2007-2013

Part I of Capitalism, Culture, Critique

The Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy will be hosting a series of events throughout 2009-10 on resources for critical thinking and political engagement.

Thursday 29 October 2009, 5.30-7pm, Richard Hoggart Building, room 309, Goldsmiths
Critical hope: radicalism after radicalism
Dr Jeremy Gilbert, University of East London
Professor Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths
Professor Lisa Adkins, Goldsmiths

Contact Kate Nash k.nash (@gold.ac.uk)

• See a video of this event

Gianni Vattimo "Philosophy and Emancipation"

Tuesday December 1st 2009, 6-8pm

Venue: Goldsmiths Main Building, Senior Common Room

Hosted by the Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy and the Research Unit for Politics and Ethics (in its series on "The Libertarian Impulse")

Gianni Vattimo, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Turin, has for decades been one of Europe's leading thinkers, with pionerering studies on Nietzsche, Heidgger, and their contributions to postmodern thought. A leading exponent of Italian "nihilism", for Vattimo the inexorable decline of fixed notions of truth opens the way to the pluralisation of emancipation and new modes of being. His works include "The End of Modernity", "Beyond Interpretation", "The Adventure of Difference" and, more recently, "After Christianity" and "Art's Claim to Truth".

Imagining a Radicalized Public Sphere in a context of global capital and digital networks

A seminar organized by Goldsmiths' Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy
(Lincoln Dahlberg - Co-editor of Radical Democracy and the Internet, 2007, Palgrave, Dept. Journalism and Communications, University of Queensland)

2 June 2009, 5-7pm, Goldsmiths, University of London
The concept of the public sphere has become central to understanding and imagining the role of media in democratic societies. In particular, Jürgen Habermas' deliberative conceptualization of the public sphere has become influential in media and communication studies. The concept is a popular point of departure for media- democracy research and theory given that it provides a critical, post-positivist and communication centred understanding of the role of social actors and institutions in political processes. More specifically, Habermas' public sphere is defined as constituted through attempts to resolve breakdowns in social consensus by way of deliberative processes based upon norms of communicative action embedded within everyday 'post-conventional' communication. The actualization of such public sphere deliberation is now seen by many media-democracy commentators as increasingly possible given global digital communication networks.

Despite this popularity within media studies, the Habermasian public sphere has come under sustained criticism, particularly from feminist and post- structuralist theorists, for excluding voices that do not 'fit' the universal normative criteria deemed to define idealized deliberation. In this lecture Dahlberg examines how we might be able to re-imagine the public sphere concept so as to account for the politics associated with such exclusion, and therefore be able to continue to deploy the concept in a radicalized form for critical media-democracy analysis. He will read the limits of the Habermasian public sphere through Laclauian discourse theory. He will then propose that a radicalized public sphere conception can be conceived of through the articulation of discourse theory's understandings of discourse and radical democratic ethics, as well as counter-public sphere theory. The claim is that this articulation accounts for the politics of exclusion, the democratic possibilities of such politics, and the normative role of the media there-in.

However, a significant question remains, developing out of a political economy critique of both Habermas and discourse theory: how adequate is the proposed discourse theoretic radicalization for conceiving of radical democracy in the context of global capitalism, where politics is being increasingly colonized by instrumentalized and individualized logics. In fact, imagining a discourse theoretic public sphere could be read as leading to further ideological exclusion in the sense of overlooking politics related to material economic relations. I conclude by exploring this question, focusing upon the culture/economy binary, the democratizing possibilities arising from dislocations in capitalism, and the opportunities afforded by contemporary media, particularly digital networks. The aim is to imagine a radical public sphere developing against the anti-democratic, depoliticizing aspects of global capitalism and consumer society.

Media Ethics

Thursday, 21 May 2009, preconference at ICA 2009 conference ChicagoThe Centre co-sponsored,with New York University, an the one-day preconference on Media Ethics at the International Communication Association's annual conference in Chicago. Keynote speakers were Daniel Dayan, Clifford Christians, Lilie Chouliaraki and Ronald Arnett with over 30 other speakers.

This event follows conferences on Media Ethics at University of Cambridge, UK (April 2008) and American University of Paris (June 2008) with which Goldsmiths's Department of Media and Communications, and Nick Couldry in particular, were associated.

For more details, please see the conference website.

