Guest lectures Jan 27th: Cees Hamelink and Robin Mansell
Invitation by Ørecomm & Research Group Communication, Journalism and Social Change Friday 27th of January 2012, 10 – 12 am, room 43.3.29 with Prof. Cees Hamelink and Prof. Robin Mansell
Prof. Cees Hemelink: Communication and the Escalation of Evil based on his recent book Media and Conflict (2011, Paradigm Pub.)
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? Three approaches to the prevention of mass mediated aggression are proposed in this book: an early warning system for incitement to mass destruction, the invitation to disarming conversations in urban space, and the teaching of compassionate communication to children and others. Alertness to the recurrence of collective violence is urgently needed not only in unstable and poor societies, but also in established democracies. Ordinary people can be incited to the mass slaughter of other ordinary people anywhere. Understanding the media 's role in this and acting to prevent it are key goals of this book.
Cees Hamelink is Professor of International Communication at the University of Amsterdam, and Professor of Media, Religion and Culture at the Free University in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He is the editor‐in‐chief of the International Journal for Communication Studies: Gazette. He is also Honorary President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), founder of the People's Communication Charter and Board Member of the International Communication Association and the international news agency Inter Press Service (IPS).
Prof. Robin Mansell : Title: 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 if those goals are to have an improved chance of being met in the future.
Robin Mansell is Professor of New Media and the Internet at the department of media and Communications, London School of Economics (LSE). a member of the European Research Council Large Grants Panel (SH2 Institutions, Values, Beliefs and Behaviour). She is a member of the Steering Committee of Information and Knowledge Management ‐ Emergent (IKM‐ E); Chair of the annual European Communications Policy Research Conference; Honorary Professor at Science and Technology
Policy Research (SPRU) University of Sussex; and a member of the Promotions Board at Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex, where she was a trustee, 1999‐2009. She was President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research, 2004‐2008.