Teaching Media Studies:
Transitions From A-Level To Undergraduate Courses  

28TH JUNE 11.30 – 5.30
LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

Media Studies is expanding both in higher education and in schools. The number of universities offering Media Studies and related courses tripled between 1996 and 2009, while student numbers at A-level grew four-fold. This presents new opportunities and challenges for those who are teaching the subject. Until recently, universities could safely assume that only a minority of students would have studied the subject previously. This is no longer the case: recent HEA research suggested that almost 50% of students on Media Studies courses had taken the subject at A-level. Particularly in the first year of an undergraduate course, some students will be encountering material with which they are already very familiar, while others will be engaging with it for the first time. Lecturers may be unfamiliar with the requirements of A-level, while A-level teachers may know little about the nature of university courses.

This event aims to generate a dialogue between those teaching Media Studies and related subjects at A-level and at undergraduate level. It will focus on continuities, overlaps and differences between these two areas, in terms of both curriculum and teaching/learning styles, and their implications for the student experience.

Speakers will include:
Pete Fraser – A-level chief examiner
Sarah Barrow – Lincoln University
Jenny Grahame – English and Media Centre
Keith Perera – Advanced Skills Teacher and PGCE tutor, Sussex
Freddie Attenborough and Liz Stokoe – Loughborough University
Kate O’Riordan – Sussex University

Courtesy of the Higher Education Academy, attendance, lunch and refreshments are free. Places are limited, and will be reserved on a first come, first served basis. To book, please e-mail Anne-Marie Joyce: A.Joyce@lboro.ac.uk.

In this issue:
1 Reform(ation): Media & Higher Education (Einar Thorsen)

MeCCSA Annual Conferences
2 MeCCSA 2012: Bedfordshire Experience (Janey Gordon)
3 MeCCSA 2013: Spaces and Places of Culture (Máire Messenger Davies)

Media Reform
6 This system needs fixing (Des Freedman)
8 Market fundamentalism and new communications regulation (Damian Tambini)

HE Cuts and Challenges
10 The managerial Cuckoos (John Brissenden)
10 Even more bad news from London Met (Gholam Khiabany)
12 The key (Jackey Reuben)

Perspectives From Abroad
15 Higher Education in Ireland (Gavan Titley)
16 Multiculturalism and internationalisation in Romanian HE (Marcela Ganea)

Success and Innovation
18 Reading the riots on Twitter (Farida Vis)
19 Local public service television (David Rushton)

Reports and initiatives
20 Chair’s report (Sue Thornham)
21 The REF is coming (Peter Golding)
22 Climate Change, Environment & Sustainability Network (Neil Gavin)
23 Policy Network (Máire Messenger Davies)
24 Practice Network (Mark Readman, Joanna Callaghan)
25 Race Network (Call for papers)
26 Radio Studies Network (Salvatore Scifo)
27 Women’s Media Studies Network (Heather Nunn)
28 Postgraduate Network (Tom Phillips)

Einar Thorsen

With Rupert Murdoch appearing at the Leveson inquiry and Jeremy Hunt’s days seemingly numbered, this issue of Three-D again focusses on media reform. Des Freedman offers a lively critique of The Sun and Murdoch, with a call for a radical rethink of media power and regulation. Damian Tambini also explores media regulation, taking issue with market fundamentalism and outlining policy issues that needs to be addressed. MeCCSA members are actively contributing to public debate and the Coordinating Committee for Media Reform is organising a Rally for Media Reform in London on 17th May.

In Higher Education the effects of the ConDem Government cuts are already becoming apparent, with HEFCE recently estimating there will be around 10,900 fewer student places across the country next academic year. It should come as no surprise that the universities suffering the worst are reportedly the ones who have done the most for widening participation (the Russel Group on the other hand, are set to expand student numbers). Moreover, the arts and humanities are among the first courses to be “deleted”, as Gholam Khiabany explains. Whilst the managerial discourse of “student experience”, according to John Brissenden, has the potential to divide staff and students if not resisted.

For the first time this issue of Three-D contains a practice based contribution in the form of Jackey Reuben’s satire about the effects of marketing in a University.This issue also contains perspectives from abroad, with Gavan Titley exploring funding cuts in Ireland and Marcela Ganea discussing internationalisation in Romanian HE.

Finally, this issue focusses on the MeCCSA Annual Conferences, the success and innovation within our discipline and the work of the MeCCSA networks.

