PhD course, Roskilde: Networked spaces of mediated communication forms of appropriation by new social actors and movements

This PhD course will focus on the role of mass mediated and digitally networked forms of communication in transnational advocacy and activism campaigns, spanning the spectrum of social change agency from information dissemination, to networking and mobilization. From the “Twitter revolution” in Iran, to the Satellite TV and social media conveyed uprisings of the Arab spring and activist movements’ mediation of protests against austerity programs and the drivers of the financial crisis in the industrialized and financial centers of the world, networked online media have seemingly played a prominent role in the constitution, identity-formation and reflective self-understanding of new social actors and movements on a global scale.

Thus, the course questions mediated communication’s significance for citizens’ participation and inclusion in the political process and the impact of social network media on democratic engagement in terms of citizens’ voice and empowerment. The PhD course will critically examine the opportunities and limits of this enlargement of a mediated public space that are constituted by a changing global media landscape. We will describe, identify, analyze and question the communicative strategies that various civic agents employ and the understanding of new digital media, the uses and users these strategies are based upon. The interdisciplinary character of the PhD course, located between sociological/anthropological and media/communication studies, will strive to develop a theoretically grounded perspective on the outlined phenomena that avoids both a media-centric and society-centric perspective. With the active participation of teachers and PhD students we will thus seek to develop a realistic understanding built on our critical examination of the two core concepts “community” and “communication” as discernible in the cases that will be presented.

Among the teachers are Norbert Wildermuth and Thomas Tufte from Ørecomm. Invited guests are Jo Tacchi (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia), Marshall Ganz (Harvard University, USA), Abraham Mulwo (Moi University, Kenya).

The course will be held at “Søminestationen” close to Roskilde, 10 to 12 September 2013. See full course description here. Deadline for applications is 10 August 2013.