Alban Webb on Tel: 07966 257 176, email: a.j.webb@open.ac.uk

Marie Gillespie on Tel: 07932 115 535, email: M.Gillespie@open.ac.uk

March 2009

Conference in Cumbria puts the spotlight on street art

A conference will take place in Cumbria on Friday 13th March to look at the role of street and outdoor arts in the UK.

The event Street Arts: People and Places at Play is being organised at Kendal College by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) at Manchester University.

Cumbria will be the focus of a major four-year Olympic Legacy Trust programme, with the aim of making the county the national centre of excellence for the street arts. Lakes Alive will open in May with six large scale outdoor events in each part of Cumbria and will inlcude the Mintfest international street arts festival in Kendal in August.

Dr Andrew Miles from CRESC says: “This conference will explore the phenomenon of streets and outdoor arts and consider why they have the ability to capture the public imagination.  We will also be looking at what contribution these events make to the image and identity of an area, as well as the role they can play in improving economic prosperity and the quality of life.”

The event is part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Festival of Social Science which runs from the 6th to the 15th of March.

The conference will bring together artists, producers, policy makers, researchers, local authority representatives and members of the public to debate the role of street arts. 

A small number of places at the conference are still available for members of the public.  For information contact Josine Opmeer on 0161 275 8990 or email josine.opmeer@manchester.ac.uk.  You can reigster using this LINK. To find out more about CRESC visit www.cresc.ac.uk.

Further details about Lakes Alive can be found at www.lakesalive.org.

January 2009

Available now - Class, Culture, Distinction
Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal, David Wright

London and New York: Routledge 2009

Culture, Class, Distinction is major contribution to international debates regarding the role of cultural capital in relation to modern forms of inequality. Drawing on a national study of the organisation of cultural practices in contemporary Britain, the authors review Bourdieu’s classic study of the relationships between culture and class in the light of subsequent debates.

In doing so they re-appraise the relationships between class, gender and ethnicity, music, film, television, literary, and arts consumption, the organisation of sporting and culinary practices, and practices of bodily and self maintenance. As the most comprehensive account to date of the varied interpretations of cultural capital that have been developed in the wake of Bourdieu’s work, Culture, Class, Distinction offers the first systematic assessment of the relationships between cultural practice and the social divisions of class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary Britain.

It is essential reading for anyone interested in the relationships between culture and society.

December 2008

CRESC becomes a Rapid Response Facility within the Rapid Response Research Facility Framework of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)

Following a tender process from July through to October, CRESC was invited to become a Rapid Response Facility within the Rapid Response Research Facility Framework of the DCMS in November 2008. The framework agreement will be for one year initially with the possibility of extending it for a further year.

Within this Framework CRESC is to provide the DCMS with flexible small-scale research services on issues relating to economics, social research, statistics, policy formulation and development in cultural, media and sporting sectors. The aim is to strengthen the analytical underpinning of the DCMS’ policies by providing timely and quality assured research services. The range of possible services to be rendered by CRESC will include literature reviews, data analysis and targeted small-scale fieldwork into specific topics.

Dr Andrew Miles, a senior research fellow at CRESC based at the University of Manchester will be the director of this Rapid Response Facility. The facility’s management group will also include two of the CRESC directors, Professors Mike Savage (Manchester) and Marie Gillespie, (OU),  Dr Mark Banks from the Open University, and Josine Opmeer from Manchester.

December 2008

Research Report commissioned by the Equality and Human Rights Commission published.

Mobility, careers and inequalities: a study of work-life mobility and the returns from education 

This report reviews what is known about patterns of work-life mobility for a number of key equality groups: women, ethnic minorities and disabled people.  In addition, it uses ground-breaking sequencing techniques to analyse panel survey data and demonstrate the complex patterns and range of processes that produce inequalities in work-life mobility.

The research was conducted and the report written by Anna Schroeder, Andrew Miles, Mike Savage, Susan Halford and Gindo Tampubolon on behalf of CRESC for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Research Report (December 2008) - Please click here to download the report. (PDF File)

December 2008

Press release for launch of What Is Black British Jazz? research project

Open University team awarded research grant to study Black British Jazz

A CRESC affiliated research team at The Open University has been awarded a grant of £495,643 from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a two and a half year research project. It aims to explore the question, What Is Black British Jazz?

