[csaa-forum] Tomorrow: Media School Seminar Series (Dr Jay Daniel Thompson, RMIT)

[Gemma Blackwood]

Hello CSAA folk,

A reminder that the University of Tasmania Media School Seminar Series is being held tomorrow on Wednesday 27th September (from 4:15pm)! To register to attend (you can attend online!), please follow the link at the bottom of the page.

Dr Jay Daniel Thompson: Speaking with others: Conspiracy actors, stereotypes and performative speech acts in recent journalistic reportage The Air Case: A novel approach for making environmental documentary

Since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in early 2020, there has been a global upsurge in online conspiracies. Correspondingly, there has also been a rise in media articles that proffer tips and suggestions on how readers might speak to conspiracy-believing loved ones, in order to dissuade them from their views and/or to maintain a relationship with those individuals even in spite of such views.

This paper asks: ‘To what extent can ‘how to speak to a conspiracy actor’ articles challenge hostile stereotypes of those actors and ameliorate the ‘us versus them’ standoff that characterises conspiracy rhetoric’? The paper teases out this question through a Critical Discourse Analysis of several such articles published in Australia, North America and the United Kingdom. The paper hypothesises that these texts can play a crucial role in helping to salvage bonds between conspiracy actors and their loved ones, and in destigmatising those actors. This destigmatising may be compromised, though, and public understandings of conspiracy actors distorted, if the journalist invokes stereotypes of conspiracists as irrational, exotic and ‘other’.

The paper deploys and extends the notion of performative speech acts as this has been elucidated by theorists such as Judith Butler. The articles under review are not only providing guidance on how to speak with ‘others’; they are (re)presenting and perhaps (re)constructing the world in which conspiracies and their proponents – indeed, we all - exist. This is a world, the paper suggests, in which conspiracy theorising, misinformation and ‘fake news’ – far from being aberrations or fringe phenomena – have become increasingly mainstreamed.


About the Speaker
Dr. Jay Daniel Thompson is Lecturer and Program Manager in the Professional Communication program, School of Media and Communication at RMIT University. His research investigates ways of cultivating ethical online communication to ameliorate digital hostility and networked disinformation. Dr. Thompson is the co-author of Fake News in Digital Cultures (with Professor Rob Cover and Dr. Ashleigh Haw) and Content Production for Digital Media (with Associate Professor John Weldon), both published in 2022.

To attend (in person or by Zoom) please register at the following address: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/media-school-seminar-dr-jay-daniel-thompson-tickets-413887708277

Best wishes,


Dr Gemma Blackwood
Lecturer, Media
The Media School/ School of Creative Arts and Media
College of Arts, Law and Education
University of Tasmania
Private Bag 17
Hobart TAS 7001
T: +613 6226 2305 | Gemma.Blackwood at utas.edu.au<mailto:Gemma.Blackwood at utas.edu.au>
www.utas.edu.au/creative-arts-media/media<http://www.utas.edu.au/creative-arts-media/media>

[signature_285572319]
CRICOS 00586B

We acknowledge the palawa/pakana peoples of lutruwita upon whose lands the University of Tasmania stands.



This email is confidential, and is for the intended recipient only. Access, disclosure, copying, distribution, or reliance on any of it by anyone outside the intended recipient organisation is prohibited and may be a criminal offence. Please delete if obtained in error and email confirmation to the sender. The views expressed in this email are not necessarily the views of the University of Tasmania, unless clearly intended otherwise.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20220926/cacf2643/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 10296 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://lists.cdu.edu.au/pipermail/csaa-forum/attachments/20220926/cacf2643/attachment-0001.png>