Journalism events
November 2009 - Global Dialogue Conference
Professor Chris Nash and Associate Professor Philip Chubb will be delivering papers at this landmark international environment conference in Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark, just a month before world leaders gather in Copenhagen to try to reach a consensus on action to combat climate change.
The conference will bring together international scholars in the Humanities and human sciences, educators, journalists, business researchers, and business representatives.
The objectives are to highlight the significance of intercultural value research for the international debate on climate change and to compare conceptions of responsibility across cultures.
In doing so, the meeting will explore the role of intercultural value research for the formulation, communication, and practical implementation of climate change responsibilities.
Chris will be presenting a plenary paper on the confluence of challenges to journalism posed by climate change, the collapse of the newspaper business model in industrialised countries and the impact of the global financial crisis.
Philip will present on behalf of co-authors Chris and Bill Birnbauer a paper on media coverage of bushfires, particularly The Australian newspaper's treatment of Victoria's Black Saturday fires. The Australian used the tragic events in Victoria to run a campaign against environmentalists, who were depicted as having caused the fires because of a supposed opposition to fuel reduction.
International Association of Media and Communication Research conference
From the 20-24th July 2009, Andrea Baker presented 2 research papers at the International Association of Media and Communication Research conference (IAMCR) ‘Human Rights and Communication’ in Mexico City. IAMCR, an umbrella of United Nations (UN) and UNESCO, is the peak global body for research into journalism practice and education and media/communication research. This conference titled, ‘Human Rights and Communication’ celebrated the 60th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) Charter in 1948. Latin American politicians and policy makers and over 1,000 journalists, media and communications academics from 70 countries attended this conference. Papers centered around 17 sections including Journalism Research and Education, Media Education Research, Audiences and Reception, International and Political Communication, Media and Sport, Digital Divide and Issues in Latin American media etc. Key plenary speeches highlighted that Latin America; in particular Mexico City, is the most dangerous place in the world for practicing journalists. At IAMCR in Mexico City Andrea presented 2 research papers: Journalism Education/Research section: “Internationalising the Journalism Education experience” This paper was based on student feedback of 3902 field trips to New York City in 2006; London, Brussels and Paris in 2007; London and New York City in 2008 and the pending field trip to Asia (Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Beijing) in November 2009. Audience and Reception: “Youths and net-radio, exploring subcultural models of audiences”. This paper was based her recently completed PhD and highlighted the growing digital divide between tertiary and non tertiary educated youths in North and Latin America and in Urban and Central Australia. At the conference Andrea received the IAMCR/Hamption Press Book Proposal Award to publish her PhD with Hamption Press in December 2009.
ANZCA Conference
Gippsland Senior lecturer Dr Louise North attended the Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference (ANZCA) in Brisbane between July 7–10 where she presented a paper titled “Blokes, ‘Biffo’ and Newsroom Culture”. She was also on a panel with Prof Catharine Lumby and Prof John Hartly discussing the ‘Representation of women and girls in the media’. More than 300 journalism and communications academics from around the world presented papers at the conference. The theme of ANZCA09 was Communication, Creativity and Global Citizenship. Professor Barbie Zelizer from the Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania presented the Keynote address. The address discussed the current permutations in visual coverage of the news by tracking the importation of a particular visual trope — that of people about to die — into the news coverage of contested and complicated events involving death.
January 2010: New Postgraduate Program
Monash Journalism is launching its revamped Master of Journalism in February 2010. The program is intended for people with an undergraduate degree in any discipline who want to enter a career in professional journalism. It combines a strong emphasis on the practical skills of research and reporting in all media—print, video, radio and online—with a rigorous scholarly approach to the role of journalism in contemporary society, in both Australia and internationally. Students build their portfolio during their studies, and are prepared for a successful entry into media careers. For more information contact Eileen McCarthy at eileen.mccarthy@arts.monash.edu.au
Spring Semester: Global Environmental Journalism Initiative (GEJI)
In Spring semester Monash is sending it first exchange students to Europe as part of the GEJI project. Two students are going to City University, London, and two are going to the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark. Our other two European partners are Helsinki University in Finland, and Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece, and students will be heading off there next year. Each of the selected students gets a stipend of $8,500 to cover transport and living expenses. This past semester we’ve had four European students studying Environmental Reporting here at Monash. The student stipends are funded by the Australian government and the European Commission, and the initial funding runs for three years from 2009.