PhD Symposium 2015

Media and Communications Phd Symposium 

PhD researchers from around the world — and from diverse disciplinary backgrounds — participated in a one-day symposium on June 19 focused on ‘Struggle and Resistance in Media and Communication:  Structure Versus Agency.’  The event, hosted by the London School of Economics’ Media and Communications Department, highlighted current debates surrounding media as a key site of struggle in the contemporary world. 

This symposium provided PhD students with an opportunity to engage with questions of hegemony and resistance in the media and communications.

PhD students explored several issues, including:

• News, journalism and political communication    
• Media technologies, big data and surveillance    
• Communications labour and forms of work    
• Agency, resistance and forms of protest    
• Media regulation, institutions and globalization    
• Media, ICTs and development    
• Research approaches in media and communications

Researchers highlighted their PhD research, provocative ideas and engaging questions. 

The symposium was geared towards PhD candidates in the early stages of their research. The emphasis was on thoughtful discussion and engagement with fellow researchers, along with feedback from leading academics at the LSE Department of Media and Communications.

Keynote speaker Dr. Bart Cammaerts kicked off the one-day symposium with an address highlighting his research about the Occupy movement in the UK. Cammaerts outlined how Occupy ideas (or frames) reverberated through media and the larger public.

The event has been kindly supported by the Department of Media and Communications and the LSE’s Teaching and Learning Centre. 

The symposium was organized by Paula Kiel, Anthony Kelly, James Deeley and Nora Kroeger.

Opening

09:00                Registration

09:30                Opening remarks: Dr. Myria Georgiou

09:45                Keynote speaker: Dr. Bart Cammaerts 

Panel 1: Representing Resistance

Chair: Paula Kiel, Respondent: Dr. Myria Georgiou

10:30                Hannah Barton, Birkbeck, University of London                           
                         Memes of Protest                                

10:40                Eva Cheuk-Yin Li, King's College London                           
                         Festivalisation of Protest: A Study of Protest Art of Social Movements in Post-Colonial Hong Kong        

10:50                İmge Yıldırım, Yeditepe University              

                         Struggle and Resistance with Media through Media: An Extraordinary Case from Turkey

11:00                Ayesha Omer, New York University                           
                         Sit-ins with the Dead: Hazara Protests in Pakistan

11:10                Q&A

11:40                Coffee Break

Panel 2: Agency and Elites

Chair: Angelos Kissas, Respondent:  Dr. Bart Cammaerts

11:55                Vladimir Cotal San Martin, Örebro Univeristy                          
                          It's Not You and Me!: Labour Media on the Web and the representation of Workers' Working Conditions 

12:05                Juan Ramos Martín, University of Salamanca                           
                         Rhizomatic Structures of Alternative and Community Media: Influence on Bolivian Policy Making 

12:15                Brooks DeCillia, LSE                          
                         Hegemony, Struggle & Resistance: The Contested Framing Dynamic of Canada's Military Mission in Afghanistan

12:25                Brieuc Lits, Université Libre de Bruxelles                          
                         Astroturfing: When Power Entities Create Their Own Resistance Movements 

12:35                Nicholas Benequista, LSE                          
                         From Resistance to Recognition: Reconceptualizing Journalistic Autonomy After the Moral Turn

12:45                Q&A

13:15                Lunch Break

Panel 3: Conceptual and Structural Instabilities

Chair: Nora Kroeger, Respondent: Dr. Wendy Willems

14:15                César Jiménez-Martínez, LSE                          
                         From the Streets to the Stadiums: Struggling for the Image of Brazil in a Time of Crisis 

14:25                José Antonio Brambila, University of Sheffield                          
                         The Subnational Comparative Approach in Communication Studies

14:35                Ayman Alrehaili, Nottingham Trent University                          
                         Media (re)organization in the Arab Spring Countries: How Social Media Redefined Journalism and the Wider Media in Egypt and Tunisia During the Arab Spring

14:45                Richard Fern, University of Sheffield                          
                         Are Environmental Correspondents Extinct? 

14:55                Q&A

15:25                Coffee Break

Panel 4: Agency - Virtual and Actual 

Chair: Anthony Kelly, Respondent: Dr. Alison Powell

15:40                Rupert Knox, University of Sheffield                          
                         Exploring Mexico's Recent Human Rights-Based Resistance Movements and the Role of Social Media

15:50                Güneş Tavmen, Birkbeck, University of London                            
                         Open Data in the City: Smart Citizens and Agency

16:00                Arash Anghaei, University of East London                          
                         Interactive Media, Female Participation and Democracy: Lessons from Iran's Green Movement

16:10                Jacob Johanssen, University of East London                          
                         Affect, Data Ownership and Agency 

16:20                Q&A

Closing

16:50                Overall Response to Panels: Dr. Bart Cammaerts

17:00                Closing Discussion

17:30                Wine Reception

To download the symposium schedule, please click here. To download the book of abstracts, please click here.