The final programme for Rethinking small media is now available! You can also flip through an Issuu version here.

Tickets cost £30 (incl. conference materials, breakfasts, lunches and a drinks reception) and are available at rethinkingsmallmedia.eventbrite.co.uk.

We hope you plan to join us for two very exciting days at SOAS, University of London on 6-7 October 2012!

Rethinking small media programme

The tentative* programme for Rethinking small media, taking place at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London on 6-7 October 2012, is now available! If you don’t have your ticket for the event yet, you can purchase one here.

Watch this space and follow us on Twitter or Facebook, as we will soon be posting information about the individual sessions.

* UPDATE 19 September 2012: Jacob Akol, who was scheduled to speak during Session Four: Media, will unfortunately not be able to join us for the event. We are working hard to find a new speaker to join this session. Stay tuned!

* UPDATE 24 September 2012: We are very pleased that Claire Ulrich (Global Voices) has agreed to join us for the conference. She will be speaking during Session Four: Media.

Registration for Rethinking small media is now open. You can buy your ticket for £30 (includes conference materials, breakfasts, lunches and a drinks reception) here.

Join us on 6-7 October 2012 at the School of Oriental and African Studies to discuss some of the intractable binaries (online/offline, small/big media, old/new social movements, control/freedom) that dominate our thinking about media and politics and to hear about interesting case studies with confirmed panelists:

Jérémie Bédard-Wien (Association pour une Solidarité Syndicale Étudiante, Québec)
Paolo Gerbaudo (King’s College London)
Pooneh Ghoddoosi (BBC)
Joss Hands (Anglia Ruskin University)
Gus Hosein (Privacy International)
Timothy Jordan (King’s College London)
Anastasia Kavada (University of Westminster)
Oliver Leistert (University Paderborn/Central European University)
Sameer Padania (Open Society Foundation-London)
Federico Prando (Autistici/Inventati)
Annabelle Sreberny (SOAS, University of London)
Gillian Youngs (University of Brighton)
Jacob Akol (Gurtong Trust – Peace and Media Project)
Jennifer Jones (University of the West of Scotland/#citizenrelay)
Nazek Ramadan (Migrant Voice)

… and more to come!

We will also be launching Index on Censorship’s latest magazine issue Censors on Campus and screening Don’t Cut My Head Off, “a plea from people who face reality, to the smart people who negotiate to manage reality”, at the conference.

Do join us and keep watching this space as we hope to post more very soon!

The Centre for Media and Film Studies, School of Arts at the School of Oriental and African Studies invites you to join the Small Media Initiative for its second conference, Rethinking small media, to take place at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London on 6-7 October 2012.

Much has been happening in the terrain of small media and political change, from the Arab Spring to the Occupy movements and more, and much has already been written and discussed. We want to use this event to think with, and through, unanswered questions and perhaps pose some more.

In the debates about the potential for digital connectivity and new media to enhance or alter politics, the debates appear frozen around immovable binaries, such as:

theory versus practice
small versus big media
space versus place
change versus continuity
old/new social movements versus new/old social movements
control versus circumvention

Given their longevity, perhaps these binaries are significant, but we neither expect to erase nor to resolve them. Instead we aim to explore why they are so intractable and focus on the issues they raise, helping us to define and perhaps better answer the important questions of the day:

­‐ What are the specific affordances of face-to-face politics and of new media politics and how/when can they complement each other?

­‐ What are the characteristics of old social movements and the new; what might each learn from the other and which are most successful at achieving their aims?

­‐ How are small media echoed and elaborated by big media, and how can their inter-relationships be fostered?

­‐ What kinds of regimes of control are currently operative and how can and do activists and publics circumvent the circumvenors?

Each of these four issues will be addressed by a pair of speakers who come from different regimes of practice (academe, journalism, activism, technology) and their papers further interrogated by a third.

The Small Media Initiative is pleased to announce that it will be hosting its second annual event, Rethinking small media 2012, at the School of Oriental and African Studies on 6-7 October 2012. More information coming soon!

Listen to Annabelle Sreberny’s closing remarks at the end of a stimulating day at the Small Media Symposium 2011.

Listen to Session 4 of the Small Media Symposium 2011 below.

Chair:
Gary Garriott, Internews Network

Panelists:
Galina Miazhevich, University of Oxford, UK
Recent developments in post-Soviet small media

Amy O’Donnell, Frontline SMS
How to strengthen and harness community networks: The role of radio, mobile and SMS

George Weyman, Meedan
Small media and the dictator who didn’t give in: The risks of soliciting audio and video in repressive regimes

Respondent:
Katrin Verclas, MobileActive.org

Listen to Session 3 of the Small Media Symposium 2011 below.

Chair:
Dina Matar, Centre for Media & Film Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Panelists:
Hossein Sharif, Documentary Maker
Small media and the Green Movement: Opportunities and challenges

Khaled Koubaa, Arab World Internet Institute
Tunisia 2011: Supporting and covering the revolution

Nermeen Sayed, The University of York
Activists’ perceptions of social media for mobilization

Jacob Sommer, Department of Government, Uppsala University
The construction of identities by the Libyan Youth Movement on Facebook

Respondent:
Mohammed Ibahrine, American University of Sharjah, UAE