Calendar

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO ADVERSE WEATHER

Christian Fuchs will be giving an introduction to “Digital Demagogue”, a timely and topicalstudy of the expressions of ideology, nationalism and authoritarianism in the age of big dataand social media, and discusses the prospects for overcoming capitalism and renewing theLeft.

We’re all familiar with the ways that Donald Trump uses digital media to communicate, fromthe ridiculous to the terrifying. This book digs deeper into the use of those tools in politics toshow how they have facilitated the rise of authoritarianism, nationalism, and right-wingideologies around the world.

Christian Fuchs applies an updated Marxist frame, along with insights drawn from FrankfurtSchool thinkers counting Franz L. Neumann, Theodor W. Adorno, Erich Fromm, HerbertMarcuse, Max Horkheimer, Wilhelm Reich, Leo Löwenthal and Klaus Theweleit, to show thepernicious role of social media in the hands of nationalist politicians.

Media like Twitter have been used to spread right-wing ideology far and wide, and make itseem like an ordinary part of contemporary political discourse. Fuchs diagnoses this problemin stark terms, but he doesn’t stop there: he also lays out ways to fight it, and analyses theprospects for pushing past capitalism and renewing the Left.

Christian Fuchs is Professor at the University of Westminster. He is Director of the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) and the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies (WIAS). His fields of expertise are critical digital & social media studies, Internet & society, political economy of media and communication, information society theory, social theory and critical theory. He has published extensively and is co-editor of the open access journal triple: Communication, Capitalism and Critique.

To celebrate the publication of The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism, join its editor Graham Meikle and a panel of its contributors to discuss some of the key contemporary themes in this exciting area. Panelists will include Red Chidgey, Christian Fuchs, Athina Karatzogianni, Anastasia Kavada and Yngvar Steinholt, with more speakers to be confirmed.

The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism is a new collection of 42 original and authoritative essays by leading scholars from around the world. The book introduces and explores central debates about the diverse relationships between media and protest, between communication and social change.

Biography
Graham Meikle is Professor of Communication and Digital Media at the University of Westminster. His books include Social Media (Routledge 2016), Media Convergence (with Sherman Young, Palgrave Macmillan 2012) and The Routledge Companion to Media and Activism (2018).

Are optimists or pessimist correct about the digital future?

Will we have new forms of community, sensing, distributed democracy, digital activism and responsive governance? Or networked exploitation, the surveillance society, technological domination and dehumanization? What is happening with Big Data capitalism in an age of unprecedented autonomous digital activity and how are current forms of technology and economic activity shaping notions of subjectivity and labour?

What are the best academic tools, approaches and theories that can assist in understanding the ‘digital’ of today and tomorrow?

Editors and contributors to a new open access book Digital Objects, Digital Subjects exploring all these controversial issues will discuss these and others arising at an informal roundtable with audience discussion. Confirmed participants include: David Chandler, Christian Fuchs, Joanna Boehnert, Robert Cowley, Paolo Gerbaudo, Anastasia Kavada. All welcome. Drinks and nibbles.

Digital Objects, Digital Subjects: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Capitalism, Labour and Politics in the Age of Big Data will be published open access by the University of Westminster Press on the 30 January. Print copies to be available for purchase at the event.

Michel Bauwens, Vasilis Kostakis & Alex Pazaitis (P2P Foundation) – Book Launch ‘Peer to Peer. The Commons Manifesto’ (University of Westminster Press)

Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of our social life. As capitalism faces a series of structural crises, a new social, political and economic dynamic is emerging: peer to peer.  What is peer to peer? Why is it essential for building a commons-centric future? How could this happen? These are the questions this seminar tries to answer.

Biography

Michel Bauwens is the Founder of the P2P Foundation and works in collaboration with a global group of researchers in the exploration of commons-based peer production, governance, and property.

Vasilis Kostakis is the Professor of P2P Governance at Tallinn University of Technology and Faculty Associate at Harvard University. He is also Visiting Professor at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Vasilis is the founder of the P2P Lab and core member of the P2P Foundation.

Alex Pazaitis is a Core Member of the P2P Lab and a Junior Research Fellow at the Ragnar Nurkse Department, Tallinn University of Technology.

Co-organised by the Policy Observatory of the Communication and Media Research Institute, University of Westminster

We would like to warmly invite you to join us for a book talk and reception that will take place on 11 July at 6:00 to 7:30 PM, Cayley Room 152-153, 309 Regent Street, University of Westminster, to launch the recently published volume International Media Development: Historical Perspectives and New Frontiers, published by Peter Lang.