Speaking on behalf of the team, principal investigator Dr Jason Toynbee said,

We’re absolutely delighted to win the award. It’s a terrific opportunity to document and understand this important musical genre, and the cultures from which it has emerged.

Black British Jazz (BBJ) is a hybrid with tributaries in Caribbean and African music, as well as North American jazz. We’ll be looking at it in the light of this rich history of migration. But we will also be examining the way it is organised as a business, as well as analysing recordings, performances and evolving style. One of the key issues for us concerns how the music represents black British people and identity.

The research team includes both musicologists and sociologists. However a major aim is to reach out beyond academia through broadly accessible publications and events. With this in mind, the team will be working with an independent production company to make a short film, and a project website will host podcasts, concert footage, interview material, and photographs.

The team members are:

Dr Mark Banks, Sociology

Mr Mark Doffman, Sociology

• Dr Byron Dueck, Music
• Dr Catherine Parsonage, Music
• Dr Jason Toynbee, Sociology

For further information email Jason Toynbee at j.a.toynbee@open.ac.uk or phone him on 01908 659921.

More details about the project can be found at:

July 2008

CRESC Book Series - Culture, Economy, and the Social

Available now - The Media and Social Theory
David Hesmondhalhg and Jason Toynbee (Eds.)

The Culture, Economy and the Social series aims to publish innovative contemporary, comparative and historical work on socio-cultural change. Our intention is to publish empirically-based research that works across theoretical traditions and established disciplinary approaches. We are looking for studies that critically examine the ways in which socio-cultural change is framed and made visible, and that are attentive to perspectives that tend to be ignored or side-lined by generalizing narrative tropes and theoretical positions.

9 May 2008

Launch - CRESC Journal of Cultural Economy & CRESC Public Lecture

4.30pm - The British Academy, London
for more info click here

The Journal of Cultural Economy is part of the Culture, Economy and the Social publishing programme of the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio Cultural Change (CRESC).  Its concern is with the role played by various forms of material cultural practice in the organisation of the economy and the social, and of the relations between them.  As such it will provide a unique interdisciplinary forum for work on these questions from across the social sciences and humanities.

Volume number 1 published in March 2008 Published By: Routledge Frequency: 3 issues per year Print ISSN: 1753-0350 Online ISSN: 1753-0369 Table of content Volume number 1

June 2007

Lenny’s Britain Media Report

In Lenny’s Britain, Lenny visits different parts of the country investigating the humour of each area, and meets up with people from all walks of life to find out what makes the nation laugh, what it tells us about who we are, how Britain has changed, and how that has been reflected in comedy.

There is also a more serious side to Lenny’s Britain. Marie Gillespie, Senior Lecturer in Sociology with the Open University and chief academic working on the series said: “We all tell funny stories and jokes but not all of us get a laugh. We’ll be analysing what makes a story funny and why some jokes are funny and others, not.

This is one of the biggest joke collecting projects every conducted in Britain and we’re reaching out to everyone – regardless of age, gender, class, ethnicity – to take part and help us reveal something about who we are today.

After the Joke Booth collects the jokes and stories from the public via the Joke Booth, the Open University will analyse the results and will report back on the fascinating findings.

Lenny’s Britain was broadcast on BBC One from Tuesday June 19 to Tuesday July 10 at 9.00pm. Lenny’s Britain was a BBC/Open University co-production. The Series Producer for the BBC was Kate Broome.  Executive Producer for the OU was Emma De’Ath.

“To get under the skin of the British sense of humour, The Open University has carried out a unique survey of the jokes people tell." - The Observer

“Jokes are not, it seems, purely a laughing matter. Just ask Dr Marie Gillespie of The Open University” - Radio Times

The following statistics for press and broadcast coverage, including comments from Marie Gillespie, have been recorded for Lenny’s Britain (BBC One);         

6 November 2006

Press Release : BFI commissioned report shows how ethnicity, class and education affect how we watch television and film

The BFI has today published a report highlighting how class, ethnicity and education influence the way British viewers relate to film and television and how these differences can exclude large groups of the population. It suggests we need to rethink how we communicate across our different communities as audiences are divided in their taste and understanding of British cultural programming and film.

The study was carried out by the Open University and the University of Manchester for the BFI and it says culture has always divided people as much as it has provided a basis for shared values - and film and television are no exception. The problem is not one of minority groups failing to integrate with the national culture, rather key aspects of national film and television culture offer little space for ethnic interests or identities.