Persuasion: Rhetoric and Politics in Contemporary Democracy

A seminar organized by the Goldsmiths' Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy and the Centre for Culture and Politics, University of Swansea

5 May 2009 at Goldsmiths, University of London

Speakers:

Aletta Norval (University of Essex)
Michael Carrithers (Durham University)
Rochana Bajpai (SOAS)
Alan Finlayson (Swansea University)
Chair: James Martin (Goldsmiths)

Persuasion is one of the most fundamental of democratic political activities. But it is also one of the most ambiguous. Does democratic development and expansion require the slow substitution of persuasion or rational conviction or, on the contrary, the proliferation of opportunities for rhetorical contestation? Where is the line between persuasion and force? Are there standards of truth or consent that guarantee the democratic character of a persuasive activity? What forms of rhetoric distinguish a democratic polity from tyranny? What happens to political persuasion in an economy and culture dominated by commercial persuasion? How can we best understand and analyse the forms, modes and locations of contemporary political rhetoric as manifested in visual and media cultures?

This interdisciplinary seminar explores the modes of democratic persuasion, the methods for its explication and interpretation and the prospects for rhetoric both in the academy and in the contemporary multifaceted polis.

Talk by Melissa Gregg

Dr Melissa Gregg, University of Queensland (and recently apointed at University of Sydney) spoke on the topic of "Social networking sites, neoliberalism and online culture".

Thursday 19 March 2009, Goldsmiths, University of London

Dr Gregg is the author of Cultural Studies' Affective Voices (Palgrave 2006) and writes on online culture and the relations between cultural studies and everyday experience and co-edited a special edition of the journal Continuum on this topic in 2007. She is well known to Goldsmiths, having given a talk at the very successful Sociology/Media Departments Gender Studies event organised with sociology in 2008.

Lecture by Craig Calhoun

Professor Craig Calhoun, Department of Sociology, New York University and President of the Social Science Research Council, was scheduled to lecture on the topic:

"Is Humanitarianism Beyond Politics?"

Thursday 12 March 2009, Goldsmiths, University of London

Craig Calhoun is a world-renowned sociologist, writing on issues of political and cultural sociology, and edited the pathbreaking book Habermas and the Public Sphere (MIT Press 1992). He is the editor most recently of the International Handbook of Sociology (with Chris Rojek and Bryan Turner), London: Sage, 2005, and author of Lessons of Empire? (with Frederick Cooper and Kevin Moore), New York: New Press, 2005.

Sadly this lecture had to be cancelled due to unavoidable personal reasons.

Grants

Professor James Curran (Department of Media and Communications) is a member of the five-country team led by Toril Aalberg that has secured a grant of 18.88 million Norwegian Krone from the Norwegian Research Council to investigate Media Systems, News Content, and Public Perception of Political Reality.
See further information.

Is democracy possible?

with keynote by Jodi Dean. Watch the keynote session of "Is democracy possible"

A one-day symposium on the future of democracy, and media’s  contribution to that future organised by SAGE and Goldsmiths' Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy.

Thursday 9 December 2010, 1030-1900, The British Academy, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH.

In 2006 legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin asked ‘is democracy possible here?’, meaning the USA. Four years later in an era of financial crisis and partial challenges to neoliberal orthodoxy, a broader question needs to be asked about the possibilities and conditions for democracy anywhere now. What is the role of media institutions in sustaining democracy? What implications for democracy does the intensification of market pressures in the media sector have for democratic politics?

SAGE, one of the world’s leading social science publishers, and Goldsmiths’ Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy bring together international and national experts to reflect on these questions. Renowned and controversial US political theorist Jodi Dean (author of Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Duke UP 2009 and Blog Theory Polity 2010) will give a keynote lecture.

Other speakers include David Babbs (executive director of 38degrees), Jayson Harsin (American University of Paris), Dan Hind (author of The Return of the Public) Thomas Meyer (author of Media Democracy and editor in chief of Neue Gesellschaft / Frankfurter Hefte).

The event is part of a series of celebrations for SAGE’s 45th anniversary year, championing the value and relevance of social science research.

To register, please write by Friday 19 November 2010 to Catherine Layton, SAGE, catherine.layton (@sagepub.co.uk).

For inquiries about the venue please contact Joanna Demianczuk, British Academy, j.demianczuk (@britac.ac.uk).

