** with apologies for cross-posting**
CFP: Cosmopolitanism, Media And Global Crisis
Date:4 June 2011
Location:Penrhyn Road Campus Kingston KT1 2EE
Fee:TBC
Cosmopolitanism, Media And Global Crisis
An International Conference
Kingston University, UK
June 4th 2011
Keynote Speakers:
Professor Paddy Scannell &
Professor Lilie Chouliaraki
In the last three decades the field of media studies has witnessed an
exponential growth of publications and research on globalization, alongside
critical examinations of the “national” in terms of media systems, content and
reception. Even more recently, there has been an increasing critical interest in
the ways in which global processes, and especially the global circulation of
media texts, can encourage a cosmopolitanist outlook or identity for citizens
across the world. As a concept that responds both to the global and the national
in denoting the ability ‘to be able to live in both the global and the local at
the same time’ (Tomlinson 1999), cosmopolitanism is increasingly seen as an
alternative ideological response to globalisation, even as the latter has been
increasingly associated with ideas of crisis, disaster, terrorism, and risk.
Authors like Beck (2006) have insisted that we have now become cosmopolitans by
default whether we want to or not, thanks to the same media images we all are
simultaneously witnessing, but our ‘latent cosmopolitanism’ is only triggered
into an active attitude when faced with global risks and crisis. Similarly, the
extent to which media images of ‘distant suffering’ (Boltanski, 1999), can
manage to successfully trigger an ethics of cosmopolitanism has been the focus
of many other authors (e.g., Chouliaraki 2006, Silverstone 2006).
Despite this growing interest, the field remains far from saturated, especially
in terms of empirical research and the practical application of the theory in
media studies. Cosmopolitanism is, without doubt, still a much contested
concept, and so are the ways in which it can be useful in media studies as a
conceptual, analytical and methodological tool. This conference aims to
contribute to this growing field of scholarship by bringing together relevant
research which explores and examines the relationship between cosmopolitanism
and media in an increasingly fragmented, globalising world. A central focus of
the conference is the potential role of the media in providing a cosmopolitanist
outlook for its audiences, encouraging or discouraging cosmopolitanist
identifications, especially when engaging with global crisis and disasters. We
would like to focus on questions that have not been as frequently asked. For
example, how do cosmopolitan media discourses intersect with other discourses,
such as those of the nation, gender or class? Can other popular media texts,
besides news, also contribute to cosmopolitanism, or is this debate only limited
to hard news and their representation of distant suffering? How can we employ
cosmopolitanism as an analytical and methodological category in media research
and what are the issues we are facing when employing cosmopolitanism in media
studies? Is cosmopolitanism restricted to Western media theory and cultural
production, or can there be a postcolonial, ‘cosmopolitanism from below’?
Possible topics include (but are not restricted to) the following:
• Cosmopolitanism and Media Ethics
• Mediating Pain and Suffering
• Cosmopolitanism and global fictional narratives (film, TV, fiction)
• Application of theory and Issues of methodology
• The cosmopolitan memory
• Celebrity compassion and media
• Cosmopolitanism, the national, and/or postcolonial
• Cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism
• Cosmopolitanism, consumerism and media
• ‘The Shock Doctrine’, Disaster, and Globalisation
• Disaster Marathons and live coverage
• Consumer Society and the Commodification of Trauma
Abstract Submission
500-word abstracts should be submitted using the online form on the conference
web page ( http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=1418 ).
The deadline for submission is Sunday 16th January 2011. Successful conference
submissions will be notified by the second week of February.
Conference organisers:
Dr Aybige Yilmaz and Dr Aris Mousoutzanis
--------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA mailing list
--------------------------------------------------------
To manage your subscription or unsubscribe from the MECCSA list, please visit:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=MECCSA&A=1
-------------------------------------------------------
MeCCSA is the subject association for the field of media, communication and cultural studies in UK Higher Education. Membership is open to all who teach and research these subjects in HE institutions, via either institutional or individual membership. The field includes film and TV production, journalism, radio, photography, creative writing, publishing, interactive media and the web; and it includes higher education for media practice as well as for media studies.
This mailing list is a free service from MeCCSA and is not restricted to members.
For further information, please visit: http://www.meccsa.org.uk/
--------------------------------------------------------