If you would like to write for or advertise in the next edition of Three-D, please get in touch with me on ethorsen@bmth.ac.uk by 14 September 2012. Suggestions for our website are also welcome.

Tom Phillips

Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA-PGN was initially established in 2007 on a relatively ad hoc basis, giving coverage for postgraduate work that featured at MeCCSA-PGN events. Since that time the journal has regularly featured issues based around the PGN’s annual conference, giving presenters a chance to disseminate their work to a wider audience.

By providing a space where the product of PGN events can be showcased, Networking Knowledge has always had potential to be a strong visible presence for the Network, and this was capitalised with the appointment of Vincent Gaine as journal editor in 2010, making the position a part of the Executive Committee. When I took up the post in July 2011, I made it my first task to establish a strong identity for the journal, attempting to make its role as a mouthpiece for the MeCCSA-PGN clear, and to firmly target a particular readership.

Previously, as a reader of the journal, I often found myself wondering who exactly the target audience was meant to be. The broad remit of the journal means that often articles within an issue can be on anything and everything – such is the nature of MeCCSA conferences – and despite the quality of individual authors’ work, the all-inclusive nature of the featured content may not be particularly helpful for scholars browsing the journal archives. Furthermore, should the journal be by postgraduates, for postgraduates, or by postgraduates for everybody?

Taking these issues into account, I drafted a Constitution for Networking Knowledge, in the hope that the values of the MeCCSA-PGN could be championed and sustained by the journal beyond my tenure. I feel that, as arguably the most visible aspect of the PGN’s output, the journal can be adopted as a hub of readership and authorship amongst the postgraduate community. It can provide a space where the interests of students can be promoted, discussed, and showcased. Perhaps most importantly, it can help to expand the membership of the PGN, providing an access point where new members can immediately see a contribution to a wider collective.

My first issue as editor of Networking Knowledge will be published at the end of February, and I’m confident that my aspirations for the journal will be addressed. In addition to the first part of the 2011 Conference Edition, the journal is hosting a series of guest-edited specials, in a drive to make the editing process more accessible to young scholars (the first such special is an excellent issue on “Girlhood in Popular Culture”). In addition, a “Research Spotlight” section allows an institution to talk about the exciting postgraduate research that is being conducted, and “PGN Matters” will feature members of the Executive Committee discussing topics pertinent to the postgraduate community.

By clearly identifying Networking Knowledge as a worthwhile online space that postgraduates can use in interacting with each other, the PGN can continue to show strong support for fostering community in a time when physical networking is not always cost-effective. The vast range of institutions represented by both authors and the peer review board appears to signal that such online interactivity may be a viable alternative in the future.

For more information about the MeCCSA-Postgraduate Network, visit http://www.meccsa.org.uk/networks/postgraduate-network.

To check out the journal, visit
http://www.meccsa.org.uk/networks/postgraduate-network/?journal.

Heather Nunn

As ever members of the WMSN have been busy networking, reaching out to new members and hosting lively and engaging events.

Media and Mothers’ Matters

On 21st October 2011 Oluyinka Esan organised ‘Media and Mothers’ Matters’ at Winchester University with a keynote by Dorothy Hobson, University of Wolverhampton. This was a well-attended symposium featuring Stella Roberts from the Mother’s Union alongside new and established scholars with an interest in gender, the maternal and media texts and/or practice.

Kim Akass addressed ‘From Here to Maternity – Motherhood in the Media’, Janet McCabe explored ‘States of Confusion: Sarah Palin and the Media Politics of US Mothering’, Rebecca Feasey ‘Teen Drama: Absent, Inept and Intoxicated Mothers’, Racheal Agbonkhese ‘Setting the Media Agenda for Maternal Mortality in Nigeria: A long road to travel’ and Tamsyn Dent ‘The Widening Gender Gap in the UK Creative Media Industries’.

For a report on the event by Olu Esan and follow-up pieces by Akass, McCabe and Feasey see the Commentary and Criticism Section of Feminist Media Studies 2012 Volume 12, Issue 1.

Women’s Media Studies Network & Practice Network

Photo: Director Jan Dunn and Cinematographer Ole Birkeland on the set of The Calling

It’s customary for the Network to run an event for members at the MeCCSA Annual Conference as well as to hold an AGM. This year on the 12th January we were very pleased to feature filmmaker Jan Dunn in conversation with Rona Murray (Lancaster University). Jan was a tremendously engaging speaker whose commentary of clips from her films was genuinely illuminating.

