PhD success for Mª Luisa Azpiroz Manero

Congratulations to NPCU visiting student Mª Luisa Azpíroz Manero, who received her PhD just before Christmas for a thesis entitled, 'American Public Diplomacy in the “War on Terror”: Analysis and Evaluation of its Influence on the Spanish Press'. Mª Luisa was based at Facultad de Comunicación, University of Navarra, Spain. Her supervisor was Professor María Teresa La Porte Fernández-Alfaro. She spent time at the New Political Communication Unit, Royal Holloway, in 2008 and presented an early iteration of her thesis. Her abstract is below. She can be contacted on mazpiroz@alumni.unav.es. Well done Mª Luisa.

Mª Luisa Azpíroz Manero: American Public Diplomacy in the “War on Terror”: Analysis and Evaluation of its Influence on the Spanish Press

Public diplomacy is an international political communication activity that experienced renewed importance in the United States after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The “War on Terror” promoted by the Bush Administration was accompanied by the implementation of public diplomacy strategies designed to reinforce the fight against terrorism and to diminish the levels of anti-Americanism, especially in the Muslim world, through the exercise of soft power. The object of this thesis is, in the first place, to study public diplomacy as an international political communication activity. In the second place, to carry out empirical research that, resorting to framing theory as a methodological tool, analyzes and evaluates the influence of Bush’s declarations and speeches, as a part of American mediatic diplomacy, in the Spanish press, in two case studies on the “War on Terror” (the first case study spans the period from 9/11 to November 2001, and the second, the months prior to the Iraq War). To do so, the content of this thesis is set out in six chapters. The first chapter presents a theoretical framework of public diplomacy, the second chapter explains the methodology that is used in the empirical study and the third chapter offers a context for the case studies where that methodology is applied. Chapters four, five and six constitute the empirical part of the work: in the first two the results of the analysis of mediatic diplomacy in two specific periods of the “War on Terror” are exposed, and, in the last, an evaluation of its influence based on the results of the analysis and on the consideration of other relevant factors is performed.

Dissenting Citizenship? New article in Parliamentary Affairs

Parliamentary Affairs have published a new article by Ben O'Loughlin and Marie Gillespie entitled, ‘Dissenting Citizenship? Young People and Political Participation in the Media-security Nexus’. It is part of a special issue on Youth, Citizenship and Politics.

For a copy, download it here, or email Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk

Abstract: 

During the last decade, a media-security nexus has emerged that has exacerbated pervasive feelings of the precariousness of citizenship among British Muslims. Legally, citizenship became reversible while political and media discourses and religious discrimination compounded by racism created deep unease about belonging, identity and the very possibility of multicultural citizenship. With diminishing prospects for effective participation in formal political processes, except through the domineering framework of counter-terrorism, young British Muslims sought alternative arenas and modes of political debate and engagement. They expressed their dissent from the suffocating politics of security in informal ways that were deemed efficacious in their own terms. While a sense of loss of status and respect, and deep disappointment at how fellow Muslims were being vilified, was present among older generations, young British Muslims responded in politically creative ways that can be described as ‘dissenting citizenship’. This article reflects on findings from an ESRC-funded collaborative ethnography, Shifting Securities, conducted across 12 cities in Britain between 2004 and 2007 that investigated how a very diverse, multi-ethnic group of some 239 British people experienced citizenship and security in a time of relentless news of terrorism, conflict and natural disaster catastrophes and ‘creeping securitisation’ in day-to-day life in Britain. Our research suggests that dissenting rather than disaffected citizenship is a growing trend particularly among multi-ethnic youth who aspire to work critically within and revitalise mainstream politics to safeguard their citizenship status via local and translocal personalised forms of political action rather than engage in conventional forms of national party politics.

New article published: Twenty20 as Media Event

Nick Anstead and Ben O'Loughlin have published a new article 'Twenty20 as Media Event' in the journal Sport in Society. Click here to download it, or contact Ben.OLoughlin@rhul.ac.uk for a copy. 

Abstract:

We analyse Twenty20 cricket tournaments as media events, a particular social process with its own logic, function and effects. In Dayan and Katz's original formulation, media events enable a society to assemble, reflect on and legitimate its establishment institutions. Through a global mediatized event in space/time, Twenty20 creates a focal point for an international cricket community to watch, discuss and endorse or criticize the institutions and order of world cricket. Conceptions of the community and its order were present in statements made by different national teams as they approached the 2010 Twenty20 World Cup. We find that discussion engendered by the emergence of Twenty20 media events are structured around binaries of Test cricket, its techniques, sanctity and sporting values, against Twenty20, its ‘hit and giggle’ techniques, its innovations and its association with sporting values. Nevertheless, as all formats adapt and the institutional order evolves, we already find evidence of these binaries beginning to dissolve.

2011-11-21 O'Loughlin and Anstead at Google

Ben O’Loughlin and Nick Anstead will be speaking at Google@Scholars: Data Opportunities and Challenges (co-sponsored by the Google Forum, Google and the Economic and Social Research Council) on 21 November 2011 in London. The day includes presentations from Fiona Armstrong of the ESRC and Theo Bertram of Google. Sessions will involve finding and consolidating digital ‘traces’ and using Google Tools for social science research.

Thanks to Sarah Oates for organising the event.

Digital Methods: Tools for Analysis

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

BBC The Politics Show's David Thompson speaking, 8 November

On Tuesday 8th November PIRSoc, our student-led Politics Society, will host the term's first careers event with BBC One's David Thompson.