For general enquiries please contact Sebastian Kubitschko, Goldsmiths, s.kubitschko (@gold.ac.uk) .

Full programme follows

1030-1100 Registration, tea/coffee

Welcome

Nick Couldry, Director, Goldsmiths Global Media and Democracy Centre

Stephen Barr, Managing Editor, SAGE

1100-1230 Session One: Media as Democracy

Jayson Harsin, American University of Paris

Aeron Davis, Goldsmiths, University of London

Thomas Meyer, formerly Professor of Political Science Dortmund University and editor-in-chief, Frankfurter Hefte/Neue Gesellschaft

Chair: Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths

1230-1400 Lunch break – Lunch is not provided.

Tea/coffee available at BA.

1400-1530 Session Two: Media for Democracy

Natalie Fenton, Goldsmiths, University of London

David Babbs, executive director of 38 Degrees

Dan Hind, author of The Return of the Public

Chair: Des Freedman, Goldsmiths

1530-1600 Tea/coffee/cakes

1600-1800 Session Three: Democratizing Democracy

Keynote speech and discussion

Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, USA and Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Respondents:

Hilary Wainwright, editor of Red Pepper

Nick Couldry, Goldsmiths, University of London

Chair: James Curran, Goldsmiths

Drinks reception

The Start Of New Event Series: Is Democracy Possible – Here In The UK?

Part III of Capitalism Culture Critique series

Democracy Without Journalists- The Crisis in Local News

A pre-election meeting in Parliament to highlight local journalism and democracy

Wednesday 17 March 2010, 2-4pm, Thatcher Room, Portcullis House, Westminster, Bridge Street, London. SW1P 3JA.

Speakers include: Jeremy Dear (General Secretary of the NUJ); Steve Hewlett (R4 The Media Show and Guardian columnist), Professor James Curran, (Director of Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre), Natalie Fenton (editor of New Media, Old News), Angela Phillips (founder, East London Lines), Professor Stephen Coleman (University of Leeds).

Attendance is free but places are strictly limited. Please contact Joanna Redden cop01jr(@gold.ac.uk) to reserve a place.

Part II of Capitalism, Culture, Critique Series

Thursday 25 February 2010, 5.30-7pm, Richard Hoggart Building, Room 309, Goldsmiths

Media and civic agency: critical cultural connections
Professor Peter Dahlgren, University of Lund, Sweden

Peter Dahlgren is internationally acknowledged as one of the leading analysts and commentators on media's role in democratic politics and the public sphere. He is Professor of Media and Communication Studies at Lund University, Sweden and has taught at Queens College and Fordham University in New York City, as well as being a visiting scholar at many universities, including the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania and Université de Paris II. He is the author of many books, including Television and the Public Sphere (Sage 1995) and most recently Media and Political Engagement: Citizens, Communication and Democracy (Cambridge University Press 2009).

EVA ILLOUZ Recognition and Its Discontents: Love and Modernity

4 February 2010, 5.30-7pm, Richard Hoggart building (Main Building) room 309

Eva Illouz is Professor of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a member of the Center for the Study of Rationality. She delivered the Adorno Lectures at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt in 2005 and has held visiting positions at Princeton University, Northwestern University, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) and the Institute for Advanced Thought (Berlin). Her books include Oprah Winfrey and the Glamor of Misery (Chicago University Press 2003), Cold Intimacies: the Making of Emotional Capitalism (Polity 2007) and Saving the Modern Soul (University of California Press 2008).

Mapping Digital Media

Des Freedman and Justin Schlosberg publish report with the Open Society Foundation.

With access to broadband and the internet steadily rising towards saturation levels the UK will complete the transition to digital broadcasting in 2012. While this transition will be completed under budget and without major setbacks, Des Freedman and Justin Schlosberg point out in their report ‘Mapping Digital Media’ that it is by no means clear that citizens and society at large will benefit from the digital transition.

The spread of the internet and digital media tends to undermine the media structures that have served the UK well for the past half century. Not only the newspapers are in a crisis with quality newspapers experiencing a 25 percent decline in circulation between 2005 and 2010. But also the BBC, according to the authors, ‘has found itself increasingly caught in a vice’ as it aims to achieve sufficient audience while it simultaneously has to provide the merit goods.

