In early 2024, Marcus Collins (Loughborough University, UK), Otávio Daros (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil), and Ed Timke (Michigan State) were awarded diversity microgrants by Journalism History. Since then, all three have made significant progress on their research.
Collins’ research centers on One in Five, one of the earliest pro-LGBTQ+ television programs in the UK. His article, ‘“Gays in your living room’: LGBTQ+ television, homophobia, and the birth of Channel 4 in 1980s Britain,” has already been accepted for publication in Journalism History. He used his microgrant to visit the British Library, the National Archives, the Hall-Carpenter Archives at the London School of Economics, the British Film Institute’s Reuben Library and Mediatheque, the Bishopsgate Library’s Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive, and the BBC’s Written Archives Centre. Collins said, “these trips were invaluable in accessing newspaper articles about the program One in Five, archival sources about the inception of the program, contextual information about other program in the period and policy towards gay and lesbian programming by Channel 4 and regulators.”
Daros is focusing his research on the development of LGBT periodicals in Brazil and its transnational dimensions. He is using his grant to access international databases, as well as acquire national and foreign bibliographies. Daros explained that “as a researcher based in Brazil, one challenge of developing a national case study is always to identify points of convergence with other countries and which journalistic trends are shared between them, within which historical frameworks. This is the current challenge that I am trying to address with my research.”
Timke’s research examines Ability magazine, a publication dedicated to disabilities in American culture and society. He used his grant money to travel to Southern California to meet with the founder, editor, and publisher of the magazine. Timke has also reviewed archival material, and has extensive notes, transcripts, and primary sources to help him as he begins his writing process. “I’ve learned a lot about the genesis of the magazine, its serendipitous creation in the early 1990s, its challenges over the years, and how it sits in the larger field of disability-related media,” he said. “There’s a reason why it’s still published 34 years later, when, sadly, other disability-focused publications haven’t lasted as long.”
Timke and Daros have until the end of this year to submit their research, and Collins’ article is slated to be published early next year. The goal of the Journalism History microgrants is to increase diversity research in the journal and fill important gaps in media research. It is the second year that the journal is providing grants to stimulate diversity research.