Dunn made her feature-length directorial debut in 2005 with the film Gypo, which won a British Independent Film Award for Best Production. In our session she recalled the challenges and advantages of making the film under the Dogme 95 rules before going on to talk about her second film Ruby Blue which with Bob Hoskins and Josiane Balasko (2008). Dunn both wrote and directed her third feature film, The Calling (2010), with Brenda Blethyn, Susannah York, Rita Tushingham, Pauline McLynn and Amanda Donohoe. In our session she explored the pleasures of working with such a formidable cast of fine actors. She is currently adapting Rose Tremain’s best-selling novel Sacred Country for film.

Future events

We are currently in discussion with Dr Ruth Barton, Head of Dept of Film Studies, Trinity College, Dublin concerning a collaborative event with the Women’s Film and TV History Network to take place in early summer 2012. Plans include a possible screening at the Irish Film Institute followed by a symposium.

The Network is keen to ensure that events take place in every region of the UK so that as many members as possible are able to meet and socialise. So we are especially pleased to be supporting an event in Scotland on the topic of female authorship in the Autumn of 2012. The organisers are Sarah Neely (University of Stirling), Karen Boyle (University of Glasgow), Maggie Sweeney (University of the West of Scotland), Jane Sillars (University of Edinburgh) and Sarah Smith (Glasgow School of Art).

If you are interested in hosting an event with the support of the WMSN please contact Heather Nunn (h.nunn@roehampton.ac.uk).

Salvatore Scifo

The Radio Studies Network (RSN) convened on 12 January in Luton for its annual business meeting at the MeCCSA conference. After 3 years, Steve Lax (University of Leeds) stepped down as Chair and Salvatore Scifo (University of Westminster) was elected as the new Chair of the Network. The Steering Group of the Network has welcomed a few new members and is now composed by the following radio scholars: Anne Dunn (University of Sydney), Janey Gordon (University of Bedfordshire), Steve Lax (University of Leeds), Peter Lewis (London Metropolitan University), Katie Moylan (University of Leicester), Eryl Price-Davies, Eleanor Shember-Critchley (Manchester Metropolitan University), Guy Starkey (University of Sunderland), Jo Tyler (Bournemouth University), Deborah Wilson (University of Lincoln) and Helen Wolfenden (University of Salford).

The RSN has now also a Facebook page which has already attracted interest from more than 40 researchers and practitioners after a few days of activity.  This is planned to be a space for discussion and sharing information about events and publications for RSN members, but also open to all. Among the first posts, the members shared locations and information about a series of events that took place around the world to celebrate the first ever World Radio Day on 13 February 2012.

13 February is a date proclaimed by UNESCO to celebrate radio broadcasting, improve international cooperation among radio broadcasters and encourage decision-makers to create and provide access to information through radio, including community radios. It’s an occasion to draw attention to the unique value of radio, which remains the medium to reach the widest audience and is currently taking up new technological forms and devices.

There have been also a few book publications authored or edited by members of the Network. Among others:

• Hugh Chignell (2011) Public Issue Radio. Talks, News and Current Affairs in the Twentieth Century, Palgrave Macmillan;
• Angeliki Gazi, Guy Starkey and Stanislaw Jedrzejewski (2011) (eds.) Radio Content in the Digital Age. The Evolution of a Sound Medium, Intellect Books;
• Guy Starkey (2011) Local Radio. Going Global, Palgrave Macmillan;
• Janey Gordon (ed.) (2012) Community Radio in the 21st Century, Peter Lang;
• Matt Mollgaard (2012) (ed.) Radio and Society: New Thinking for an Old Medium, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Members of the network are now planning national and international events to take place in the second half of 2012 and in 2013. Further details will be circulated through this newsletter, as well as through our new Facebook page and the usual communication channels: our lively Radio Studies mailing list, which brings together over 400 radio scholars from all over the world and the main MeCCSA mailings list.

Steering Group member Guy Starkey, is also the head of the ECREA Radio Research Section, which will be organizing the parallel panels of the bi-annual ECREA main conference, which will take place this year in Istanbul, Turkey, from 24 to 27 October 2012.

Popular Communication:
The International Journal of Media and Culture. 

