POLIS Humanitarian and Development Communication In a Global Media Age

We live in a world of global communication where the news media can inform us about anything happening anywhere. From the early ‘famine images’ of emaciated children dying in Ethiopia to the recent proliferation of celebrity activism, humanitarian communication keeps raising pertinent questions on how our culture encounters distant suffering and how we are invited to care about it. But how does the public react to the messages about suffering, conflict or disaster in another part of the planet? What moral, practical or political role does the journalist have in communicating between different peoples? How can the news media promote democracy and development?

Led by Polis Research Director Prof. Professor Lilie Chouliaraki, Media and Communications Department, LSE and Charlie Beckett, POLIS Director, LSE, these are some of the critical questions that Polis will be addressing in a new programme of seminars, conferences, research and publication.
This series of POLIS debates brings together NGO communications experts, humanitarian activists, journalists and philosophy and ethics scholars to debate key aspects of the political and moral implications of humanitarian communication in a global media age.

This work will bring fresh critical thinking and academic research to a vital area of intellectual inquiry. It will also engage with practitioners to promote best practice and policy-making for humanitarian and development communications work.

There will be five key elements to this project.

1. A series of academic seminars and a symposium in autum. Please click here for more details.
2. A long-term major research proposal in 2008
3. Public and Practitioner Engagement Programme – a series of events for NGOs, journalists, policy-makers and researchers
4. Further topical and customised research projects with NGOs, media and governments
5. Polis Humanitarian Research Fellowships

We are looking for financial support for this programme:

• For publications to disseminate debates and research findings
• To fund Research Fellows and Scholarships
• To create a programme of events for NGOs, media and policy-makers
• To support specific research projects

For more information about this project, please click through on the links above or contact us at polis@lse.ac.uk.

This work builds on the Polis conference on Development, Governance and the Media. You can see the conference report here.

This autumn the LSE Media and Communications Department launches its new Media, Communication and Development Msc.