Researchers from the Centre for Critical Media Literacy teamed with Inclusion Ireland to produce a report on how people with intellectual disabilities were affected in the first few months of the Covid-19 crisis. 

Article 11 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that nations must look after people with disabilities in “situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies”. While the report focuses on how the Covid-19 crisis affects adults with disabilities, the participants shared a mix of fear, confusion, curiosity, frustration, isolation, leisure, boredom and empathy that will be familiar to most readers who lived through the 2020-21.
For more see Inclusion Ireland.

Committed to equality and participatory research, to inclusion in education at every level, to media as tools for creative engagement, and to 'literacy' that is broad, systemic and critical, the Centre for Critical Media Literacy, a research and outreach group at TU Dublin, has a number of ongoing projects and priorities. These include experiments in using social media and other tools to promote journalistic transparency in diverse urban communities; public events that link academic research in media and technology with community education and production practice, expanding the concept of included ‘publics’ to incorporate people often left out by barriers of, e.g., intellectual and developmental disabilities, age and class; study of consequences of computational advances on media and communication; inquiry into the meaning of public service in 21st century media; examination of community internet-based media and their capacity to create new cultural spaces; and attention to the historical circumstances that produce artefacts and ideas in media, information and the political sphere.

Tel: +35312205832
Email: harry.browne@tudublin.ie

Harry Browne is Senior Lecturer in the School of Media at Technological University Dublin, where he is co-founder and coordinator of the Centre for Critical Media Literacy. An experienced journalist, he is the author of three books: Hammered by the Irish (Counterpunch/AK Press 2008), The Frontman (Verso, 2013, with other editions in Spanish and Italian) and Public Sphere (Cork University Press, 2018). His journalism is also anthologised in Great Irish Reportage (Penguin Ireland, 2013). He has authored and co-authored articles and book chapters on a wide range of topics, and has co-authored two reports in collaboration with Inclusion Ireland, on short school days for children with disabilities (2019) and on experiences of the Covid-19 crisis for adults with intellectual disabilities (2020). He served as Council of Europe appointed expert on ethical journalism  as part of project ‘Fight against discrimination, hate crimes and hate speech in Georgia’, 2020-21. He holds qualifications from Harvard and Columbia universities in the US, and from Dublin City University and Dublin Institute of Technology. 

Other selected publications:
Browne, H. (2023, Oct 27)) Rupert Murdoch Was the Symbol of a Rotten Public Culture That Will Outlast His Departure. Jacobin
Browne, H. (2022) Street Cred: Teaching the history of news ballads and broadsheets to journalism students, in David Atkinson and Steve Roud (eds), A Notorious Chaunter in B Flat, and Other Characters in Street Literature (London: The Ballad Partners)
Browne, H. (2021, May 11) Robert Fisk Was a Reporter Who Brought the Wars Home and Shaped the Thinking of a Generation. Jacobin
Brennan, D, and H. Browne (2021) Elusiveness of the Algorithm: The Case for Computation in Critical Media Literacy, in A. Grizzle et al (eds) MIL Cities and MIL Citizens: Informed, Engaged, Empowered by Media and Information Literacy (UNESCO UNITWIN Cooperation Programme on Media and Information Literacy and Intercultural Dialogue, the University of Gothenburg and the Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios), pp 83-92.
Browne, H. (2019) Philanthropy Supported Journalism, in The International Encyclopedia of Journalism Studies (Wylie)
Browne, H. (2019) Cashing in the Bill of Rights: The Clash in New York, in myth and reality, in C. Coulter (ed) Working for the Clampdown: The Clash, the Dawn of Neoliberalism and the Political Promise of Punk (Manchester University Press)
Browne H., C. Coulter, R. Flynn, V. Hetherington & G. Titley (2018): ‘Pitstop of Death’: Irish newspaper coverage of Iraq war protests at Shannon airport, Irish Political Studies 34(1): 92-112
Browne, H. (2014) ‘Contro la fame non serve “piu cibo”’, Nuova Rivista Letteraria 10(1).