Edited by Nicholas Benequista, Susan Abbott, Paul Rothman and Winston Mano, the book includes 26 chapters from distinguished academics and practitioners who seek to explore both the history of media development and to help set up a dialogue for its future.

This collection is the first of its kind on the topic of media development. It brings together luminary thinkers in the field to reflect on how advocacy groups, researchers, the international community and others can work to ensure that media can continue to serve as a force of democracy and development. But that mission faces considerable challenges. Media development paradigms are still too frequently associated with Western prejudices, or out of touch with the digital age. As we move past Western blueprints and into an uncertain digital future, what does media development mean? If we are to act meaningfully to shape the future of our increasingly mediated societies, we must answer this question.

Please come and join us for a brief conversation and a drinks reception with some of the book’s contributors and other experts in the field to celebrate this publication.

If you have any questions, please email susanabbott1@gmail.com for further details.

Why does understanding cultural work matter so much?

What does Covid-19 mean for musicians and cultural workers?

What do you think is next for the creative recorded and live arts industries?

What themes unite both books?

Sally Anne Gross, George Musgrave, Orian Brook and Mark Taylor discuss their books and issues behind them. DJ Paulette chairs the panel discussion.

— Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition

— Culture is Bad for You: Inequality in the Cultural and Creative Industries

We are delighted to invite you to a free public talk that discusses the role of journalism and social media in encouraging throwaway culture. Fashion is among the biggest polluters on the planet, yet novelty, fast satisfaction and cheap clothes are being promoted constantly and consistently by various media.

• Can fashion and lifestyle media in the UK make a full turn towards sustainability?
• Do Instagram influencers and bloggers play a role in throwaway culture?
• What is the influence of the TV shows like Inside Missguided: Made in Manchester or Breaking Fashion that treat fast fashion as entertainment?
• What are the realistic solutions to making fashion coverage ethical?
• Have there been any meaningful changes in the UK since 2018 when the UK environmental audit committee offered practical solutions to the government (all were rejected)?

The speakers include:

Lucy Siegle, is an environmental journalist and broadcaster (The Times/ The Guardian/Observer and BBC1 The One Show and Chanel 4 Dispatches) who has been explaining the impacts of everyday supply chains to mainstream audiences for two decades. She is the author of To Die For: is fashion wearing out the world? and Turning the Tide on Plastic. Lucy co-hosts and co-created So Hot Right Now a podcast on telling better stories about climate and nature (Sony Music /Picture Zero). With long-time collaborator, Livia Firth Lucy produced The True Cost documentary. Lucy recently chaired a Royal Television Society debate on Greening the TV industry and is a trustee for Surfers Against Sewage.

Dr Anastasia Denisova, Senior Lecturer in Journalism at University of Westminster, researcher of online cultures and viral media, as well as patterns in fashion coverage. Author of Fashion Media and Sustainability policy brief (2021).

Dr Ameerah Khadaroo, Lecturer in Psychology, University of the Arts London – London College of Fashion. She specialises in the area of fashion and well-being from a developmental psychological perspective and is particularly interested in how people may use fashion to express their identity.

The event is free, but registration is required to receive link details on the day.

Please join Winston Mano and Loubna El Mkaouar in a seminar to celebrate the publication of their edited book, Media Ownership in Africa: Challenges, Continuity and Change (released by Routledge, 21 October 2022). The book unpacks multiple dimensions of media ownership through rare and authoritative perspectives, including both historical and contemporary digital developments. It traces the evolving forms of ownership of media and communications in specific African contexts, showing how they interact with broader changes in and outside the continent.

The book also shows how Big Techs, such as Meta (formerly known as Facebook), are involved in a scramble for Africa’s digital ecosystem and how their advance brings both opportunities and concerns about ownership and control. The chapters analyse evolving forms of ownership and their implications on media concentration and democracy across Africa. The book offers a nuanced account of how media ownership structures are in some instances captured with an ever-growing and complex ecosystem that also has new opportunities for public interest media.

Please RSVP:

If you are not a University of Westminster staff member/student, please RSVP by Thursday October the 20^th to confirm your attendance to Dr. El Mkaouar: elmkaolo@westminster.ac.uk

More information can also be found on the Routledge website: