African and Arab Media
Audiences:
Shared Agendas for Research
Conference jointly organised by
the
Africa Media
Series, Arab Media
Centre and Audiences Group
Communication and Media Research Institute
(CAMRI), University of Westminster
30-31 March
2009
Venue: New
Cavendish Campus
115 New Cavendish Street, London
W1
To register, please contact Helen Cohen, e-mail: Helen.cohen@wmin.ac.uk
Tel. +44 (0)2079115000
Keynote Speakers
“On African
Audiences”
Karin
Barber, Professor of African Cultural Anthropology, FBA,
University of Birmingham
“The holy spitting man: modernness and the impasse of Arab
thought”
Tarik
Sabry, CAMRI, University of Westminster
Registration
The conference will begin during the morning of Monday,
March 30th and continue to the early evening of
Tuesday, March 31st. Plenary sessions will be held
for one keynote speaker on each day. The remaining sessions will
consist of concurrent panels, except for one or more plenary
sessions dealing primarily with theoretical and/or methodological
issues.
The fee for registration will be £50, with a
concessionary rate of £25 for students.
To get the registration form, please contact Helen Cohen at:
Helen.cohen@wmin.ac.uk
Topic
Media research to date has largely neglected the fast growing
and diverse media audiences in African and Arab countries. These
countries share painful histories of colonization and broadly
comparable experiences of post-independence media development.
Today they share the challenge of adjusting to global trade and
investment regimes that affect local media production and
distribution systems but are crafted elsewhere. Yet when we speak
of media reception in the Global South, we tend to think in terms
of isolated geographies: of 'Latin America', 'Africa', or the
'Middle East'. By contextualizing primarily in terms of place, we
overlook memories, issues and features that media users in
different regions have in common. We foster artificial boundaries
and separate research agendas. As a result, opportunities for
productive joint debates about Arab and African media consumption
are missed.
Blogs, chatrooms, social networking sites, and the use of SMS
indicate that African and Arab audiences, like audiences generally,
are highly active in sending and receiving messages in innovative
ways. This conference, organised by the University of Westminster's
Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI), will explore
this activity, taking in the old, the new, and processes of change
and transformation. It draws on the combined resources of CAMRI's
African Media Series, Arab Media Centre and Audiences Group. It
focuses on media use and media users in two overlapping regions,
where the culture and politics of former colonial powers have
combined with internal influences to shape the audience experience
in particular ways.