[Commlist] IAMCR Pre-conference: 'Beyond Media Diversity: Media Practice and Media Studies in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter'

Registrations are now open for the symposium ‘Beyond Media Diversity: 
Media Practice and Media Studies in the Age of #BlackLivesMatter’ hosted 
by the Media Futures Hub at UNSW on Thursday 27 June.

Registration link:Beyond Media Diversity - Registration (google.com) 
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxaSme8D5xVqqUKMq00aoadCnSYnOeBeuipMiYfedhtAxjMw/viewform>

Full details below

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*Beyond Media Diversity: Media Practice and Media Studies in the Age of 
#BlackLivesMatter*

Date and time - 27 June 2024 | 09h00 - 18h00

Location - University of New South Wales, Kensington Campus, Sydney, 
Australia

An IAMCR pre-conference and ‘bridge’ event between ICA 2024 and IAMCR 2024

https://iamcr.org/christchurch2024/beyond-media-diversity-conf 
<https://iamcr.org/christchurch2024/beyond-media-diversity-conf>

Organisers - A/Prof Tanja Dreher, University of New South Wales and 
A/Prof Sukhmani Khorana, University of New South Wales

REGISTRATION:Beyond Media Diversity - Registration (google.com) 
<https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScxaSme8D5xVqqUKMq00aoadCnSYnOeBeuipMiYfedhtAxjMw/viewform>

Recent years have seen various and continuing ‘media reckonings’ on 
racism and diversity. The resurgence of #BlackLivesMatter protests 
across the globe in in 2020 brought renewed attention to media racism in 
Australia and across the Global North. Resurgent Sinophobia and 
anti-Asian racism in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic and 
entrenched and violent Islamophobia highlighted again by the 2019 
massacre in Christchurch, Aotearoa/New Zealand, have heightened ‘media 
diversity debates’ and calls to decolonise media and/or support media 
anti-racism (Saha, 2020; Titley, 2019). Meanwhile international 
interventions in media scholarship such as #communicationsowhite have 
demonstrated that concerns around media, racism and diversity are highly 
relevant within media and communication/studies/ as well as in 
media/institutions/ (Chakravarty et al 2018, Ng et al 2020).

Despite the upsurge in media diversity debates and initiatives in 
response to these cultural reckonings, the aim of greater diversity has 
been premised on limiting assumptions. One of the most oft-used ones is 
that media and those who work in it must ‘reflect’ the demographics of 
the changing nation state. The media reckoning prompted by Indigenous 
media presenter Stan Grant’s resignation from the Australian 
Broadcasting Corporation in 2023 followed decades of diversity 
initiatives at the public broadcasters. Christine Dunbar-Hester argues, 
‘“diversity” is a timid framing. What would change if the conversation 
was directed towards justice instead?’ (2021).

The pre-conference event builds on the successful ‘Beyond Benign 
Diversity in media scholarship and industry’ workshop held at UNSW in 
October 2023. Sponsored by the Media Futures Hub, this preliminary 
workshop outlined the key agenda items for moving beyond diversity in 
media practice and media research in settler colonial Australia. In 
building on this workshop, the symposium takes a transnational approach 
to framing diversity debates in the media, how these are limiting (and 
limited), and what decolonial and anti-colonial alternatives could look 
like. The event thus speaks directly to the IAMCR2024 General theme: 
‘/Whiria te tāngata / Weaving people together:///Communicative projects 
of decolonising, engaging, and listening’

*Agenda:* Full-day symposium with 20 min presentations by invited 
speakers in the first half of the day; second half for responses and 
reflections from all participants (in the spirit of listening)

*Outcomes:* participants will be invited to submit proposals for a 
possible journal special issue on transnational perspectives on framing 
diversity in the media and moving toward decolonial approaches

*Location:* The preconference will be held at the Kensington campus of 
the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia. The 
Kensington campus is well connected to Sydney Central station (15 mins 
by Light Rail) and to Sydney airport (a gateway airport for IAMCR 2024 
and ICA 2024). There are many affordable accommodation options nearby. 
The venue will be fully accessible.

*Media Futures Hub* (https://mediafutureshub.org/ 
<https://mediafutureshub.org/>) is a collection of scholars at UNSW 
researching justice, media and emerging technologies. We explore topics 
such as community and First Nations media, drones and autonomous 
systems, data justice, listening across difference, everyday uses of 
media technology, and new research methods. Our research is 
interventionist, innovative and fearless. Our aim is not only to analyse 
the world around us, but to help build more just futures.

*Tanja Dreher* is Associate Professor in Media and a Co-Director of the 
Media Futures Hub at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

*Sukhmani Khorana* is a Scientia Associate Professor in the Faculty of 
Arts, Design and Architecture, School of the Arts and Media.



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