Special Issue on Race and Ethnicity in Cultural Production

Editors: David Hesmondhalgh and Anamik Saha

Within media and cultural studies, questions of race and cultural difference in popular culture have tended to be explored through textual analysis, in relation to what Stuart Hall (1988) called “the politics of representation,” in terms of how they either reinforce or challenge essentialist notions of race and ethnic identity. Some of the most important recent interventions in cultural studies however, are those that have gone beyond the text and have focused on the production of culture and identity as constituted in, and by, global transformations (Clarke and Thomas, 2006; Niranjana, 2006). Yet far less attention has been paid to the production and circulation of representations of difference in popular culture. The aim of this special issue of Popular Communication is to address race and ethnicity in terms of how they are experienced in cultural production, in both its everyday and industrial contexts, and in terms of how they influence the production and distribution of cultural goods.

We invite papers that reflect on the cultural politics of difference with a focus on cultural production and/or circulation. These could include studies of creative and artistic practice, the experience of race and ethnicity within the cultural industries, commodification and the politics of representation, and related subjects. We invite work from scholars researching racism in the media, treating it not as an aberration that can be simply eradicated by increasing participation from racialized minorities (as policy tends to assert), but as deeply entrenched in modern capitalist societies, and which manifests in cultural production in very particular ways. Indeed, as the cultural industries continue to operate in highly marketized environments, in what ways do neo-liberal models of governance manage knowledge about race and ethnicity through symbol production and creative work?

We invite abstracts for papers based on research on all sectors of the media and popular culture, from music to video games, news to entertainment. We particularly welcome papers based upon research from non-Western contexts.

Papers can be on any topic related to ‘race’ and ethnicity in relation to media and cultural production, among which might be the following:

• The production of race and ethnicity in popular culture
• Cultural difference in creative work
• The media, multiculturalism and citizenship
• Cultural policy and subsidising minority arts
• Institutional racism in the cultural industries
• ‘Glass ceilings’ and the politics of quotas and diversity initiatives in the media
• The marketing and distribution of minority arts
• Race, ethnicity and subcultural practices
• New media and cultural identity
• Islamophobia and the reporting/representation of the ‘War on Terror’
• Anti-racist media activism

To submit an abstract (500 words) please email Anamik Saha (a.saha@leeds.ac.uk). Deadline for abstracts is 31st March 2012. We anticipate completed manuscripts by 31st December, 2012.

Clarke, K.M. and Thomas, D.A. (eds.) (2006). Globalization and Race: Transformations in the Cultural Production of Blackness. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Hall, S. (1988). New Ethnicities. In K. Mercer (ed.), Black Film, British Cinema (pp. 27-31). London: British Film Institute / Institute of Contemporary Arts.

Niranjana, T. (2006). Mobilizing India: Women, Music, and Migration between India and Trinidad. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Mark Readman

The 2012 MeCCSA conference at the University of Bedfordshire was as eclectic as usual, with sessions ranging from pornography to public service broadcasting and from the Muppets to Murdoch.

My experience this time, however, was different from previous occasions, given my decision to inveigle my way into the world of practice on the basis of a paper about the status of knowledge in practice-based research. And this conference was rich in practice-based work, with parallel presentations, evening screenings and Q&A sessions with directors. Consequently I am left with impressions of some extraordinary stories, formal experiments and campaigning zeal, all of which shift in and out of focus when viewed through the ‘knowledge’ lens; in other words they become differently meaningful and significant when subjected to questions about the nature of the knowledge they produce, how they articulate it and their relationship with it. In case this sounds too casuistical (my new favourite word since hearing Peter Golding use it at the AGM), it is the exercise of such questions that will enable us to ascertain the relationship between practice and research and, perhaps, dissolve some of the boundaries that currently exist.

In the case of Deirdre O’Neill’s films, made with serving and ex-prisoners, and Kirsten Macleod’s community based work made with women from Govan, there was a sense of the co-production of knowledge. This knowledge could be described as ethnographic from a traditional research perspective, as it facilitated the articulation of understandings of culture, norms and shared beliefs and practices. But it also enabled the participants to reflect on their identities and, through the intervention of the filmmaker/researchers, for an appreciation of their own agency to emerge.

In contrast, Inga Burrows’ films set in the Cardiff Market Hall contained little that could be described as ‘explicit articulation of knowledge’, given their impressionistic, oblique and partial views of working lives and relationships. As research, then, the work seemed to require some form of exegesis in order to make the knowledge unambiguous, but only if we take for granted assumptions about what research is.

This difference in mode and approach to creative work was also exemplified by the two professional filmmakers who presented at the conference – Jan Dunn and Clio Barnard. Jan Dunn, whose first film Gypo was made according to Dogme 95 rules, was, despite this, disarmingly non-theoretical about her work, asserting the importance of instinct and emotion in her process. Clio Barnard, whose film The Arbour was screened on the first evening, however, spoke about her film and installation work as the products of conceptual development and formal experimentation.

