[csaa-forum] Reminder: Professor Jostein Gripsrud on New Media and the Public Sphere, Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th September

[Fiona Martin]

Media at Sydney presents:

Monday, 9th Sept:
‘What is New about New Media?’
and
Tuesday, 10th Sept:
‘The Blindspot of Public Sphere Theory: The Role of Expressive Culture’
(co-hosted by the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights, with Dr. Peter Chen)

By Professor Jostein Gripsrud (Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen)

‘What is New about New Media?’
The digitalisation of new media and the internet's development have been accompanied by a host of attempts to understand the implications of these innovations in social, cultural, political and economic terms. Some of them are of an academic or scholarly nature, others more journalistic or business oriented. The majority of contributions have, firstly, argued for the radicalness of the changes digital communication technologies represent - often proclaiming that other media, such as television, are facing an imminent death and that (global) society is entering a new historical stage. Secondly, they have also tended to estimate the impact of digitalisation very optimistically as a historical leap in terms of democratisation, freedom and egalitarian values.
The challenge for a more critical appraisal of digitalisation is to balance these discourses with some cooler theoretical, historical and empirical perspectives without denying the obvious and impressive gains and potentials of the new media and communicative forms. On place to start is the discussion of technological determinism, e.g. in Raymond Williams’ Television: Technology and Cultural Form and various contributions to debates on the work of Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan. As for historical perspectives, the transitions from theatre to film and then television as the most popular medium of dramatic entertainment is worth looking at when talking about the death of older media as new ones arrive. In this presentation, however, the emphasis will be on the implications of digitalisation for the structures and processes of the public sphere on the one hand and for socio-cultural stratification on the other.

Details:
Date: 9th September
Time: 2-4 pm
Location:  New Law Seminar Rm. 105, New Law Building (F10)<http://sydney.edu.au/law/about/campus.shtml>, University of Sydney


 ‘The Blindspot of Public Sphere Theory: The Role of Expressive Culture’

Theoretical work on the public sphere has almost completely concentrated on its political aspects. Even book-length contributions where “culture” is in the title have not dealt with the role of expressive culture, but about culture in the anthropological or ethnological sense. This is lamentable not only because the literary or cultural public sphere was the very beginning of the modern public sphere, but also because today’s existing public spheres are marked by close relations between expressive culture and a variety of key democratic functions.
This presentation will discuss the implications of and possible remedies for this weakness in public sphere theory and point to historical and current examples of how expressive culture has politically relevant impacts and implications that need to be addressed. Expressive culture is involved in a variety of ways in public discourses dealing with this situation, contributing to understandings of it and promoting political attitudes and actions. On the other hand, the cultural public sphere also offers possibilities for a retreat from politics and socio-cultural engagement, where differences in terms of engagement vs retreat are structured along lines of already established social divisions.

Date: 10th September
Time: 12:30 – 2pm
Location: Woolley Common Room, Level 4, John Woolley Building (A20)<http://db.auth.usyd.edu.au/directories/map/building.stm?ref=d08h15>, University of Sydney

Jostein Gripsrud is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Bergen, Norway.  He has published extensively on a variety of topics in media and cultural studies. On television, he has published The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies (Routledge, 1995) and a number of articles, some of which have appeared in anthologies he edited or co-edited:Television and Common Knowledge (Routledge, 1999), Media, Markets & Public Spheres: European Media at the Crossroads (Intellect, 2010) and Relocating Television: Television in the Digital Context (Routledge, 2010).  He has also co-published articles on cultural sociology  (e.g. “Changing Relations: Class, education and cultural capital” , in Poetics, vol 39 (2011), pp 507-529) and published articles as well as co-edited and contributed to anthologies on public sphere theory: The Idea of the Public Sphere (Lexington Books, 2010) and The Public Sphere vol I-IV(Sage, 2011)

Media at Sydney is presented by the Department of Media and Communications, University of Sydney
All seminars will be held on the University of Sydney Camperdown campus
For more information contact Dr Fiona Martin
T: 0428391122 or 02 90365098
E: fiona.martin at sydney.edu.au<mailto:fiona.martin at sydney.edu.au>
M: 0428 391 122
RSVPs to Madeleine King e: mkin5545 at uni.sydney.edu.au<mailto:mkin5545 at uni.sydney.edu.au>
http://sydney.edu.au/arts/media_communications/


DR FIONA MARTIN | Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online MediaDepartment of Media and Communications |  School of Letters Arts and MediaFaculty of Arts and Social Sciences             THE UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEYRm 205, Holme Building A09 | The University of Sydney | NSW | 2006    T +61 2 9036 5098  | F +61 2 9351 5444 | M +61 428 391 122  E fiona.martin at sydney.edu.au<applewebdata://57C58A5E-AE4F-4726-A895-93A2D893AA28/fiona.martin@sydney.edu.au>W http://sydney.edu.au/ CRICOS 00026AThis email plus any attachments to it are confidential. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. If you receive this email in error, please delete it and any attachments.Please think of our environment and only print this e-mail if necessary.
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