2008-03-14: Online Consultation and Public Policy-making: Democracy, Identity, and New Media - Conference at OSU

reconnecting-democracy-image.jpg
Andrew Chadwick will be a presenting a paper: 'Web 2.0: New Challenges for the Study of E-Democracy' to the conference ‘Online Consultation and Public Policy-making: Democracy, Identity, and New Media’ - the third conference of the US National Science Foundation-funded International Working Group on Online Consultation and Public Policymaking.

The conference takes place at the Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, March 14-15, and features a fine selection of papers from the Group's established scholars and the PhD students.

Click here for further details. 

The event was webcast live and the video has been archived online. My talk is in Part I (Realplayer Video Format)

2008-02-19: The Internet and the Death of Television? HARC Roundtable

HARC Fellows’ Seminar Series

Presents: ‘The Internet and the Death of Television?’

Roundtable discussion with:
Prof. William Dutton (Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford)
Prof. John Ellis (Department of Media Arts, RHUL)
Dr. Andrew Chadwick (New Political Communication Unit/Department of Politics and International Relations, RHUL)

Tuesday 19 February
5:00pm
Room WIN 103 (Windsor Building)

All Welcome, Refreshments provided

2008-04-17 Politics: Web 2.0: An International Conference

Image by Information Architects

The conference ended at 5.30 on Friday 18th, April 2008. Thanks to all participants for making it such a successful event. If you'd like a quick flavour, see the 'official' liveblog entries on the main NPCU blog, beginning here. From the comments in that post you can follow links to other livebloggers.

Here is the original blurb: 

New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London, April 17-18, 2008.

Sponsors: Routledge Publishers, Polity Press, Royal Holloway Research Strategy Fund.

Has there been a shift in political use of the internet and digital new media - a new web 2.0 politics based on participatory values? How do broader social, cultural, and economic shifts towards web 2.0 impact, if at all, on the contexts, the organizational structures, and the communication of politics and policy? Does web 2.0 hinder or help democratic citizenship? This conference provides an opportunity for researchers to share and debate perspectives.

The conference was large and diverse, with six distinguished keynotes, 120 papers organised into 41 panels, and over 180 participants drawn from over 30 countries. The keynote speakers were:

  • Robin Mansell, Professor of New Media, LSE: "The Light and the Dark Sides of Web 2.0."
  • Helen Margetts, Professor of Internet and Society, University of Oxford: "Digital-era Governance: Peer production, Co-creation and the Future of Government."
  • Rachel Gibson, Professor of Political Science, University of Manchester: "Trickle-up Politics?: the Impact of Web 2.0 Technologies on Citizen Participation."
  • Stephen Coleman, Professor of Political Communication, University of Leeds: "Networks and Commons: Can The Popular and The Political Be Connected?"
  • Micah Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum/TechPresident: "The Revolution Will Be Networked: How Open Source Politics is Emerging in America."
  • Michael Turk, US National Cable & Telecommunications Association and e-campaign manager for Bush-Cheney 04: "Managed Chaos: Bringing Order to User-Generated Activism."

Andrew Chadwick, Director
Ben O’Loughlin, Associate Director
New Political Communication Unit
Conference Organisers

Contact Details and Links to Useful Information


Please see the final conference programme (pdf) for all relevant information. 

For administrative queries relating to the conference, such as payments, registration, accommodation and so on, please contact: Ms Lisa Dacunha, Postgraduate and Research Administrator, Department of Politics and International Relations, Royal Holloway, University of London. Email: lisa.dacunha@rhul.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)1784 443687.

For queries relating to the programme content, please contact Dr Andrew Chadwick. Email: Andrew.Chadwick@rhul.ac.uk Phone: +44 (0)1784 414131.

See the Royal Holloway Visitor’s Guide, including travel directions, maps and information about the local area.

[Top image used with permission from Information Architects.]

2008-03-06: Global social responsibility, technology and consumer choice: the EPSRC Fair Tracing Project

The Fair Tracing Project team will be visiting the Department as guest speakers in the New Political Communication Unit on March 6, 2008, 5-6.30pm. Room Windsor 1-03. This is an open, free event. All are welcome.

The Fair Tracing project, funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), aims to help bridge the digital divide between Northern consumers and Southern producers by using tracing technology to enhance the Fair Trade model of trade. Fair Trade is a proven and growing international movement that aims to better the lives of small-scale producers in developing countries by guaranteeing to Western consumers that products bearing the Fair Trade logo have been made under equitable conditions in developing countries. Consumers are empowered with the knowledge to make an ethical distinction between the goods they purchase, while small-scale producers in developing countries are empowered via this distinctive marketing advantage. In its implicit challenge to consumers, producers and importers to act more responsibly, the Fair Trade movement is correcting the inequities of global trade.

