Ben R. Atkinson

Today, I’m excited that the website project I have been working on for the British Association for American Studies, has been delivered and a new website for the association has been launched. I have been working on this project, single-handedly, from design through to build and launch, for just over a year. Drawing on my knowledge of web design, development and digital media, and my time running my own creative digital agency for several years, has really helped with what has quickly developed into a huge project.

In March 2021, I was delighted to take up the opportunity of working with the British Association for American Studies after successfully applying for the part-time post of Digital Networks Manager. The role, new to the association, was introduced to manage the growing digital infrastructure within BAAS. This includes the association website, membership system, email, and Weekly Digest mailing list. The role also has some responsibility for social media, working with others on the executive committee to ensure that our social media channels are updated regularly and that we engage with the wider American Studies Community.

This paper on the impact of COVID-19 in American country music, was presented at the Grieg Research School in Interdisciplinary Music Studies Summer School 2021, ‘Music in Crisis: Crisis in Music’, at the University of Bergen, Norway. You can view a video of the presentation at the end of this article.

This paper will examine the way in which the COVID-19 pandemic upended the US country music awards season in 2020 and the extent to which the crisis provided an opportunity for the country music industry to respond to the global social movements of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. In particular, I will seek to establish the extent to which the decisions made by producers of two flagship country music awards shows, can be seen as an obvious alignment with popular social movements, well-known the public consciousness and further highlighted by the impact of the pandemic, or more reflective of a trend in which the country music industry is moving away from its divisive past in relation to issues of race and gender. 

Last year, I had the opportunity to work on a project which was delivered in partnership with School of Computer Science at the University of Lincoln and lead by Andy Beggan, Dean of Digital Education. In my role as Digital Education Developer, I lead a group of student developers from UoLCompSci as we set out to build an innovative new app for first year students transitioning into University life. The app formed part of the wider Lincoln First Year project and was a pilot run with 500 students across four programmes. The project also set out to establish if the use of Low Code technologies (software that allows those without coding experience to build software in a visual way) could be a viable solution for building mobile apps quickly and professionally.

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As we draw to the end of the decade and the 2010s morph into the 2020s, I thought it would be nice to take a look back on the last ten years and pick out some highlights from my professional life. In this second of two blog posts, I’ve chosen a key event from each year of the second half of the decade, and one that has really shaped me. I started the decade aged 18 and on the cusp of leaving home to move to University. Ten years later I’m still in the same city, beautiful Lincoln, and have carved out a career in media and education. There is still a long way to go, but the journey has been fun – it’s good to take a moment to reflect sometimes.

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About a year ago, in the summer of 2018, I was given the opportunity to become a mentor on the BA(Hons) Media Production degree in the Lincoln School of Film and Media, the same programme from which I graduated myself back in 2013. As a mentor, I had the opportunity to work with a 3rd year student as they moved through their final year of study and prepared to graduate.

I was delighted to be paired with Jake, an aspiring DJ and radio student, who had also spent time studying graphic design in the earlier years of the course. Jake was a confident, driven student who I was delighted to be paired with over the course of his final year. Hopefully, I was able to offer some good advice!

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