On 31 January 2012 a workshop will be held at King’s College London for GCHQ on the theme, ‘Cyber Security: Lacunae of Strategy’. The UK’s cyber security strategy seems to build upon ideas evident in Foreign Secretary William Hague’s recent speeches. In November 2011 he stated:

Our vision is for the UK in 2015 to derive huge economic and social value from a vibrant, resilient and secure cyberspace, where our actions, guided by our core values of liberty, fairness, transparency and the rule of law, enhance prosperity, national security and a strong society.

UK Cyber Security Strategy: Protecting and Promoting the UK in a Digital World

This suggests the trade-offs any national cybersecurity strategy faces, not least how security policy should not impinge upon democracy, liberty or other ‘core values’. Meanwhile there is a lack of conceptual clarity, with cyber war, crime and security often being used interchangeably, and a recurring difficulty among policymakers of how to conceive of ‘cyberspace’ given its social and technical character.

Ben O’Loughlin and Andrew Hoskins will talk about how strategy can be organized and communicated in these conditions, conditions they have theorized as ‘diffused war’. Other speakers include Thomas Rid, Richard Clayton and Tim Jordan.

Ben O'Loughlin is among the speakers on 10 November 2011 at a workshop Digital Methods: Tools for Analysis held at the University of Manchester. This workshop brings together leading international scholars developing and applying innovative new methods to analyse web 2.0 applications. The focus of the workshop is on new methodologies for capturing and analysing social media data from applications such as blogs, social networking, micro-blogging or video sharing sites and hyperlinks. Ben will present the latest version of his research with Nick Anstead, "Semantic Polling: the 2010 UK General Election and Real-Time Opinion Monitoring". Based on recent interviews with pollsters, party strategies, data mining companies and electoral regulators, the research shows how different actors made use of real-time public opinion polling through social media - semantic polling - in the 2010 UK General Election. 

View list of participants and workshop agenda

Participation is free but registration is required as the number of places is limited.

If you are interested in participating please contact the organisers at contact.projectcode@gmail.com

Adam Smith Research Foundation, University of Glasgow

Symposium: Crisis and New Communications Media

Date and time: Thursday 3 November 2011, 5–7pm

Venue: Seminar Room 109, 66 Oakfield Avenue

It makes decreasing sense to speak of media and crisis in isolation. As the media insinuates itself into the everyday in the developed and the developing world, it becomes a pervasive tool for both perpetrating and assuaging crises, for garnering revolutions and for intervention by citizens and enforcement agencies/first responders, and as an emergent source for later legitimizing or contesting such actions in broader mainstream news and political discourses.

Participants

Prof. Andrew Hoskins (University of Glasgow); Prof. Ben O’Loughlin (Royal Holloway University); Dr Pieter Verdegem (Uppsala University); Dr Jennifer Giroux (ETH Zurich); Dr Karen Renaud (University of Glasgow); Prof. Michele Burman (University of Glasgow (TBC))

To reserve a place, please email Frances.Gaughan@glasgow.ac.uk

Andrew Chadwick will be speaking at a roundtable debate, Building an Effective Social Media Campaign, organized by the Hansard Society and the Comparing Online Democracy and Elections (CODE) project at the University of Manchester. The November 2nd event will take place at Portcullis House in Westminster and coincides with Parliament Week.

More details here.

Professor Colin Davis (Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway) "Social influence in televised election debates: a potential distortion of democracy"

October 18, 2011.

Room: FW101.

Time: 5.15pm.

All Welcome.

Ben O'Loughlin and Alister Miskimmon will give the keynote address at the ISA-South 2011 Conference.  The conference will take place October 13-15, 2011 at the Elon University; Elon, North Carolina, USA. The theme of this year’s conference is the exploration of political communication and international studies, broadly conceived. Ben and Alister will talk about their Strategic Narratives research programme. 

They will also participate on a roundtable with Fritz Mayer, Harvard University, where Ben will talk about the narratives of crisis around Iran's nuclear programme, and Alister will discuss Germany's attempts to narrate a role for itself in world politics since the end of the Cold War.

See the ISA-South 2011 conference page for more details. ISA South is a regional body of the International Studies Association (ISA).

Andrew Chadwick and Ben O'Loughlin will each present papers at the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference, Reykjavik, Iceland, 25-27 August. Their panels are in the section, Internet and Politics: Bridging Current Research and Outlining Future Directions, chaired by Andrea Calderaro (European University Institute) and Anastasia Kavada (University of Westminster). Here are the details.

Ben O'Loughlin will address the relationship between social media monitoring techniques and the emergence and prediction of events at the following conference this Thursday. From the Arab Spring to the News International scandal it is clear that international events can catch policymakers off guard. Can analysis of our tweets and user comments help spot an event before it breaks? And if this is possible, what are the ethical consequences?

Mediating Diplomacy:

Strategies, Challenges, Methodologies

An International Workshop

The Open University, Camden Town

28 July 2011

1-5pm

PROGRAMME

1400-1415 Welcome and Introduction

Marie Gillespie and Hugh Mackay Public Diplomacy or Intercultural Dialogue?

1415-1515

Nick Cull The Future Landscape of Public Diplomacy

Annabelle Sreberny The Hubris of Public Diplomacy

1515-1615

Ali Fisher Networked Audiences: New Rules of Engagement

Ben O’Loughlin Can Social Media Monitoring Predict Events?

1645 -1700 DISCUSSION

1700-1900 RECEPTION     

'Responding to extremisms: media roles and responsibilities', Bournemouth University, 15 July 2011 .

Ben O'Loughlin is an invited speaker at this one-day conference at The Media School, Bournemouth University.  

The oxygen of publicity or the right to a platform? How are different forms of extremism covered in our national media, and does this serve to marginalise or legitimise extremist groups? What are the media strategies of these groups, and what potential do social media have to change their prospects? What are or should be the relations between media professionals and police and security services, community organisations and other stakeholders? How will the media influence the success or otherwise of the soon to be revised PREVENT strategy?

These and other questions will be discussed at this one-day event to be held in Bournemouth University's Executive Business Centre, organised by the University's Media School. There is no charge for registration; refreshments and lunch will be provided. Register here.

The conference will bring together academics, journalists and others professionally involved in responding to violent or potentially violent extremisms. Confirmed speakers so far include academics Professor Nigel Copsey (Teesside University) on the BNP, Professor Jonathan Githens-Mazer (University of Exeter) on jihadism, and Professor Andrew Hoskins (University of Glasgow) and Dr. Ben O'Loughlin (Royal Holloway University) on how extremist messages are presented in mainstream media. Inspector Alan Jenkins (Dorset Police) will talk about the EDL; Valentina Soria (Royal United Services Institute) will discuss Wikileaks, and Mark Gill (Woodnewton Associates) will review relevant public opinion data. Speakers offering journalist points of view will include Stephen Jukes (Dean of the Media School at Bournemouth University, former Reuters Head of Global News), and Gavin Rees (European Director of the Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma). The conference is linked to the development of a web-based resource for people working in this area, the Containing Extremism Research Briefing.


On 13 July 2011 the NPCU's Simon Collister will present at the event 'New Communications and Demonstrations' at the University of Leicester. Simon's talk is titled, Re-assembling the media: hybrid assemblages and political activism during the Egyptian uprising. 

For the event programme and details on how to register, click here.