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
â??nationalâ?? 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 â??to be able to live in
both the global and the local at the same
timeâ?? (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
â??latent cosmopolitanismâ?? is only triggered
into an active attitude when faced with global
risks and crisis. Similarly, the extent to which
media images of â??distant sufferingâ??
(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, â??cosmopolitanism from belowâ???
Possible topics include (but are not restricted to) the following:
? Cosmopolitanism and Media Ethics
? Mediaating Pain and Suffering
? Cosmopolitanism and globaal fictional narratives (film, TV, fiction)
? Application of theoryy and Issues of methodology
? The cosmopolitan memorry
? Celebrity compassion and media
? Cosmopolitanism, the national, and/or postcolonial
? Cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism
? Cosmopolitanism, consumerism annd media
? â??The Shock Doctrineâ???, Disaster, and Globalisation
? Disaster Marathoons and live coverage
? Consumer Society and tthe Commodification of Trauma
Abstract Submission
500-word abstracts should be submitted using the
<http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/conferences/abstracts/>online
form on the conference web page (
<http://fass.kingston.ac.uk/activities/item.php?updatenum=1418>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
