Durham Research Online: Our 2022 Twitter Highlights

By Martin Gleghorn, Repository Coordinator

One of our favourite parts of the job is getting to shout about the amazing research we see Durham academics doing, so we thought we’d have a look back at some of our highlights from the past year from our Twitter account – give us a follow @DRODurham. Some of these articles were published during 2022; others we were able to make fully available in DRO for the first time; some we just felt were particularly interesting and relevant to what was going on in the world that day…

One of the first articles we promoted at the beginning of 2022 focused on the ways in which education within the prison system was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the role that the Inside Out Prison Exchange programme plays in reimagining an alternative approach to education within UK prisons. Authored by Dr Kate O’Brien, Dr Hannah King and Dr Josie Phillips from the Department of Sociology, as well as members of the Durham University Inside-Out collective, it can be found on DRO here and as an open access paper here.

Also in January, we were able to lift the embargo on this 2021 paper by colleagues from the Department of Psychology. Their research analyses how children under the age of eight tend to rely on hearing and auditory sensations when it comes to recognising emotions and attempting to successfully navigate social situations. You can read their findings on DRO here.

As part of our celebration of LGBT+ History Month last February, we highlighted this article by Dr Joe Watson, formerly of the Department of Classics and Ancient History. Dr Watson’s article explores the work of the Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy, and specifically looks at the ways in which his poetic depictions of sculpture function as a means of expressing homosexual desire. It’s available on DRO here, and on the journal’s site here.

During Autism Acceptance Week in March, it was great to be able to highlight research co-authored by Dr Elizabeth Jones, Dr Mary Hanley and Professor Deborah Riby that looked at the experiences of parents and teachers concerning how sensory differences can impact upon the school lives of autistic pupils – and, importantly, what can be done to minimise any negative effects for those pupils. You can read it on DRO here, and as an open access article here. We also wrote a blog post about this research back in December 2021.

To mark what was a world record attendance for a women’s football match (at the time of tweeting, anyway – Barcelona broke their own record a couple of weeks after this), we decided to revisit research co-authored by Dr Stacey Pope from the Department of Sport and Exercise Science. Dr Pope’s article takes data from fans in England and the United States to analyse how and why fandom in women’s football develops. You can find it on DRO here.

There was no way we could have let World Bee Day pass without sharing some of our favourite apian research. Co-authored by Dr Olena Riabinina from the Department of Biosciences, this article details how studying the movements of a bee can reveal a huge amount about what it’s learning about colours and patterns. It’s a fully open access article, so you can read it online here, and you can also find it here in DRO.

A bee on a flower.

Following on from Squid Game becoming Netflix’s most streamed show of all time, we shared an article co-authored by Professor Mariann Hardey of the Business School back in June. Professor Hardey’s work shone a light on the social network structures and the role that influencers played – and how these things are connected to the practice of binge-watching – that all contributed to the massive, viral popularity of the show. You can read it in DRO, or get the fully open access version here.

Another paper we were able to release from embargo, – co-authored by colleagues from the Department of Archaeology – looks at the historical links between disease and social exclusion. More specifically, it analyses skeletons from Anglo-Scandinavian Norwich in order to discover and re-evaluate the relationship between leprosy and social stigma. It’s available to read on DRO here.

Back in September, research co-authored by Beyza Ustun, Professor Nadja Reissland and Professor Judith Covey (Psychology) made the national news as they discovered, for the first time, that fetuses have distinct reactions to different flavours. According to their findings, carrot went down well; kale less so. You can read their findings in DRO here, and online here. We also spoke to Beyza about her research as part of Open Access Week, which you can read on our blog.

Speaking of Open Access Week, we round off our list with a paper we shared as part of it back in October, by Dr Jack Copley. As this year’s theme was ‘Open for Climate Justice’ Dr Copley’s paper felt like a perfect one to share, as it examines the complexities, on a global scale, of trying to decarbonize within a longstanding climate of economic stagnation. Fittingly, this paper is open access, which means you can read it online, but it’s also in DRO here

We’re already really excited by the research we’ve been adding to the repository so far in 2023, so be sure to keep an eye out for some of our favourite works over the coming months. And as always, if we can help you with anything DRO or Open Access-related, please do get in touch with us at dro.admin@durham.ac.uk or openaccess.publishing@durham.ac.uk.

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