Fair Tracing will (1) give producers a better overview of the value chain and price structures along it and valuable market information; (2) empower consumers by allowing them to trace the product’s origin and value chain on which they can base their ethical choice when shopping; (3) allow Fair Trade companies to demonstrate how to do business differently/they can prove the technical feasibility of tracing and demonstrate that these devices can be used not just for companies to gather information about consumers, but for consumers to scrutinise companies; (4) be used as an exciting new campaign tool to be used to lobby for a different kind of globalisation; and (5) offer an innovative idea to retail companies interested in improving their ethical sourcing and corporate responsibility guidelines.

The talk will include Dr. Apurba Kundu, University of Bradford; Dorothea Kleine, Royal Holloway, University of London; Dr. Ian Brown, UCL and Oxford Internet Institute; and Dr. Ann Light, Queen Mary, University of London.

For further information, please see the project's website.

2008-01-30: The Prime Minister's E-Petitions: One Year On

E-Petitions.gifA symposium on Downing Street's E-Petitions initiative, jointly organised by the New Political Communication Unit, Royal Holloway, University of London, and the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. Keynote speaker: Jimmy Leach, former Director of Digital Communications, Prime Minister's Office, now Director of Digital, Freud Communications. The event will be held at Royal Holloway on January 30, 2008.

We're now at the first anniversary of the e-petitions site, which launched November 15, 2007. In addition, February 20, 2008 will mark the anniversary of the petition - signed by 1.8 million citizens - against the government's proposed road pricing scheme.

This symposium will provide an opportunity to reflect on the e-petitions initiative's successes and challenges. The gathering will include a range of scholars, practitioners and commentators.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
2:30pm to 5.00pm (Drinks reception 5.00pm)
Windsor Building, Room 1-03
Royal Holloway, University of London,
Egham,
Surrey,
TW20 0EX

Full programme (pdf) 

Invited symposium. Chatham House rules. For details of this event please email Dr Andrew Chadwick.

2007-10-25: Staff-student research seminar: Nick Anstead 'British and American campaign finance in comparative perspective: old institutions and new technologies'

Nick Anstead will be presenting a paper to the Department of Politics and International Relations staff-student seminar series entitled 'British and American campaign finance in comparative perspective: old institutions and new technologies'. Wednesday October 25 2007, 13:15-14:30 in Bourne Lab room 6-02. All staff, PhD and MSc students are welcome.

2007-11-09: ESRC Seminar Media, Ethics and the War on Terror Friday 9 November 2007, University of Leicester, UK

Ben O'Loughlin will be speaking at this event: 

ESRC Seminar
Media, Ethics and the War on Terror

Friday 9 November 2007, University of Leicester, UK
A one day seminar will be held at the University of Leicester on Friday 9 November 2007 as part of the ESRC Seminar Series ‘Ethics and the War on Terror: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Media’.

This seminar will focus on ethics and the media and will involve media practitioners as well as academics and research students from media studies and other disciplines. The aim of the seminar will be to open up debate about the theory and practice of the media and issues related to the war on terror.

Confirmed speakers already include Andrew Hoskins (University of Warwick), Ben O’Loughlin (Royal Holloway, University of London), Philip Taylor (University of Leeds) and Daya Thussu (University of Westminster).

We are also pleased to announce that our public keynote speaker for this event will be Gary Younge, columnist and the US correspondent for The Guardian who has written extensively from Southern Africa and throughout Europe as well as the UK since he joined the paper in 1994.

Call for Papers

We still have room for more papers and would welcome proposals from PhD students, academics and media practitioners working in this area.

Participation

We have a limited number of places for the seminar so would like to hear from anyone who would like to take part as soon as possible. There is no charge for attending and lunch will be provided. We can meet UK travel costs for speakers and PhD students. We can usually also meet these costs for some other participants who do not have other sources of funding to attend, but only to the extent that our budget permits.

Contact

Paper proposals and requests to participate should be sent to Gillian Youngs (gy4@le.ac.uk) who is organizing this seminar as soon as possible. The seminar series is led by Gillian Youngs in collaboration with Simon Caney (University of Oxford) and Heather Widdows (University of Birmingham).

2007-11-22: Transnational TV News and Media Diplomacy Workshop

This event has been organised by Marie Gillespie at the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC) and Ben O’Loughlin at the New Political Communication Unit. The event is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) New Security Challenges programme, and hosted by King’s College London.

Transnational TV News and Media Diplomacy:

Al Jazeera English in Context

22 November 2007

Workshop 9:00 – 12:30

King’s College London, Dept. of War Studies, Seminar Room Floor 6

We have recently witnessed the launch of a host of transnational English language television channels, including Al Jazeera English, Press TV (Iran), CCTV9 (China), France 24 and Russia Today. These join existing channels such as CNN International, Voice of America and BBC World TV. What are the purposes of these channels? Who are they for and who is watching them? What is their relation to other channels in the global television market? Do they constitute a global Anglosphere public? Is English the global language for media diplomacy? Is the main purpose of these channels to augment national prestige and/or to assert an alternative political perspective in an increasingly crowded but politically uniform news marketplace?