Due to the scale of the crisis, Freedman and Schlosberg recommend a full-scale media commission into the state of the news media, and new forms of support for public service in the media. As it appears unlikely that the market will address these severe issues, the authors suggest that it is the government who needs to ensure that the public interest is not eclipsed as the media ecology of a digital Britain beds down.

Read the full report.

‘The Things We Have to Do’: Ethics and Instrumentality in Humanitarian Communication – A talk by Visiting Fellow David Nolan

As Barnett and Weiss have suggested, ‘humanitarianism is not separate from the world it attempts to civilize; in many respects it is its creature’. This talk, by drawing on interview research with practitioners from several major aid and development agencies, seeks to (re)consider the relationship between the ethics and practice of humanitarian communication.

David Nolan is a lecturer in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne and a Visiting Fellow at Goldsmiths Centre for the Study of Global Media and Democracy in May 2011.

All welcome!

Tuesday 24 May 2011

5-7 pm NAB (New Academic Building) 302

Markets and the Limits of Democracy: a talk by Colin Leys

At a time of rapid and controversial reform of Britain’s public sector, Goldsmiths’ Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy organizes a public talk with Colin Leys (Goldsmiths and Queens University, Ontario). Professor Leys is the author of Market-Driven Politics (Verso 2000) and the co-author with Stewart Player of The Plot Against the NHS (Merlin 2011) and Confuse and Conceal: The NHS and Independent Treatment Centres (Merlin 2008).

Thursday 3 March 2011 – The Plot against the NHS

Without putting choice to the electorate or the parliament the coalition government is reforming the NHS to achieve an ‘improved productivity and efficiency’. Is the UK heading towards a privatised US-style healthcare market?

Karen Jennings of UNISON will be responding to Prof Leys’ talk.

6.30-8pm Richard Hoggart Building (Main Building) Room 309

Friday 14 October 2011
Democracy from below

Narrative, performativity and revolution in Egypt

Professor Jeffrey Alexander, Center for Cultural Sociology, Yale University
Professor Farhad Khosrokhavar, École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris

Chaired by Professor Kate Nash, Sociology, Goldsmiths.

4-6pm, Goldsmiths Richard Hoggart Building (main building) Small Hall/Cinema


Thursday 9 February 2012
Democracy and social movements

Professor Donatella Della Porta, European University Institute, Florence, with Professor Natalie Fenton, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, and Professor Kate Nash, Sociology, Goldsmiths

Chaired by Professor Nick Couldry, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths.

5-7pm, Goldsmiths New Academic Building (NAB) LG02

Thursday 8 March 2012
Citizenship after Orientalism

Professor Engin Isin, Open University, with Professor Sanjay Seth, Politics, Goldsmiths, and Dr Ipek Demir, Sociology, University of Leicester

Chaired by Professor Kate Nash, Sociology, Goldsmiths.

5-7pm, Goldsmiths New Academic Building (NAB) LG02

Thursday 1 March 2012

Media Spectacle and the Crisis of (old) Democracy: Politics of Social Media in South Korea

Dr Jaeho Kang, Assistant Professor, School of Media Studies, The New School, New York

In South Korea, one of the most wired countries in the world, the recent advent and wide propagation of social media tend to go beyond the limits of one-way communication on an unprecedented scale. Diverse forms of social media such as social networking sites, Twitter and political podcasts have been actively engaged in election campaigns, the growth of grass-roots movements, and more systematic representation of public opinion.

Yet, many discussions have been overly preoccupied with the quantitative transformation of the public sphere and seem to share both an instrumental perspective on the effective use of social media in political mobilization and an overly optimistic standpoint on the improvement of deliberative democracy driven by advanced communication technology. A good deal less attention has been paid to a vital question about the changing nature of democracy itself in conjunction with the development of social media.

The lecture will examine the politics of social media in South Korea with particular reference to ‘media spectacle’, ‘new visibility’ and ‘monstration.’ In analyzing the impact of social media on democracy as the crisis of deliberative and representative political system, Dr Kang seeks to draw out theoretical relevance for our critical understanding of the interplay between media and democracy, be it ‘new’ or ‘old’ democracy.

Jaeho Kang received his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and was Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Research, University of Frankfurt, Germany. He has been teaching sociology of media at the New School since 2005. He has a book in progress, Walter Benjamin and Media (Polity Press, forthcoming) and has published a number of articles on social and media theories of Benjamin, Theodor W. Adorno, and Siegfried Kracauer. He is also co-editing an anthology, Siegfried Kracauer: Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda and Political Communication (Columbia University Press). His current work expands the scope of his research by exploring media politics, urban spaces and global sports events with reference to media spectacle.