My MeCCSA experience ended with Joanna Callaghan and Martin McQuillan’s film (“I melt the glass with my forehead” – Mayakovsky fans will get the reference!) about the rise in tuition fees, which used a documentary mode to put the marketisation of Higher Education in a historical context. This film explored questions about the value of universities – whether or not they constitute something which can be commodified, and in doing so brought me back to my original questions; if research is one of the ‘products’ of universities, what is the nature of this ‘product’? And what forms can it take?

Joanna Callaghan
University of Bedfordshire

Thanks to Mark Readman for his reflections on practice at the 2012 conference. Further information about the presentations on our Facebook page. If you are interested in hosting an event or are looking for support for an existing event please get in touch:
joanna.callaghan@beds.ac.uk

Powers of the false symposium

Institut Francais & Cine Lumiere, London, UK

May 18-19th 2012

Keynote presentation by Professor Stella Bruzzi

Website: www.powersofthefalse.org

“There is a power inherent in the false: the positive power of ruse, the power to gain a strategic advantage by masking one’s life force.”
(Brian Massumi)

This two-day symposium addresses the complex ethics of the manipulation of real people and events in documentary, fact-fiction hybrid cinema and artists’ moving image. Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s theories of minor cinema and his term ‘powers of the false’, the symposium will turn to other philosophers including Levinas’ philosophy of alterity. Powers of the False looks at filmmaking as a manipulative and coercive agency. When and for what reason is forgery and deception conceptually motivated, even ethically necessary?

Convened by:
Dr Steven Eastwood: eastwood@uel.ac.uk
Dr Catherine Wheatley: catherine.wheatley@kcl.ac.uk

Delegate pass (Full Rate/Reduced): 1 day £60/£30 or 2 days £100/£50

To register go to: http://www.institut-francais.org.uk/ or call
the Institut Francais Box Office on:  0207 871 3515

Supported by UEL, the MeCCSA Practice Network, Soda Films and Kings College London

Máire Messenger Davies

As reported in the last Three-D, media policy issues have been almost constantly in the headlines, and thus also of major concern to many academics; this is particularly due to the phone-hacking story and the Leveson inquiry, which have also raised issues about the teaching of ethics (or lack of it) and journalism training.

A number of panels at our annual conference at the University of Bedfordshire in January testified to the ongoing importance of these issues – Julian Petley on privacy; Steve Barnett and Ivor Gaber as keynote speakers talking about their research on broadcast news; a panel exploring the legacy of Wapping with Sylvia Harvey, Tom O’Malley, Máire Messenger Davies and the President of the NUJ Donacha DeLong, standing in at short notice for ‘Wapping refusenik’ Pat Healy (heartfelt thanks to him). Network colleagues Prof Steve Barnett, University of Westminster, Prof James Curran, Goldsmiths and Prof Julian Petley are among a number of academics who have submitted evidence to the ongoing Leveson inquiry (http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/) which continues to stimulate academic debate both within and outside the Network. The Network’s original goals of enabling academics to interact with, and seek mutually useful working arrangements with, different civil society groups is being more than achieved at the moment.

Meetings & events

The last Three-D discussed policy-related events and meetings around the country: in London at (LSE), in Cardiff (one at Cardiff University, the other at the University of Glamorgan) and Belfast. Policy issues are regularly on the agenda for universities all over the country, and a key Policy Network function is not to try to duplicate them, but to draw them to members’ attention and to encourage further comment and action, including research collaboration, arising from them. Further events in the media policy area include:

24 February 2012:
‘News of the World: A Study Day’,King’s College London,

20 March 2012:
Westminster Media Forum Keynote Seminar: ‘Priorities for press regulation’, with Lord Hunt of Wirral, Chairman, Press Complaints Commission and Professor Steven Barnett, University of Westminster, among many others.

2-4 April 2012:
A ‘landmark media conference’ hosted by the Goldsmiths Leverhulme Media Research Centre: ‘Media, Power & Revolution: Making the 21st Century’
Senate House, London.

May 16 2012:
Media Reform public summit, Central Hall, Westminster; email info@mediareform.org.uk (see below for details of the Media Reform group) with any suggested speakers.

Public debate

A group of Policy Network members wrote to the Guardian on ‘illegality and cover up at News Corp’.