Mark Cullinane was a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Media, TU Dublin, under the Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship (2021-2022), funded by the Irish Research Council. He holds a PhD in Social Science from University College Cork. His main specialisation is sociology of media, and his doctoral research critically explored the contemporary role of journalism in Irish public service media in the mediation of national democratic life following the global financial crisis. He is currently preparing a research monograph on Irish public service media assessing its performance in navigating a decade in political, economic, technological and cultural change and the future prospects of the broader public service media enterprise. His other research interests include policy and service provision in the areas of housing and homelessness, and he has contributed to projects including an evaluation of an area-based regeneration programme, a longitudinal study of quality of life and change in social housing neighbourhoods, a study exploring precarity in the private rental sector, and most recently a project documenting and assessing statutory and homelessness NGO responses to the coronavirus pandemic as well as the experiences of service users.

Selected publications:
Cullinane, M. (2020) Shock to the system? Journalism in Irish public service media after the crash, Irish Journal of Sociology, 28 (2), 116-42.
Cullinane, M. (2018) Public Service Austerity Broadcasts: Framing the Euro Debt Crisis, International Journal of Communication (12).
Cullinane, M. (2017) 'Participatory cultures and democratic legitimation in public service media: Ireland and the RTÉ Audience Council, Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 14 (2).

Jenny Hauser is an associate editor at the European Broadcasting Union and adjunct lecturer in Journalism at the School of Media at Technological University Dublin. She was awarded a PhD from TU Dublin for her research exploring how professional journalists use social media and social newsgathering to carry out professional boundary work. Her research interests include diversity in news media, and the intersection between legacy news media and so-called ‘alternative’ news environments. She teaches online journalism and news reporting modules on the BA in Journalism and has also taught on undergraduate and postgraduate journalism courses at the University of Galway. As a practitioner with over 10 years of experience in social newsgathering, she has been at the forefront of developing new journalism practices and routines for sourcing and authenticating eyewitness material on global news events. Before working at the European Broadcasting Union, she was a senior journalist at the social media intelligence agency Storyful. 

Publications:
Hauser, J. (2019) Guarding the gates in interactive newsgathering, In: Huddy, W.P. and Marshall, A. (Eds.), Popular Culture and the Intellectual. Toronto: WaterHill Publishing 
Hauser, J. (2018) Citizen-activist as Journalist: Network Journalism and Professional Practices in the Coverage of the Aleppo Offensive. Irish Communications Review, 16(1), 247-271.

Stephanie Costello is a PhD student in the School of Media at Technological University Dublin. She holds a BA in Journalism and is the recipient of a TU Dublin College of Arts and Tourism scholarship, which enables her to carry out research relating to transparency in journalism and how it intersects with audiences’ trust. Her other research areas include community engagement in journalism, class dimensions in media, and the study of professional norms in the journalistic sphere. She is an assistant lecturer in the School of Media where she teaches a practical journalism module and the founder of the Media Interns Alliance, a grassroots coalition campaigning for the eradication of unpaid and underpaid internships in Ireland. In her work as a journalist, Stephanie served as the editor-in-chief of community newspaper Dublin Inquirer for a time and continues to cover the labour beat there. Her journalism features in both national and international publications and on radio stations.

Chris Byrne was educated mainly in Canada, where he experienced a more inclusive school system than that faced by most children with disabilities in Ireland. Now a full-time researcher, having completed a Certificate in Research by Apprenticeship from Inclusion Ireland, he has researched and co-authored two reports.

Tomás Murphy is a graduate of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, where he completed the Certificate in Contemporary Living. He has represented the National Institute for Intellectual Disability (now the Trinity Centre) at conferences in the United States and elsewhere. Completing a Certificate in Research by Apprenticeship from Inclusion Ireland, he works two days a week in law firm A & L Goodbody. He serves on the board of Inclusion Ireland and, having completed a Certificate in Research by Apprenticeship from Inclusion Ireland, has researched and co-authored a number of reports .

Margaret Turley is a graduate of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities, where she completed the Certificate in Contemporary Living. She has spoken at many conferences. She works at Ernst & Young and, having completed a Certificate in Research by Apprenticeship from Inclusion Ireland, has researched and co-authored a number of reports.

Disinformation, in theory and practice

This public seminar, a satellite pre-conference event for the Association of Internet Researchers conference held in Dublin, took place on the evening of Tuesday, November 1st 2022, in East Quad, Grangegorman. It featured speakers Prof Helena Sheehan, academic, author and activist, emeritus professor at Dublin City University; Dr Jenny Hauser, lecturer at TU Dublin and journalist; Dr Mark Cullinane, recently an IRC postdoctoral fellow at TU Dublin; Aaron Green, doctoral candidate at TU Dublin. Video is here. 