Media Culture: The Social Organisation of Media Practices in Contemporary Britain took three years to research and compile and sheds valuable light on cultural practices associated with film and television and their relation to social divisions among the population in Britain today. The research was based on a statistically representative survey of the UK, focus groups, a qualitative sample of households, and a small sample of business and professional elites, as well as specifically targeted respondents from Britain's three largest ethnic groups - Indian, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean communities. It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and has been conducted by its Centre for Research on Socio-cultural Change at the Open University and the University of Manchester.

Among its key findings the report shows that, in general, members of minority ethnic groups have a strong involvement in film culture. They go more regularly to the cinema than the rest of the population and are more likely to own collections of film and video, as well as to watch film clips on the internet and access news and sports. Digital, satellite and cable television are accessed in greater proportions, although the internet is used less relative to the rest of the population.

The research also shows that ethnic groups tend to be less fond of soaps as a genre, but their responses to particular soap operas show a strong contrast between EastEnders and Coronation Street. They often prefer EastEnders and have little interest in Coronation Street. This suggests, says the report, a preference for metropolitan cosmopolitanism and a distanced relation to northern working class culture. Ethnic groups also show little liking for programmes that embody the values of 'Middle England'. This is echoed in the lack of interest in the classic signature of quality British cinema like costume dramas and literary adaptations.

Second generation migrants are also more involved with film and television culture than many other aspects of publicly funded culture in Britain.

Richard Paterson, Head of Strategic Development at the BFI, welcomed the report and said it has implications for how media organisations develop their policies to involve audiences from across the community in their activities. 'We were keen to expand the scope of this unique research project to examine how communities - particularly ethnic viewers - use film and television in their everyday lives,' he explained. 'This is an area with which we have been concerned for a number of years and these findings provide more evidence that we have to consider in developing future policies that shape all our services and activities.'

Media Culture: The Social Organisation of Media Practices in Contemporary Britain was prepared by Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal and David Wright. Tony Bennett, Professor of Sociology at the Open University, said: 'Our study shows, in unprecedented detail, how our relationships to film and television are shaped by our age, our gender, our ethnicity, our class, and our education - and it suggests new ways of looking at these than the now tired policies of social inclusion and social integration.

'Our report raises some timely issues given the current concern with the public value of television and the media in general. For these questions require that the interests of different publics be taken into account. Yet we show that media publics are significantly divided in their media tastes along class, age, ethnic and gender lines - and the challenge is to find a balance that takes account of this.'

Download a copy of the full Media, Culture and Social Organisation report. It is also on the BFI website at www.bfi.org.uk , and on the Open University website at www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/sociology/research/ccse

- ends -

Press contact: BFI Press Office
Claire O'Brien, tel: 020 7957 8993 or email: claire.obrien@bfi.org.uk
Press contact: Open University
Guy Bailey, tel: 01908 653248 or email: G.R.Bailey@open.ac.uk

Notes to Editors
BFI - There's more to discover about film and television through the BFI. Our world-renowned archive, cinemas, festivals, films, publications and learning resources are here to inspire you.

The BFI has had a longstanding concern to ensure adequate representation of Britain's culturally diverse communities in film and television. It has a strong record of intervention in this field from its early funding of the first ever feature film by a black director (Pressure by Horace Ové) and developing research into the history of black participation and representation in television (Black and White in Colour, Isaac Julien, BBC), to more recently running a highly regarded internship programme in concert with a Cultural Diversity action programme. This programme included the first ever research into the film going of ethnic minority audiences. Last year the BFI launched Black World - the UK's largest ever national celebration of black film-making. Black World's cross-cultural programme included over 50 national and regional events aimed at a broad audience and included film screenings, cinema tours, DVD releases, educational events, film and TV seasons at the BFI National Film Theatre, VJ performances, club nights and on-stage interviews and debates. This was the first step in an ongoing commitment by the BFI, working closely with Arts Council England, Regional Screen Agencies and other national and regional partners, to reach out to new audiences across the country, making black film heritage and culture relevant to everyone, and showing how it continues to shape contemporary British film and music culture. The Times BFI London Film Festival also provides an important showcase for the best of contemporary world cinema.

CRESC - CRESC is a research centre funded by the Economic and Social Research Council to conduct a long term programme of research into the relations between culture and social change. The research on which the report for the BFI is based comes from an ESRC project on Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion conducted by the Centre.

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