Dr Jonathan Hardy gave a speech to the Oxford Media Convention on 25 January 2012 outlining proposals for media pluralism.

See also the regular blogs at the LSE Media Policy Project, including a very useful Leveson roundup.

The Media Reform group coordinator can be contacted at Tel 07505 053 553 and further information can be found on their website or by contacting Justin Schlosberg at mediareformcommittee@gmail.com.

Other useful weblinks of interest to media policy researchers:

Hacked Off website: www.hackinginquiry.org

Leveson hearings contact: rachel.clark@levesoninquiry.gsi.gov.uk

The Leveson site is an invaluable resource for teaching media policy, journalism practice and ethics, and will be even more valuable for media historians in the future, I suspect. It contains a number of submissions and witness statements from academics on media reform, journalism training and legal and ethical issues.

Future events

Ideas for Policy Network events especially in Scotland and Northern England are welcome

Meanwhile, please note: January 9-11 2013: next MeCCSA conference at the University of Ulster, Derry/Londonderry: ‘Spaces and Places of Culture’; media policy in the widest sense will be on the agenda; speakers include Prof Roy Greenslade, City University & the Guardian, and Chair of REF Main Panel D, Prof Bruce Brown. See:
www.arts.ulster.ac.uk/meccsa2013

Neil Gavin

The MeCCSA CCES Network had a successful conference in Luton, at the University of Bedfordshire campus, with a lively debate around three papers. These straddled the issues of energy security coverage and its relationship with climate change; readers’ comments on tabloid climate stories, post-climategate; and the construction of climate change debate in a developing country context.

CCES plans to run a comparable session at MeCCSA 2013. Anyone wishing to organise a session and/or give a paper, please contact CCES Convenor Dr Neil Gavin: gavin@liverpool.ac.uk.

CCES has also been active with regard to ‘outreach’. Under its auspices, a very successful workshop for climate scientists was run at UCL in January (‘Knowledge Exchange, The Media and Climate Science’). It aimed to give climate scientists the confidence in media-related or knowledge exchange activities. It illuminated the journalistic process, and gave a sense of the mediated context in which this takes place, the coverage produced and the best way to get a message across in the face of organised and vocal climate scepticism. Partly on the basis of its success, the CCES Convenor, Dr Neil Gavin of Liverpool University, has been invited to run a comparable set of workshops connected to the NERC’s generic media training workshops, from November this year, and repeated regularly thereafter. Comparable support will be offered to those British-based climate scientists who will be contributing to the next United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report in 2013-14.

On March 30th 2012, Liverpool University will co-host a symposium with CCES, ‘Reaching the Public on Climate Change’, which will be free to attend (see below). Here a range of speakers will address the challenges in keeping climate change at the forefront of national dialogue (through the media and other avenues), and assuring that organisations and institutions meet them. Those interested in attending please contact CCES Convenor (Dr Neil Gavin: gavin@liverpool.ac.uk).

Finally, and in line with the CCES’s commitment to encouraging environmental sensitivity in the academic domain, is appropriate to flag up a new report on sustainability in Higher Education. It looks at experience and best practice in the transformation of HE towards sustainability, and the role of the sector in building sustainable communities. The report is available online.

‘Reaching the Public on Climate Change’

Climate change as an issue has been somewhat eclipsed by economic turbulence and economic crisis in Europe. Maintaining its profile in the national dialogue is a significant challenge for a wide range of organisations and institutions and this symposium draws on speakers from a range of such organisations. The speakers will present their take on the challenge of keeping the public, stakeholders and organisations engaged with and informed about climate change, or the problems of confronting the issue in a legislative or social arena. But in addition, scholars in this area will speak on their area of specialisation, as it relates to the issue of public engagement – in the domains of media coverage of the issue, and attitude formation and change in this area. The aim is that the symposium will be an exchange of ideas, experiences and expertise.

Speakers approached or who have already agreed to talk, include:

• Dr Robert Falkner, Grantham Research Institute, LSE, Environmental policy specialist
• Jennifer Pride, Welsh Government, Head – Climate Change. Communications and Engagement
• George Marshall (COIN: Climate Outreach Information Network)
• Cllr Tim Moore (Liverpool City Council Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, and Board of the Nottingham Declaration Partnership).
• Todd Holden, Manchester Chamber of Commerce, and former Director of the Enworks environment business support programme
• Richard Black  (BBC Environment correspondent)
• Dr Neil Gavin, Media and climate change specialist
• Dr Lorraine Whitmarsh (Cardiff University), Climate attitude specialist