2007-08-31: APSA Annual Meeting, Chicago: Mobilization and Participation: The Internet 10 Years Later

Andrew Chadwick will be presenting a paper entitled 'Digital Network Repertoires and Organizational Hybridity: How Political Parties Learned to Mobilize Using the Internet' to panel 40-8: Mobilization and Participation: The Internet 10 Years Later at the American Political Science Association Annual Meeting in Chicago on Friday August 31st. Panel details on the APSA site here.

2007-06-25: Media Analysis Workshop: Using Audio/Visual Methods

The New Political Communication Unit, in collaboration with colleagues from Warwick University, Leicester University and Swansea University, is presenting a workshop for media researchers. Presentations of ongoing research will be used as a platform to address current issues and dilemmas concerning the use of audio/visual data, for instance: data storage, methodological approaches, and software for media analysis.

Research from three projects will be presented: (1) Shifting Securities, an ESRC-funded project addressing the intersection of news producers, texts and audiences to explore shifting perceptions of security in Britain since the 2003 Iraq war. (2) Mediating and Commemorating the 2005 London Bombings , a forthcoming AHRC-funded project which will investigate the impact of 'personal' media and 'individual' accounts on television news coverage of traumatic events, how these events are later commemorated on television, and how they come to be remembered by publics. (3) Online radicalisation and legitimacy - forthcoming research on radical Islamist discourses in Web 2.0 and other media. This informal workshop is very much concerned with work in progress and fostering ideas for future research.

Provisional programme:

Monday 25th June
14:00 Tea/coffee

14:20 Introductions

14:30 – 16:30 Shifting Securities: Integrating Audiences, Texts, and Producers

16:30 Tea/coffee

17:00 – 19:00 Mediating and Commemorating the 7/7 bombings: Televisuality & Transana software

Tuesday 26th June

9:00 Tea/coffee

9:30 – 11:30 Online radicalisation and legitimacy: Analysing Web 2.0

All held in the International Building, Room 244

For enquiries or to reserve a place contact Dr Ben O’Loughlin – Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk

2007-10-05: Changing politics through digital networks

Yenn Lee has had a paper drawn from her PhD accepted at a conference 'Changing politics through digital networks: The role of ICTs in the formation of new social and political actors and actions', 5-6 October 2007, at the University of Florence. The conference is organized by the Department of Political Science and Sociology (DISPO), University of Florence in collaboration with the Social Informatics Research Unit (SIRU) at the University of York and is sponsored by the journal Information, Communication and Society.

2007-05-25: RSA Conference on The Social Impact of the Web: Society, Government and the Internet

RSA Great Hall

Andrew Chadwick is one of the speakers at the RSA's special conference on 'The Social Impact of the Web: Society, Government and the Internet' on May 25th. Top of the bill is Professor Cass Sunstein, School of Law, University of Chicago. The other speakers are: Tom Steinberg, founder of the wonderful MySociety, William Davies, Institute for Public Policy Research, Matthew Taylor, Director of the RSA and former Chief Adviser on Political Strategy to the Prime Minister, and Georgina Henry, Assistant Editor of The Guardian.

A quote from the original email invitation, courtesy of David Wilcox's blog:

"The RSA is looking to explore the political culture and norms that the internet has been instrumental in fostering, both in relation to centralised democratic politics, and more diffuse social and civic networks, including blogging.

Our view in essence is that the high hopes of the 90s for e-democracy and new forms of on-line consultation and community mobilisation have not been met. Rather than fostering new forms of constructive engagement, dialogue and 'pro-social' community action, the type of politics most favoured by the internet seems to be conversations between fellow believers, anti-establishment cynicism and single issue mobilisation. Too many attempts by public authorities to use the web simply involved putting existing information and processes on-line.


The communication model has been vertical and mainly downward. But we think the emergence of web 2.0 offers an opportunity to revive the idealism of a decade ago. While internet 1.0 continued to reinforce an 'us' versus 'them' divide between citizens and power, we can envisage web 2.0 encouraging a rich and constructive 'us and us' dialogue in which citizens deliberate, innovate and act together."

For more information and to book a place (free of charge), please see the RSA site.