About the speakers
(in order of appearance)
Professor Robert A Hackett is Professor of Communication at Simon Fraser
University, Vancouver; co-director of NewsWatch Canada, and co-founder of the
(Canadian) Campaign for Democratic Media. His recent works include Remaking media:
the struggle to democratise public communication. Prof Hackett serves on the editorial
boards of Journalism Studies and four other journals in the field.
Dr Penny O’Donnell is Senior Lecturer in International Media and Journalism at
the University of Sydney. Her most recent publication, Journalism at the Speed of Bytes
(2012), co-authored with David McKnight (UNSW) and Jonathan Este (Walkley
Foundation), examines the future of Australian newspapers.
Dr Alana Mann is a Lecturer in the Media and Communications Department at the
University of Sydney. Her PhD Framing Food Sovereignty: A Study of Social Movement
Communication was completed in 2011. Her current research focuses on non-state
actor engagement in international food policy networks.
Professor Gerard Goggin chairs the Department of Media and Communications
at the University of Sydney. His books include New Technologies and the Media
(2012), Mobile Technology and Place (2012), Global Mobile Media (2011), and Cell
Phone Culture (2006).
Associate Professor Jake Lynch is Director of CPACS and Secretary General
of IPRA. He is the most published and frequently cited author in Peace Journalism. Professor Wendy Bacon is a journalist and media researcher with the
Australian Centre for Independent Journalism at UTS; a Pacific Media Centre at the
Auckland University of Technology board member and a contributing editor to New
Matilda and Pacific Journalism Review.
Professor John Keane is Director of the newly created Institute for Democracy
and Human Rights at the University of Sydney. He is the author of a full-scale history of
democracy, The Life and Death of Democracy (2009) and (forthcoming) Democracy in
the Age of Media Decadence. New Media, New Journalism:
Challenges and Opportunities
Senate Room, Quadrangle, University of Sydney
September 13th, 2012
• Robert A Hackett (Simon Fraser University)
• John Keane (University of Sydney)
• Wendy Bacon (Aus Centre for Independent Journalism)
INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH ASSOCIATION
New Media, New Journalism: Challenges and Opportunities
09.30 – 11.00: Session 1, chaired by A/Prof Jake Lynch (CPACS)
Professor Robert A Hackett (Simon Fraser University): Journalism for a
world in crisis – Peace Journalism and environmental communication as
challenger paradigms.
Dr Penny O’Donnell (MeCo): Theorising mainstream media’s capacity to
give voice to the voiceless and enable difficult truths to be heard.
Dr Alana Mann (MeCo): Analysing grassroots media use by members of
social movement La Via Campesina ('the peasant way') in Chile, Mexico
and Spain, with evidence that support by alternative media platforms such
as Indymedia is driving increasingly consolidated global campaigns.
11.00 – 11.30: Coffee in Courtyard lounge (Sponsored by CPACS)
m
n
Robert A Hackett has written about the “arguably disintegrating but still
dominant ‘regime of objectivity’” in Anglophone mainstream media, and the
challenges and opportunities this conjunction may bring. The challenges are
relatively well known. Last year’s Independent Media Inquiry established by the
Australian government was tasked with examining: “The impact of technological
change on the business model that has supported the investment by traditional
media organisations in quality journalism and the production of news, and how
such activities can be supported, and diversity enhanced”. Such concerns have
become still more pressing since, in Australia as elsewhere, with staff cuts and
business restructuring at Fairfax and News Ltd.
Less thoroughly examined have been the opportunities, for creating new forms
of journalism as a civic tool in democracy, capable of equipping publics for
informed engagement with critical issues such as conflict, and climate change.
Hackett has argued that, as the old underpinnings of ‘quality journalism’ decay,
the commensurate rise, in salience and importance, of “alternative media” may
create “new vistas for peace journalism”. In a new line of scholarly enquiry, he is
now considering community and alternative media’s actual and potential roles in
democratic empowerment and trust as a social/political resource, with particular
reference to climate change and economic inequality.
Running order for the day
•
•
•
Morning sessions 09.30 – 13.00 (including coffee break)
Lunch 13.00 – 14.00
Afternoon sessions 14.00 – 16.45 (including break)
Places FREE, morning coffee and networking lunch provided – booking essential.
To book: [email protected] Sponsors: Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; Department of Media and Communications (MeCo); Centre
for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) (all University of Sydney); International Peace Research
Association (IPRA).
11.30 – 13:00: Session 2, chaired by Prof Gerard Goggin (MeCo)
Associate Professor Jake Lynch: Opportunities for Peace Journalism.
Professor Wendy Bacon (Australian Centre for Independent Journalism,
University of Technology, Sydney): What role for alternative media in
creating a democratic public sphere in Australia? Past perspectives and
present opportunities.
13:00 – 14:00: Lunch in CPACS Peace Gallery (Sponsored by IPRA)
14:00 – 15:30: Session 3, chaired by Jake Lynch
m
k
Professor John Keane (University of Sydney, Institute for Democracy
and Human Rights): Democracy in the age of Media Decadence: media
obstacles to democratic empowerment.
Professor Robert A Hackett: response and reflections.
15:30 – 16:00: Coffee break
16:00 – 16:45: Film: Peace Journalism in Mexico, Q & A with Jake Lynch
CLOSE