5.30-7pm, NAB (New Academic Building) LG02

17 November 2012

Media and War: challenging the consensus

Day conference on media, war and terrorism to mark the publication of Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives (Sage Publications).

Speakers include John Pilger, Peter Oborne (Telegraph), Jeremy Corbyn MP, Toby Miller (City), David Miller (Spinwatch), Michelle Stanistreet (NUJ), Gholam Khiabany (Sussex), Milly Williamson (Brunel).

Hosted by the Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy and organised by the Stop the War Coalition with the support of Sage Publications.

12-5pm, IGLT, Whitehead Building, Goldsmiths

3 May 2012

Research fellows - ‘Articulating alternatives: agents, spaces and communication in/of a time of crisis’

Eleftheria Lekakis and Hilde Stephansen, research fellows at the Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy, hosted a workshop for new scholars on 3 May 2012.

The workshop addressed a series of issues around the mediation of political life in a time of crisis. The last couple of decades have witnessed the intensification of the neoliberal logic, culminating in a profound crisis of capitalism. This has been accompanied by the widespread de-legitimisation of political institutions as citizens lose trust in the political process and confidence in the capacity of political elites to protect their interests.

Concomitantly, recent years have seen the emergence of a myriad of actors (from indigenous people’s movements to alter-globalisation movements to current mobilisations like the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement), which challenge the neoliberal hegemony and seek to construct alternatives. Such actors are engaged in various forms of knowledge production oriented towards the development of critiques of the current system as well as the elaboration of alternative forms of economic, social, and political organisation.

In the workshop, the participants explored some of the complexities of the relationship between mediated communication and politics in a time of crisis. The intensive mobilisation of citizens around the world raises a number of questions in relation to how agents of transformation are constructing political vernaculars and actions at different scales and across different sites, both physical and virtual.

The notion of a politics of crisis is set as a framework for the exploration of the agencies, spaces and communication practices of counter-capitalist voices. More particularly, the workshop addressed questions in relation to the discursive construction of alternatives, the agents involved in these processes, the spaces that are being opened up for articulation and action, as well as the modes of politics which characterise the current time of crisis.

December 2011

Hilde C. Stephansen joins the Centre as a Research Fellow for 2011-2012

Hilde C. Stephansen has a BA in Communications & Sociology and an MA in Social Research from Goldsmiths, University of London. She completed her PhD in Sociology, also at Goldsmiths, in December 2011. Her thesis explored the character and significance of media and communication in the World Social Forum, focusing on their relationship to processes of knowledge production and to the politics of place and scale in transnational social movement networks. Her research interests and activities include the World Social Forum and social movements; alternative/citizens' media and new communications technologies; media, participation and public spheres; feminist and non-Western epistemologies; 'global' ethnography and the politics of research; activism and academia.

Eleftheria Lekakis is a Research Fellow at the Centre for 2011-2012

Eleftheria Lekakis received her doctorate in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She holds a BSc in Political Science from the University of Crete, Greece and an MSc in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics. Her doctoral thesis, entitled Politics in the Pocket? Coffee Activism, Political Consumerism and the Internet, was concerned with the relationship between alternative forms of political participation in the marketplace, their mediation online and offline in relation to information, mobilisation and types of action, as well as their significance for the reconfiguration of our understanding of politics. Her past and present research and activities address issues of politics and new media, while her research interests primarily include corporate culture, cultural citizenship, political communication and alternative culture.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Baroness Onora O’Neill Lecture on 'Regulating for Communication'

Baroness Onora O’Neill, Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University and former President of the British Academy, will deliver a lecture at Goldsmiths for the Centre for the study of Global Media and Democracy on the subject of ‘Regulating for Communication’.

The lecture will be introduced by Pat Loughrey, Warden of Goldsmiths, with responses from Angela Phillips, Goldsmiths, and Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian's head of media and technology. The event will be chaired by Nick Couldry, Director of the Centre.

This lecture marks ten years since her BBC Reith lectures in 2002 (published as A Question of Trust, Cambridge University Press) which highlighted to a wide public audience questions concerning the accountability of and trust in the media. She is one of world’s leading moral philosophers and has for two decades shown particular interest in the ethical and moral questions raised by media. She is also a member of the House of Lords and has contributed actively to debates around the UK’s recent Leveson Inquiry.

