2009-02-25: NPCU at Parliament

Findings about the relationship between new media and 'radicalisation' from the Radicalisation & Violence project based at NPCU and the University of Warwick will be presented at a discussion at the House of Commons on 25 February 2009, on the theme “The 'War on Terror' By Any Other Name: Ethical Dimensions of Foreign Policy”. Details here.

2009-02-23: Al-Lami and O'Loughlin on surveillance

On 23rd February Mina Al-Lami and Ben O'Loughlin from the NPCU will present a research paper to the ESRC-sponsored seminar, 'Intelligence and Surveillance: Making the Critical Links' at the University of Leicester. Their paper is entitled, The paradoxical relation of jihadist forums to global surveillance. Details of the workshop here.

2009-02-25: Dr An Nguyen speaking on the penetration of online news

February 25, 2009: Dr An Nguyen will be a visiting speaker, discussing his new book The Penetration of Online News (VDM Publishing).

An Nguyen joined the University of Stirling in 2007 from the University of Queensland in Australia, where he obtained his Master of Journalism (2001) and his PhD in Media and Communication Studies (2006). An Nguyen’s research spreads across a diverse range of specific areas, most particularly (a) online journalism; (b) online news audiences; (c) online participatory media; (d) science journalism and the public’s engagement in science debates; (e) professionalism in journalism and journalism education; and (f) Asian media development. He has recently published The Penetration of Online News: Past, Present and Future, a research book on the diffusion and social impact of online news. In the 1990s, he was an informal research in environmental management in Vietnam, co-authoring a few books in this area.

Room FW101, at 5pm. All welcome.

2009-03-11: Dr Jonathan Hardy speaking on western media systems

Dr Jonathan Hardy, University of East London, will be a visiting speaker on Wednesday March 11, 2009, at 5pm, in Founders Room FW101. He'll be discussing material from his new book Western Media Systems (Routledge).

Dr. Jonathan Hardy is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies at the University of East London. He is Programme Leader for BA Media Studies. He also teaches on the Media and Advertising and Journalism undergraduate degree programmes and on the postgraduate MA Global Media. He is National Secretary of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom and a Member of its National Council (1990 to present)

All welcome.

2009-09-15: Media and Radicalisation: One-day symposium

On Tuesday 15th September 2009 Royal Holloway will host a one-day symposium on the theme 'Media and Radicalisation'. Final findings will be presented from the two-year study, Legitimising the Discourses of Radicalisation: Political Violence in the New Media Ecology. The project investigates how violence is legitimated by Jihadist groups through internet and other media, how these communications are picked up and re-broadcast by mainstream Western and Arabic media, and how audiences and citizens come to understand 'radicalisation'. The event will feature contributions from the worlds of policy, academia, media and civil society.


Where: Royal Holloway Bedford Square buildings, Gower Street, London

When: 15 Sept 2009, 10am - 6pm

Contact details: Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk

2008-10-30: US Presidential Election Roundtable Debate - PIR/NPCU/PIRSOC

US Presidential Election Roundtable Debate - PIR/NPCU/PIRSOC

Want to know how America will vote, and what it means for you?

Then Join the Politics and International Relations Department

Thursday, 6pm in the Arts Lecture Theatre 3

Panellists include:

Dr. Stephanie Carvin (LSE)
Whose academic interests include U.S. Foreign Policy, International Law, Laws of War, and American Politics

Dr. Mike Jensen (UC Irvine)
Whose research interest include internet politics, e-participation, and grass-roots mobilization

Dr. Mike Williams (LSE)
Who presently serves as an Obama Foreign Policy Advisor and is a former Aide to Senator Joe Biden

Christopher Boerl (Ph.D. Candidate RHUL)
Whose Ph.D. thesis is examining the role of religious voters in the American Political process

Sponsored by:

The Politics and International Relations Department
The New Political Communication Unit
The Politics and International Relations Society

2009-02-14: ISA Workshop: NPCU@NYC

Ben O’Loughlin, Alister Miskimmon (RHUL), and Andreas Antoniades (Sussex) have been awarded a Workshop Grant of $5,000 by the International Studies Association to hold a workshop on the theme, ‘Great Powers after the Bush Presidency: Interests, Strategies and Narratives’. The workshop will take place on 14 February 2009 in New York City prior to the ISA Annual Convention.

The workshop begins an investigation of how leading world powers pursue interests in the world through the use of narrative strategies. Great powers have always gained internal and external utility from the strategic projection of national narratives. But two trends warrant a renewed focus on such strategies. First, the long-term rise of emerging powers to challenge US pre-eminence will entail narrative ‘work’ on their part, both domestically and internationally, as they each adapt to new power balances. Second, a transformed communications environment means narrative strategies must account for an extended global media ‘menu’ of channels and the unpredictable presence of dispersed, participatory media which can undermine strategic narratives. By examining how major powers project their narratives around key events through the discussion of a series of case studies, this workshop offers the starting-point for an empirically-led re-assessment of theories and approaches to analyzing the intersection of interests, strategies and narratives, to explain the forces shaping Great Power politics at the beginning of the 21st century.

Agreed participants include David Dunn (Birmingham, UK), Andrei Tysgankov (San Francisco State), Geoffrey Roberts (Cork), Laura Roselle (Elon), Kathy Fitzpatrick (Quinnipiac), Vivien Schmidt (Boston), Philip Seib (Annenberg USC), Ted Hopf (Ohio State), Hongying Wang (Syracuse), and Adrian Hyde-Price (Bath). There is also funding for a Young Scholar, to be recruited through open competition later this year.