::fc-announce:: Robert Hackett on Global Media Reform, UQ Apr 26

[Melissa Gregg]

RSVP to Katie Petersen <katie.petersen at uq.edu.au>


TITLE: Global Media Reform: Media Activism as Movement- Nexus
DATE: April 26
TIME: 4-6PM
LOCATION: SS&H Library Conference Room


This lecture summarizes a major study (co-authored with William  
Carroll, and published by Routledge as Remaking Media) of democratic  
media activism (DMA) in the North Atlantic “heartland” of globalizing  
capitalism -- the US, UK and Canada.  Such activism aims to challenge  
and transform the “democratic deficit” of the dominant means of  
public communication in those societies; however, it is more than  
just a defensive attempt to narrow the deficit. Its more visionary,  
counter-hegemonic side portends a re-imagining of democracy itself –  
as in the notion of the right to communicate, which implies popular  
participation and social equality, with potentially global  
ramifications.  In this task, DMA faces blockages and obstacles, as  
well as resources and opportunities – some endemic to progressive  
social movements in contemporary capitalism, others unique to this  
form of activism.

I will explore the political nature and trajectory of DMA, and in  
particular, the question of whether it comprises an incipient social  
movement.  Accordingly, and based upon documentary research, case  
histories of key organizations, and interviews with 150 media  
activists and others in the 3 countries, I situate DMA in relation to  
its political target, the dominant media.  I explore power through  
the media – the ways that power (dominant groups, logics, and  
institutions) shape media.  But I also consider power of the media,  
the impacts of media on other social institutions and processes.  In  
making this analytical distinction, Pierre Bourdieu's concept of  
media and journalism as a "field" has considerable purchase, one  
helpful in mapping institutional relations and political strategies.  
The characteristics of the media field, and the types of DMA that  
have emerged in relation to it, help to explain why (in my view), DMA  
is less likely to be a movement in and for itself, than a “movement- 
nexus”: a point of articulation between movements, transforming and  
potentially lending coherence to the broad field of movement activism  
as a counter-hegemonic formation.  I conclude by drawing some  
strategic implications from this diagnosis: What lines of collective  
action offer the most promise in democratizing the means of public  
communication?

Please join us for drinks and nibbles after the lecture. Do send in  
your RSVP by April 24th at the latest. Please send your RSVP to Katie  
Petersen katie.petersen at uq.edu.au

Robert A. Hackett (Ph.D., Political Studies, Queen’s University at  
Kingston, 1983) is professor of communication at Simon Fraser  
University, Vancouver, and co-director since 1993 of NewsWatch  
Canada, a media monitoring project.  He has written, co-authored or  
co-edited a number of articles, books and monographs on journalism,  
political communication, and media representation.  His books include  
Remaking Media: The struggle to democratize public communication  
(2006, with William Carroll), Democratizing Global Media: One World,  
Many Struggles (2005, co-edited with Yuezhi Zhao), The Missing News:  
Blind spots and filters in Canada’s press (2000, with R. Gruneau, D.  
Gutstein, T. Gibson and NewsWatch Canada), Sustaining Democracy?  
Journalism and the politics of objectivity (1998, with Yuezhi Zhao)  
and News and Dissent: The press and the politics of peace in Canada  
(1991).
Hackett is on the editorial boards of Journalism Studies, Media  
Development, and Democratic Communique.  He has also been involved  
for over 20 years in community-based media education and advocacy  
projects and groups, including Vancouver’s annual Media Democracy  
Day, the Union for Democratic Communications, and the North American  
executive committee of WACC, a global NGO concerned with  
communication for social change.





Dr. Melissa Gregg
ARC Postdoctoral Fellow
Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies
Fourth Floor, Forgan Smith Tower
The University of Queensland
QLD Australia 4072
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