I’m Anna, a second year Drama and English student. My first thought when I saw the internship advert for the Collaborative Research Internship (CRI) was “I have to apply for this. It’s perfect.” I had been considering pursuing higher education past my undergraduate degree for a little while before coming across this opportunity, and it seemed irresistible. It presented an incredible opportunity, both to follow my own academic interests and to gain a far stronger idea of what a career in higher education would entail.
I worked as a Collaborative Research Intern on Dr Amy Burge’s Project “Reading and reviewing the “bonkbuster” in British newspapers 1970-1990”. I was no expert on the bonkbuster when I applied for the CRI, so I immediately set out to find out more about them. I learnt that the “bonkbuster” is a lesser-known sub-genre of romance novels, known for their explicit and frequent sexual scenes and financially independent female protagonists, and that the genre was popularised by the work of authors such as Jilly Cooper, Shirley Conran and Jackie Collins.
The research itself focussed on public attitudes towards bonkbusters, and how these have changed and developed over time. We used mainstream British newspapers archives from the 70s, 80s and 90s to discover what journalists were saying about the genre, and how their attitudes have changed over time. Part of what drew me to this particular research project was the promise of learning how to utilise and record findings from newspaper archives effectively. I am really interested in how media portrayals of oppressed groups impact on public opinion, and this project perfectly complimented that interest. I was intrigued to find out how this sub-genre of novels was portrayed, and whether this portrayal could be traced back to the genre’s inextricable links with women.
I was assigned to search through the Independent archives by my project lead, Amy. She provided me with a list of key search terms, such as author names and ‘bonkbuster’. I then inputted my findings into a spreadsheet (which I first had to learn how to use… Excel is complicated!). I recorded the date, the publication, article title, writer and a brief description of how the article portrayed bonkbusters or bonkbuster authors. Whilst I was completing the work, I noticed that mentions of bonkbusters were used differently according to what was happening in pop culture at the time. For example, the politician Edwina Currie’s bonkbuster was mentioned whenever a Parliamentary scandal occurred! By recording the dates, writers and general content of the articles, my supervisors could then track these trends in attitudes and build a picture of how bonkbusters were viewed through the latter half of the 20th Century.
When beginning the internship, I was determined to complete all of the search terms I had been assigned. However, when ‘Jilly Cooper’ alone returned over 600 results in the Independent’s archives, I realised I had set myself far too large a task! I contacted my supervisor, who advised me to simply work through the results, recording as many as I could before reaching the allotted amount of time for newspaper searching. Although I was disappointed with not being able to complete as much as I’d hoped, it was important that I also left myself time to complete the other task set by my supervisor: transcribing a focus group’s discussions about the bonkbuster genre.
In addition to historical viewpoints, the project is also concerned with how people today read and remember bonkbusters. In order to learn about the views of bonkbuster readers today, the researchers carried out multiple focus groups. Participants were all bonkbuster readers and enthusiasts, and they were asked questions about their experiences surrounding the novels. I was asked to edit the auto-generated transcript of the focus group’s meeting to ensure it was all correct and coherent. I enjoyed this work more than I thought I would, because I loved hearing the viewpoints of the different group members. I particularly appreciated that it required attention to detail and a focus on the task in hand. This was a refreshing change to the archiving work, as the newspapers required me to consider the bigger picture of the articles and the wider trends occurring at the time. Whilst I did enjoy honing the skill of concisely describing specialist content, it was a nice change to be able to pay attention to fine details and find satisfaction in decoding an incoherent sentence!
The most significant problems I faced when completing the internship were my focus and my time management. I found that working from home sometimes made it difficult for me to concentrate, and the more repetitive nature of archive work especially meant I struggled to hold focus for a full working day. I found it far easier to do a couple of hours of work each day, which of course then impacted on my time management. Whilst working fewer hours more frequently helped me day-to-day, it did mean that towards the end of the internship I still had lots of hours to complete. Whilst I did complete the tasks on time, I would recommend to future interns to definitely plan for different working circumstances, just in case Plan A doesn’t work out!
I feel that the internship has not only opened my eyes to the minutiae and precision of academic research but has also allowed me to develop professional skills such as Excel usage, networking at an academic conference and communicating with supervisors. This was an incredible opportunity which I would recommend to anyone and everyone with any interest in academic research.
Anna Banks, BA Drama and English