Safer Spaces: Communication Design for Counter Terror

This eighteen month scoping study will examine the design of the process of interactive counter terror communication with a view to reduce fear and re-engage awareness in communities in public spaces. To achieve this 'Safer Spaces' will explore qualitatively ways in which counter terror information has been employed in the past and how it might be effectively employed in the future of spaces within and immediately around London Underground stations as a case study. Safer Spaces will build upon existing LU reports and also identify gaps in current knowledge of public perceptions and counter terror. With an interdisciplinary team of researchers, Safer Spaces will provide new perspectives and approaches to communication design relating to counter terror. The outcome of this study will be a published guide to process design for relevant stakeholders and a series of documented design exemplars that will be used in a public exhibition. At the same time a set of proposed 'future directions' would be indicated with a view to consideration as a second stage development with London Platform for the Arts.The overall aim of the Safer Spaces project is to explore the potential for different and more creative understandings and applications of counter-terror communication. Safer Spaces will significantly advance theory and practice through an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to the transfer of novel emerging communications techniques to the sphere of counter-terror. With a specific focus on the London Underground user communities, Safer Spaces will use co-design and participatory approaches to produce new insights into the embedding of counter-terror communication into public spaces.