Call for Papers
Cosmopolitanism, New Media and Protests
Friday 15 June 2012, 09.30am - 05.30pm
London School of Economics and Political Science
Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE
The LSE Media and Communications Department invites abstracts for papers on 'Cosmopolitanism, New Media and Protests', to be presented at our fifth annual PhD Symposium on 15 June 2012. Research students from across disciplines in the social sciences are welcome to apply. The deadline for submission of proposals is Monday 20 February 2012.
In the last two years, significant waves of civil protests have been taking place around the globe. There are many examples: the so-called 'Arab Spring' has targeted totalitarian regimes in the Arab world; the 'indignados' in Spain, Greece and other EU countries have been protesting against austerity, unemployment and corrupt governments; the #Occupy movement, in the USA and Europe, emerged as a response to the financial crisis, targeting financial elites and demanding social change; there have also been riots in a number of UK cities; and political protests in Russia.
On the one hand, these developments can be approached as local events in which information technologies and new media played a significant role in the mediation of protests. On the other, we could argue that we are witnessing the emergence of a new global political system, as all these events are interrelated and reflect the rise of a new type of cosmopolitan networked society. In the latter case, new media may not just be a tactical tool but a major factor for system change.
Conceptualising cosmopolitanism as a contested term resting on a tension between the local and the global, the Symposium will examine the mediation of protests through new media platforms as they expand within and beyond national borders. The key question we will address is: How are new media implicated in the creation of cosmopolitan dispositions and protest mobilisations?
The Symposium welcomes, but is not limited to, abstracts in the following areas of enquiry:
- Local/global media in protests
- Cosmopolitan identity and cosmopolitan publics
- Global consciousness
- Social media and political change
- Networked journalism
- Mediation of protests
- Cosmopolitan identity and engagement in protests
- Media attention
- The state-networks relationship and mediation
- Mediating violence and representation of suffering in protests.
Submission
Please submit 300-word proposal (title &abstract) for paper and presentation of 15 minutes by 20 February 2012 to: media.symposium@lse.ac.uk|. In a separate attachment, please include your name, paper title, institutional affiliation, short bio and contact details as well as your PhD project title. Successful submissions will be announced by 30 March 2012. Subject to availability, research students wishing to attend the workshop without presenting are welcome; please indicate your interest by emailing the above address with details of your institutional affiliation and PhD project title.
Further information
For more information and updates about the Symposium, 'Like' our page on Facebook| and follow us on Twitter @MediaPhDSymp|
Join the Facebook group| to ask questions and get more information from the organizers and meet other PhD students who are interested in the topic.
Organizational committee
Marina Gerner M.Gerner@lse.ac.uk|
Naya Hadzipani N.P.Hadzipani@lse.ac.uk|
Gregory Asmolov G.Asmolov@lse.ac.uk|