Lectures by Cees Hamelink and Robin Mansell are available online here.

Main speakers at the seminar are Thomas Tufte (Roskilde University and Ørecomm co-director) and Winston Mano (Director of Africa Media Centre, University of Westminster, UK). The seminar will be held at Malmö University, room U 302 (Ubåtshallen). Participation is open and free, but for logistical reasons you must register below. The programme:

13:15 – 14:30: Thomas Tufte:
Communication for Development and Social Change:
History and current challenges

15:00 – 16:30: Winston Mano:
Media and Development in the Digital Age:
Questions, issues and priorities for Africa

16:45 – 17:30: Summing up the seminar (Next Stop London)

The lectures will be held 10-12 am, Friday 27 January 2012
at Roskilde University, room 43.3.29.

Cees Hamelink:
Communication and the Escalation of Evil

The lecture is based on Cees Hamelink’s recent book Media and Conflict. The world faces explosive conflicts about the distribution and scarcity of resources, about ethnicity and religion, and about the risks of urban life. These conflicts can easily spiral out of control toward mass slaughter an evil of huge proportions that is often escalated by the media. What should be done to prevent this lethal trend? We need to understand how the spiral of escalation works. How do media create anxiety, provide space for agitation, and disconnect people?

[Both Cees Hamelink's and Robin Mansell's videorecorded lectures are available here.]

Robin Mansell:
Social Imaginaries of Communication Technologies

This lecture compares and contrasts two of most predominant social imaginaries of the causes and consequences of innovations in the production and use of communication technologies, critically considering the way they embrace oppositional visions of the information society and their implications for social change. The differences between them are considered in terms of the normative goals of the ‘good society’, concluding with some observations about what changes in policy and practice are essential.

For a more detailed presentation of lecturers and lectures see leaflet  here.

“Democratic Process, Social Movements,
Their Media, and the Issue of Timescale”

John D.H. Downing will speak on this subject at an Ørecomm seminar on 30 November 2011 at Roskilde University. You are most welcome! For logistical reasons you must register – see the form below.

Professor Downing writes:

Social movement media have a very long history, albeit often overlooked or dismissed. Currently, they are in public focus as perhaps never before. A considerable emphasis in the present has been on digital social networking media, an emphasis which seems to recycle, yet again, the wondrous forecasts concerning new communication technologies which have continually resurfaced over the decades. Debate has consequently pivoted on a simple Either-Or: are these media a radically fresh opportunity, or merely coincidental – or worse, dangerous new technologies for surveillance agents?

This presentation will explore approaches that permit placing these newer media technologies and ‘legacy’ media in a certain symbiosis. It will also address the crucial but usually neglected issue of time-frame in discussions of media roles, democratization and the democratic deficit, and social movements. Transnational revolts arising during the year 2011 will be drawn upon for illustrations and arguments.

I will first address the problem of democratic process; then proceed to discuss social movements and their media; and conclude with reflections on some frequent assumptions about timescale and political and social change. …

John D.H. Downing, Professor Emeritus & Founding Director, Global Media Research Center, Southern Illinois University; Affiliate Professor, Information and Media Studies, Århus University. Among his recent publications is The Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media, previously announced on orecomm.net. If you are new to Roskilde University, see directions here.

Invitation

Agency in the Mediatized World is the overarching theme for the first Ørecomm festival, 9–13 September 2011, a five-day event taking place on both sides of the Öresund strait. The event is organised by the transnational research centre, Ørecomm, which works to strengthen research in the interdisciplinary field of media, communication and social change.

The festival will start in Malmö with an open three-day seminar (9–11 September) in conjunction with the international master’s programme in Communication for Development at Malmö University, stopping over in Copenhagen for a professional practitioner hearing on social media in development cooperation (12 September), and ending at Roskilde University with an academic conference by the Glocal NOMAD (Network on Media and Development) on 13 September. Seminars, hearing and conference are open and there are no fees involved. However, to attend you must register by 22 August 2011. You may register here.

For more information, see the festival webpage.

This seminar will present different approaches to ethnographic method in culture and media research, with regard to social activism and the public sphere in transitional societies. A common denominator is the concern for exploring unconventional cross-media or hybrid forms of presentation.

The seminar will be held on 6 June 2011 at 13-17 hrs, at Roskilde University, building 43, room 43.3.29. This Ørecomm Open Seminar is open to all, but please register here.