Broadside Extra! 
News, songs and provocations in the history of cheap print and street literature

This one-day hybrid conference on Saturday 15th October 2022 was hosted by the School of Media and the Centre for Critical Media Literacy (CCML) at Technological University Dublin. Organised by the Traditional Song Forum and CCML, with the support of Poetry Ireland, the Irish Traditional Music Archive, An Góilín Traditional Singers Club and the National Print Museum. More than 100 people registered, and at any point thoughout the day, there were at least 50 people in attendance, roughly half and half in person and online, for a rich programme of papers: Broadside Extra programme. The handouts representing the work of the poet and ballad-writer John Sheil are available in the Publications section below. 

Disability, Equality and Media: Questions of representation

At a seminar at Technological University Dublin, on Wednesday, May 4^th, 2022 Stacy Clifford Simplican, Senior Lecturer in Gender and Sexuality Studies at Vanderbilt University, USA, examined how intellectual disability, care and the meaning of freedom are represented in media. In addition, Chris Byrne, Tomás Murphy and Margaret Turley presented their new research on the depiction in Irish newspapers of educational issues for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A report of their research is here: Disability media report

The event, chaired by Yvonne Galligan, Director – Equality Diversity Inclusion at TU Dublin – was organised by the School of Media, TU Dublin, and the Centre for Critical Media Literacy, with the support of a College of Arts and Tourism Research Seed Fund Award. It can be viewed in full on YouTube here. 

The centre was also happy to support two events at TU Dublin shortly before the pandemic disruption: in November 2019 with Jack Poulson, Google whistleblower who resigned in protest over its plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China; and in February 2020 with Chris Gray, a former content moderator for Facebook who spoke about that often-traumatising work. The events were organised in conjunction with Tech Won't Build It Ireland and also supported by the School of Multidisciplinary Technologies, TU Dublin.

The centre's third annual conference was held on October 18th and 19th, 2019. About 100 people attended over a day and a half, including at the workshops for children, 'Positive Time Online'. Two dozen speakers from nine different countries presented a range of research. Thanks especially to keynote speaker Dan McQuillan, Lecturer in Creative and Social Computing at Goldsmiths, University of London, who spoke on 'Anti-Fascist AI'.

The conference's interdisciplinary approach put human equality, inclusion and social change – rather than commercially driven techno-enthusiasm or, conversely, dystopian fears of popular engagement – at the centre of discussion. Members of a research team from TU Dublin and Inclusion Ireland, including adults with intellectual disabilities, presented findings from the centre's recent report on educational exclusion for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Other events and publication: The centre hosted its second annual conference, 'Taking Back the Web', in October 2018, and an inclusive family-friendly parallel event, 'Making the Web'‌. About 200 people attended. The inaugural conference of the centre took place in October 2017. Speakers at those two conferences included Irish journalist and broadcaster Vincent Browne, artist and activist Grace Dyas, author Gavan Titley, the British Labour Party’s digital consultant Dr Richard Barbrook, Prof David Buckingham, Facebook executive Niamh Sweeney, and many others. The peer-reviewed open-access journal Irish Communications Review has published papers given at the first conference.

Disability media report

'Media Coverage of Education Issues for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities', authored by researchers with intellectual disabilities

Covid disability report

'The Experiences of People with Intellectual Disabilities in Ireland During the Covid-19 Crisis', a report based on collaboration between the centre and Inclusion Ireland

'Education, Behaviour and Exclusion' 

a report based on collaboration between the Centre and Inclusion Ireland, funded by Irish Research Council

http://arrow.dit.ie/icr/

Irish Communications Review: a forum for media-related research

www.theliberty.ie

The LIberty: student-produced news for the southwest inner city

Shaile's Ramble

document shared by researcher John Moulden at Broadside Extra conference

Sheil Life Works Part One

document shared by researcher John Moulden at Broadside Extra conference

Sheil Life Works Part Two

document shared by researcher John Moulden at Broadside Extra conference

Sheil handout instructions

Instructions for assembling the above handouts into booklets illustrating the life and work of John Sheil