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IMPORTANT NOTICE
The Exploding Media Myths: Misrepresenting Australia? Workshop will now be held on 20 November 2008 at the University of New South Wales, Kensington Campus, Sydney.
How do the Australian media represent Australia and Australians? Every image, every news segment and every interview we see or hear is mediated by news professionals, journalists, advertisers and public relations practitioners. But what has this mediation led to? Are we a more relaxed, content and confident nation, or one gripped by anxiety and fear ― about mortgage rates, climate change, terrorism, immigration and even how we eat, dress, live and garden?It was only in the 1920s - according to the Oxford English Dictionary - that people began to speak of ‘the power of the media’; but people use the expression for good reason. media and power are closely related.
Exploding Media Myths: Misrepresenting Australia? brings together those who create the stories, those who make policy, those who manage public opinion and those who have been affected by media reporting, in a public debate about the power of the media and its impact on our lives.
Participants will be working in small groups addressing a selection of the following topics including:
- Citizenship and Australian Values
- Civil Liberties
- Education and Social Inclusion
- Fear
- Reporting
- Security
- Women
- Youth
This event is being co-hosted by Edith Cowan University, Mt Lawley, Western Australia and the Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
ECU has recently completed an Australian Research Council funded three-year project looking at community, perceptions of fear and people’s understanding of terror. This research was supported under Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project DP0559707). The views expressed at this Workshop are those of the presenters and participants and not necessarily those of the Australian Research Council.
Keynote Speakers
Professor John Tulloch "Surviving terrorism: Negotiating the media"Professor John Tulloch is Research Professor in Sociology and Communications at Brunel University, West London, and is the author of numerous academic books and articles in the field.
He is also a survivor of the 7 July 2005 London bombings and his picture was flashed around the world as he emerged, injured, from Edgware Road Underground Station and, subsequently, being visited by HRH Prince Charles in a UK hospital.
John is uniquely placed to address his chosen keynote topic. A past Head of School for Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies at Cardiff University, Wales, John went on to be Director of the Centre for Cultural Research into Risk at Charles Sturt University, NSW, prior to taking up his position at Brunel.
John is an Australian citizen and lived in Australia for 25 years.
His book, One Day in July: Experiencing 7/7 was published by Little, Brown in 2006.
Dr Anne Aly
Dr Aly is a Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Social Marketing, Edith Cowan University. She has previously occupied senior policy positions in government.
Anne completed her PhD in Media and Cultural Studies entitled Australian audience responses to the discourse of terrorism in the Australian popular media: The fear of terrorism between and among Australian Muslims and the broader community. Anne's PhD research forms part of a broader ARC funded study on the fear of terrorism.
She has published articles in various areas of interest including the historical representation of Muslim women in the media; racism, fear and Australian identity; the fear of terrorism; Australian Muslim identity; conceptualisations of ethnicity in research; citizenship; secularism and religious minorities and political fear.
Anne is also current President of Dar al Shifah Islamic Inc., a volunteer organisation that offers services to the community and to government.