These channels are professional news providers and part of profit-making organisations, of course, but several other rationales for these channels are evident:

  • A vehicle for public and cultural diplomacy, or soft power, in world politics. These channels appear to offer nation-states a means to project their voice, their policies and their interpretations of events onto polyphonic global media publics – to assert and maintain a presence in the global Anglosphere.
  • A means to reach diasporic audiences. First generation diaspora often sustain close attachments to their country of origin through satellite television, but as the mother tongue becomes hard to maintain for second and third generations, so new ways are being found to reach them and create a sense of diasporic nationhood and belonging across geographical distance.
  • A tool for development. Arguably, the line between diplomacy and development is becoming increasingly blurred in UK and US foreign policy. To what extent do transnational English language channels like Al Jazeera English and Press TV challenge UK/US foreign policy and development goals?

It is both timely and important to understand and question the assumptions underlying these rationales. Do governments have coherent messages that could be communicated through mediated diplomacy? Do these channels operate with models of media ‘effects’ which are difficult to substantiate? Does the proliferation of channels mean that they are popular or that people are watching them? In their struggle for salience, credibility and legitimacy, questions can also be raised about the independence of such channels from, and accountability to, home governments.

This workshop offers the chance to address these questions, and will be informed by the latest major research on transnational news media.

Click here to download the full programme. 

2007-11-30: The Cultural Politics of 'Terror' in the Middle East: One-day interdisciplinary conference

Akil Awan, Ben O'Loughlin and Lina Khatib will be speaking at this event. Lina is organising it. 

Friday 30 November 2007, 9:00-5:00pm

Room 1.70 (first floor), Franklin-Wilkins Building, King's College Waterloo Campus, 150 Stamford Street, Waterloo, London SE1 9NH.

(Nearest station: Waterloo (Northern, Bakerloo, Jubilee, Waterloo and City Lines + National Rail)
Conference fee is £5 per person payable at the door
Pre-registration is required as places are limited; please email: marie.gallagher@rhul.ac.uk

Download Registration form.

Conference organiser: Dr Lina Khatib

Supported by:
Humanities and Arts Research Centre, RHUL
Faculty of History and Social Sciences, RHUL
Faculty of Arts, RHUL
New Political Communication Unit, Department of Politics and International Relations, RHUL
Centre for Global and Transnational Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations, RHUL
Department of Media Arts, RHUL

Programme:

9:00am-9:30am Registration
9:30am-9:50am Welcome – Dr. Lina Khatib (Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL))

 Session 1: ‘Terror’, Terrorism and Imperial Policies (9:50am-11:10am)

Chair: Prof. Mandy Merck (RHUL)

Prof. Gilbert Achcar (SOAS): ‘Terror’ as a post-Cold War legitimation discourse
Prof. Anoush Ehteshami (University of Durham): The construction of ‘terror’ in the context of Iran's relationship with the United States

Discussant: Prof. Sandra Halperin (RHUL)

Break: 11:10-12:30

Session 2: ‘Terror’ in the Middle East (11:30am-12:50pm)

Chair: Dr. Dina Matar (SOAS)

Prof. Martin Shaw (University of Sussex): Naming conflict: contested narratives and confused concepts
Dr. Mamoun Fandy (IISS): Terrorizing each other: Middle East governments and their opponents
Discussant: Prof. Sami Zubaida (Birkbeck, University of London)

Lunch Break: 12:50-2:00

Session 3: The Construction of ‘Terror’ in the Media (2:00pm-3:20pm)

Chair: Dr. Tarik Sabry (University of Westminster)
Prof. Jean Seaton (University of Westminster): Hard lessons in communicating terrorism: what can we learn from the Northern Ireland experience?
Dr. Ben O’Loughlin (RHUL)/Dr. Andrew Hoskins (University of Warwick): Qana 2006: Credibility in an age of diffuse war
Discussant: Dr. Zahera Harb (University of Nottingham)

Break: 3:20-3:40
 
Session 4: ‘Terror’, Propaganda and Counter-propaganda (3:40pm-5:00pm)
Chair: Dr. Lina Khatib (RHUL)
Paul Eedle, (Director, Outthere News): Does al-Qaeda’s propaganda work?: measuring the significance of jihadi videos and internet forums in inciting Muslims to political violence
Michael Shrimpton (Barrister, Adjunct Professor in the Department of National Security, Intelligence & Space Studies, American Military University): Abu Ghraib and Al-Haditha - A classic exercise in deception and media manipulation

Discussant: Akil Awan (RHUL)

Close 5:00pm

2008-02-20: Talk by Dr Bart Cammaerts, LSE: Internet-Mediated Practices Beyond the Nation State

Dr Bart Cammaerts of the Department of Media and Communications at the LSE will be visiting as a guest speaker in the New Political Communication Unit on February 20, 2008 at 5pm. Room: Windsor 1-03.

Dr Cammaerts will be discussing his new book Mind the Gap: Internet-Mediated Practices Beyond the Nation State (Manchester University Press, 2008).

For more about Bart, please see his webpage.