Dr Ryan J Bramley

Filmmakers use sound to build suspense for their audiences, but are Deaf people getting an equal experience to hearing people when they watch a film? 

‘Animating Inclusion: Improving film and TV accessibility for Deaf communities’ (co-led by Dr Ryan Bramley, Dr Kirsty Liddiard, Beth Evans and Jon Rhodes) explores how well sound is translated into the captions Deaf audiences read when they watch a film or TV show. It builds on from a 2022 Sheffield Innovation Programme collaborative project, ‘How do Deaf British Sign Language (BSL) users experience suspense in film?’

I recently submitted these project findings and recommendations as written evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s British Film and High-End Television Inquiry (to benefit their exploration of ‘What needs to change to ensure the industry is supporting inclusivity and sustainability’). In 2024, I was approached by Paramount Pictures UK, and we have since had fruitful discussions around how improvements to Paramount’s subtitling could add to Deaf audiences’ cinematic experiences.

Financially supported by Holistic Think Tank, a non-profit organisation promoting humanistic values in child education internationally, we (Dr Ryan Bramley, Dr Sabine Little and Dr Julia Bishop) recruited ten UK-based schoolteachers (five primary, five secondary) to develop over 100 interdisciplinary lesson plans. We have since written a journal article (forthcoming) that offers brief but illuminating overview of the benefits and challenges of integrating interdisciplinary learning within UK primary and secondary education.

The affordances of a value-based, interdisciplinary approach to teaching should not be overlooked by educational policymakers and curriculum designers.  We hope that the teacher-led findings of this research project further encourage the embedding of interdisciplinary learning and teaching approaches as a key curriculum priority – at a key time of educational reform in the UK.

Recent attempts have been made by Network Rail and the British Transport Police to discourage young people from committing ‘railway trespass’ – the dangerous act of illegally gaining access to live railway tracks. Whilst public safety campaigns have a long history in the UK and beyond, little research has been dedicated to a better understanding of how young people engage with this media.

Working with Dr Becky Parry, Dr Aneesh Barai and Dr Marion Oveson – and supported by Network Rail and the National Railway Museum – I ran a series of arts-based research workshops with students at Barnsley College to co-create a new evaluation toolkit, as well as creatively exploring themes of railway trespass through documentary interviewing and filmmaking.

Funded by Holistic Think Tank, we (Dr Ryan Bramley, Dr Sabine Little, Hannah Raine, Adeline Choo and Sheida Tanhai) created an international interdisciplinary school subject (IDS) for children aged 6-12.

I initially devised a project that would create a space for primary school children to engage critically with digital media material (from online news stories to YouTube videos) that were relevant to each school’s local, regional and national contexts. The idea was that the subject would adopt an inquiry-based learning approach, creating a series of scenarios for 6-12 year old pupils to engage with that would help them to better understand their place in the world through digital citizenship. I was also keen on pupils having the opportunity to create media of their own in response to the scenarios they encounter – promoting stories and narratives that are of interest to them (and through the process, learning a set of invaluable practical media production skills).

Approximately 50 lessons were created through our collaboration with our Youth Advisory Board (i.e. several primary school aged children across the UK).