Welcome
The future of democracy is inseparable from the capacities of media - at all scales from the local to the global. Both the sustainability and the expansion of democracy depend on what media institutions do and what spaces media make possible. The complexity of these processes requires interdisciplinary research across politics, sociology and media.
The Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy was set up in September 2007 to address these connections. The Centre brings together researchers from Goldsmiths’ departments of Media and Communications, Sociology and Politics. It hosts public lectures and debates, research symposia, and seminar series: see Events. It plans to develop inter-disciplinary bids for research funding and welcomes research students from any discipline interested in the Centre’s themes.
The Centre builds on existing research initiatives at Goldsmiths: the Unit for Global Justice, the Spaces of the News project (funded by the Leverhulme Foundation), and the Research Unit in Governance and Democracy. Recent ESRC funded research by Centre members has investigated public connection and the construction of self through reality TV formats [PDF].
Topics to be explored at the Centre in its first two years include:
- Digital media and the renewal of local democracy
- Democratic theory and the transnational public sphere
- Global governance, the state and cultural politics
- Global social movements, advocacy organisations and new media
- National media and the construction of 'the citizen' and ‘the human’
- Neoliberal discourse and the public realm
- Media ethics
The centre is building links with similar initiatives internationally.
News and events
- Democracy Without Journalists
The Crisis in Local News In association with the National Union of Journalists, 17 March, 2-4pm, Thatcher Room, Portcullis House, Westminster, Bridge Street, London. - Capitalism, Culture, Critique
The Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy will be hosting a series of events on resources for critical thinking and political engagement:
Thursday 25 February 2010, Media and civic agency: critical cultural connections
Thursday 29 April 2010, Capitalism, culture, critique
Download the poster for this event [pdf]
Video of October 29 event
| Debate: The Centre's international partner, The Center for Social Media, American University, Washington DC, has just published a policy document on The Future of Public Media, building from discussions to which the Centre contributed. |