RE-GENERATION, Production by Debra Vidali

Debra Spitulnik Vidali (Emory University):
From Media Ethnography to Theatrical Production: Voices, Transformations and Instigations with RE-GENERATION. Abstract and bio; review.

Oscar Hemer (Malmö University):
Writing Ethnography: The ethnography of literary writing, or a writer’s approach to anthropology. Abstract.

Ylva Ekström, Anders Høg Hansen, Hugo Boothby (Malmö Uni):
Globalization of the Pavement. Abstract; article on ComDev site.

Hilde Arntsen (University of Bergen):
From Editorial Cartoons in Internet News Sites to Online Ethnographies: Which Ways Forward? Abstract.

Remember to register by 1 June! Download the programme here.

For directions on how to get to Roskilde University, see this page where you can also find a map of campus. Building 43 is in the L-shaped complex in the northwest (top left) corner of campus.

Open Lecture by Professor John Downing, Southern Illinois University, at K3, Medea, Kranen, Östra Varvsgatan 11 A, Malmö University: Friday 10 December 2010, 13.30 – 15.00

John Downing will explore the relation between media, communication and social change. In his presentation Professor Downing will explore the subject from three perspectives: firstly, that social movement media typically place political clashes front and center. Secondly, the frame ‘development media’ which very often presumes a fundamentally benign political order disfigured by crushing economic and health care needs. What we mean by ‘political’ also factors into this arena, not least in gender terms. (What is in view here is not politics in the sense of partisan party politics, except where that is one of the obstacles to constructive social change.) Finally, the ‘knowledge-sharing’ frame often seems totally obsessed with ‘facts’ and ‘information’. Are these three frames incompatible? In framing community media projects, local, national and transnational, should their respective adherents try to learn from each other?

The lecture is co-arranged by Glocal NOMAD, Ørecomm, Malmö University and Roskilde University. More information here (pdf).

Added: The streaming video recording of Downing’s lecture is available here.

The great Latin American scholar in the field of communication, Jesus Martín-Barbero will give a guest lecture at Roskilde University, on Monday 10 May 2010, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon in room 40.2.25.

Professor Martín-Barbero will lecture on:

Diversidad cultural y convergencia digital
[Cultural diversity and digital convergence]

The lecture will be in Spanish, without translation, followed by a discussion. In the discussion, participants may put questions in English. To learn more about professor Martín-Barbero’s academic record, see his brief CV.

Professor Karin Wilkins, University of Texas, Austin, is guest professor at Roskilde University 6-19 September 2009. She will participate in the PhD course on mediated communication initiatives 8-10 September. On 12 September Karin Wilkins will lecture in Malmö (see below).

Professor Wilkins will give an open lecture in the Ørecomm Open Seminar series at RUC on Monday 7 September at 13:15 in room 42.2.37 (slides available here as pdf):

Changing Communication for Social Change
Having suffered some well deserved blows, “development communication” as a field of scholarship and practice has been transitioning in approach and in name to “communication for social change.” At this critical juncture, it is time not only for appreciation of this transition, but also for critical reflection on potential future paths for this field. Following a brief overview of how central issues in the field have changed over time, I consider continuity and change in our current approaches. In many ways, dominant ideological approaches to development still prevail within larger bilateral institutions, whereas more alternative approaches find more possibilities in flexible nonprofit and nongovernmental institutions, nurtured through dialogues across and within practitioners and academics. Changes within our attempts to promote social change are not linear though, as suggested in models of societal transition from so-called “tradition” to “modernity,” but rather ebb and flow in relation to the agendas and practices of communities and institutions negotiating communication practices within political-economic structures. I will conclude with some questions for us to consider as we work toward improving our potential to create better strategies for “social change,” such as what themes and approaches become excluded from these parameters.

Professor Wilkins will also lecture on a similar theme at Malmö University’s Communication for Development programme (in K3) on Saturday 12 September, 9:30-12:00, room: U521. See the full ComDev seminar programme here (in the left menu, click on Seminars). Note in the seminar programme that on Friday 11 September at 13:00 you may follow professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s lecture on Globalization. Both lectures are webcast (register before!).

On 25 and 26 March 2009 Alfonso Gumucio Dagron will lecture at Roskilde and Malmö universities, in the Ørecomm Open Seminar series. Gumucio is director of programs at the  Communication for Social Change Consortium. Among his recent publications is the Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings, co-edited with Ørecomm co-director Thomas Tufte.