The lecture is open to all, and will be followed by a drinks reception.

6:30-8pm New Academic Building (NAB) LG02, Goldsmiths, University of London

Get the arms trade controlled for human rights!

Brian Wood, Head of Arms Control and Human Rights, Amnesty International

Discussant: Eyel Weizman, Department of Visual Cultures

Thursday November 28th 6.30-8 Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre

Get corporations to pay their taxes!

Guppi Bola, Global Campaigner with Oxfam

Tim Street, UK Uncut

Discussant: Clea Bourne, Department of Media and Communications

Thursday October 24^th 5-7 Ben Pimlott Lecture Theatre

The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media

Jose van Dijck, University of Amsterdam

In this invited public lecture, Jose Van Dijck, one of the world’s leading authorities on digital memory practices and social media, will talk on topics from her new book The Culture of Connectivity published by Oxford University Press in March 2013. Jose Van Dijck is Professor of Comparative Media Studies at University of Amsterdam; her previous books include Mediated Memories in a Digital Age (Stanford University Press 2007) and The Transparent Body (University of Washington Press 2005).

Respondents: Noortje Marres, CSISP, Goldsmiths, and Richard MacDonald, Storycircle Project, Goldsmiths

Chaired by Professor Nick Couldry, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths

The lecture is open to all, and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Thursday 30 May 2013

5.30-7pm LG02 NAB (New Academic Building)

China's Information Society: A Three-Phase Trajectory – Asteroid, Bee, Coliseum

Jack Qiu is at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and is the author of Working Class Network Society (MIT Press 2009) and co-author with Manuel Castells of Mobile Communication and Society (MIT Press 2006).

This public talk discusses the contemporary history of China’s information society from the beginning of Internet industry in the 1990s to the widespread of Weibo nowadays. Situated in the larger contexts of industrialization and urbanization, China's information society has gone through three phases – Asteroid, Bee, Coliseum – each demonstrating a unique pattern of institutional formation, labour-capital relationship, and public opinion process. The overall trajectory is moving away from democratization, despite significant trends of citizen journalism and social movement. Why has this been the case? Could it be otherwise?

Wednesday 29 May 2013

5.30-7pm LG01 NAB (New Academic Building)

The Daily You: The Current Transformation of Advertising and Its Impact on Media Culture

Joseph Turow, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

In this invited public lecture, Joseph Turow, one of the world’s leading experts on the advertising industry and its interfaces with the media industries, will talk on topics from his recent book The Daily You published by Yale University Press in 2011. Joseph Turow is Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania; he regularly speaks to industry conferences, as well as academic audiences.

This book has been published to exceptional reviews: "An eye-opener that will startle readers, the book offers grist for policy makers and others battling to preserve a shred of privacy in America" Kirkus Reviews. "The Daily You is required reading in today's Web 3.0 age" New Scientist.

Respondents are Chris Peters, Department of Journalism, University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and Liz Moor, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths

Chaired by Professor Nick Couldry, Media and Communications, Goldsmiths

The lecture is open to all, and will be followed by a drinks reception.

Thursday 2 May 2013

5.30-7pm LG02 NAB (New Academic Building)

The Great Iraq War Debate: Was It Worth It? Iraq, Ten Years On

Ten years on since the invasion of Iraq, the question still remains as to whether or not the war was worth it. The Huffington Post UK and Goldsmiths, University of London invite you to a debate to mark the anniversary of the biggest demonstration in British history against the Iraq War.

Confirmed speakers include, among others, former cabinet minister Clare Short, former shadow defence secretary Bernard Jenkin MP, Times columnist David Aaronovitch, Independent columnist Owen Jones and HuffPost UK’s Mehdi Hasan.

The debate will be introduced by Dr Des Freedman from the Department of Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, and will be chaired by HuffPost UK’s Editor-in-Chief, Carla Buzasi.

The lecture is open to all, but please reserve your place at www.amiando.com/iraqdebate and please print off your confirmation email and bring it to the event.

Thursday 7 February 2013

6.30-9 pm, Great Hall, Richard Hoggart Building (RHB)

Goldsmiths, University of London

For further details please contact Peter Austin (p.austin@gold.ac.uk)