Mr Thompson is a journalist on The Politics Show, shown weekly on BBC 1, and has previously been a Westminster Lobby correspondent for Scotland's best selling daily paper, the Daily Record. 

David will be speaking about his experiences working in journalism as well as giving advice on how you can become a political journalist.

PIRSoc hope to see you there, the event will be taking place at 6:30pm - 7:30pm in ABLT1.

Further details are available here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=171329789617388. Follow PIRSoc on Twitter: @RHUL_PIRSoc 

2011-11-03 Crisis and New Communications Media

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

ESRC PhD Funding Opportunities at NPCU

As part of the ESRC Doctoral Training Centre we are pleased to welcome scholarship applications from well-qualified applicants. The ESRC DTC is in partnership with the universities of Kent, Reading and Surrey. Further details of the ESRC DTC South East can be found here. The ESRC DTC has a total of 24 fully funded PhD scholarships available.

The deadline for applications for ESRC funding is 10^th February 2012. Offers to successful candidates should go out the week before Easter (which is on 6^th to 9^th April). Full details on ESRC PhD funding can be found here.

Applications and Admissions

Applications from students who wish to be considered for ESRC funding should be made directly to the Department of Politics and International Relations. The Department welcomes applications from highly qualified and motivated candidates. The application process for our postgraduate research programmes is an interactive one. We place great emphasis on matching prospective students to supervisors’ interests, building on our existing research activities. Those interested in conducting a PhD within the New Political Communication Unit should consider how their research interests overlap with its current members. 

Interested potential applicants should first refer to our website to obtain a good idea of the department's research foci: http://www.rhul.ac.uk/Politics-and-IR/About-Us/. The Department is only able to consider applications in research areas of interest to its full-time academic staff.

In the first instance, potential applicants should prepare a research proposal, outlining the project that they will undertake if accepted onto the PhD programme.  This should be at least 8-10 pages long and should include the key research questions, hypothesis, proposed methodology and a bibliography. Email this research proposal, along with a cv, to the Director of Graduate Study, Dr Alister Miskimmon.

If the proposal is met with interest by a potential supervisor, the Director of Graduate Study will invite the potential applicant to discuss their proposal further via email. UK-based applicants may be invited to visit the Department. Promising potential applicants will then be advised to apply formally for a place on our PhD programme. Candidates shortlisted for the PhD programme will be interviewed.

Potential applicants may contact the Director of Graduate Study with proposals at any stage of the academic year. For the 2011/12 academic year, the deadline for formal applications from applicants wishing to be considered for funding opportunities is 10 February 2012.

Building an Effective Social Media Campaign: A Roundtable Debate

2.00–6.00 pm, 2 November, The Attlee Suite, Portcullis House, Westminster

Organised by the University of Manchester and the Hansard Society

This roundtable, organised as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science and taking place during Parliament Week (Oct 31 – Nov 6) brings together academics, politicians, activists, news producers and journalists to debate how social media are being used to promote protest and political change.

The discussion will look at the use of Twitter & Facebook and examine the development of social media based protest and how digital strategies for action are rapidly coalescing and becoming essential to any modern-day campaign. Finally, it will examine the role of ‘old’ media in facilitating and promoting the success of new media campaigns and ask if digital activism and online exposure are sufficient to drive the momentum offline or if it requires mainstream media coverage.

Agenda

2.00 – 2.30: Welcome, Registration and Refreshments

2.30 – 4.00: Roundtable discussion: The view from the ‘inside’ – Practitioners. Chair: Dr Andy Williamson.

- Mark Pack, Blogger (LibDemVoice)
- Dr Julian Huppert MP
- Baroness Deech
- Elizabeth Linder, Politics & Government Specialist (Facebook)

4.00 – 4.15: Refreshments

4.15 – 6.00: Roundtable discussion: The view from ‘outside’ – Media & Academic analysis.
Chair: Prof Rachel Gibson (University of Manchester).

- Matthew Eltringham (BBC UGC Hub)
- Alberto Nardelli (Tweetminster)
- Professor Andrew Chadwick (University of London, Royal Holloway)

For more information and to register for this event, please click here.

Journal of Media & Cultural Studies: CfP Reconnecting Political Disconnection

JOMEC Journal

issue 1

Reconnecting Political Disconnection

Call for Papers: Reconnecting Political Disconnection

Winter 2010 to Summer 2011 saw surprising political processes and events: massive political upheaval and transformation in formerly undemocratic countries, on the one hand, and the apparent ineffectuality of widespread discontent and protest in many ‘democratic’ countries on the other. At the same time, new and old forms of media and journalism technology and practice had disparate effects: some appeared to enable political connection, movement and transformation, while others worked to disconnect, close down and preserve stasis. This issue of JOMEC, Reconnecting Political Disconnection, invites contributions which engage with what is to be learned from these complex conjunctions in which new and old forms of journalism, media, cultural and political practice converge and operate in competing ways.

Submission guidelines:

Abstracts: 100-500 words

Deadline for abstracts: Friday 11^th November 2011

Contributor details: 100-200 words (position, institution, publications, etc.)

Deadline for first draft submissions: End February 2012.

Article Length: 1,000-6,000 words.

Journal Referencing Style: Harvard

Contact: Paul Bowman: BowmanP@cf.ac.uk