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---------- Forwarded message --------- *From a colleague at University of Sheffield: * I'm sure many of you will have heard about the recent conviction of the anti fracking protesters, who were jailed on the charge of committing a public nuisance after they climbed on top of lorries trying to enter a fracking site during a peaceful protest last year. More information can be found, here: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/fracking-protest-cuadrilla-preston-lancashire-drilling-simon-roscoe-blevins-richard-roberts-rich-a8562276.html One of them, Simon Roscoe Blevins, is a soil scientist currently working in The University of Sheffield's Animal and Plant Sciences Department. He has been jailed for 16 months. Roscoe took his expertise and his passion out into the field; academic activism in full force. His arrest and subsequent jailing is part of an increasing, and alarming trend towards the criminalisation of protest. Hundreds of academics and university staff across the UK have signed this open letter, started by the University of Sussex, protesting the outrageously harsh sentence handed to Roscoe and the others: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScmXGgV93AycjcfbWmWBQ_7eYxbI69n5PIQhM_0B9kF1qMSaA/viewform *If you feel you are able to, please consider adding your name to the letter.* Roscoe wrote about his case, here: https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/fracking-climate-change_uk_5baba8efe4b091df72ec91b8 We ask academics to do many things, but surely chief among them is to lead from the front of their field. Roscoe has helped to bring fracking to a new level of public consciousness, and in doing so has made a profound sacrifice. Thank you for your time reading this. -- Professor Helen Kennedy, Chair in Digital Society University of Sheffield T: 0114 2226488 E: [log in to unmask] OUT NOW: 'Living with data: aligning data studies and data activism through a focus on everyday experiences of datafication', *Krisis, Journal for Contemporary Philosophy*, 2018, http://krisis.eu. -------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA mailing list -------------------------------------------------------- To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1 ------------------------------------------------------- MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. This mailing list is a free service and is not restricted to members. It is an unmoderated list and content reflect the views of those who post to the list and not of MeCCSA as an organisation. MeCCSA recommends that the list be used only for posting of information (for example about events, publications, conferences, lectures) of interest to members or to promote discussion of current issues of wide general interest in the field. Posts to the MeCCSA mailing list are public, indexed by Google, and can be accessed from the JISCMail website (http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/meccsa.html). Any messages posted to the list are subject to the JISCMail acceptable use policy, which states that users should avoid engaging in unreasonable behaviour, or disrupting the general flow of discussion on a list. For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/ --------------------------------------------------------