This year’s Polis Media Dialogues presents a series of weekly lectures delivered by leading figures from the media industry and policy sector around the topical themes of media and identity from their specific professional and expert viewpoints. Lectues will take place from 5 - 630pm in the New Theatre, East Building, Houghton Street, LSE.
Tuesday 13th October: Arab Media Panel
Speakers: Fatima El-Issawi, Researcher at Dept of Media and Communications, LSE and freelance journalist; Mohammed Chbaro, Director, London Office, Al Arabiya; Nasser Badry, UK News Editor, Al Jazeera; Ayad Abou Shakra, Editorialist, Asharq al Aswat newspaper. Chaired by Myria Georgiou.
Friday 23rd October: Identity and News - in Conversation with George Alagiah
Speakers: George Alagiah, BBC Presenter Six O'clock News & World News Today on BBC World News. Chaired by Charlie Beckett.
* Please note this lecture will start at 6 for a 6.30 start on Friday 23rd in the Old Theatre, Old Building
Tuesday 27th October: Cosmopolitan Mediascapes: London, Media and Cultural Diversity
Speakers: Sunny Hundal, Asians in the Media, Liberal Conspiracy, Pickled Politics; Jennifer Ogole, CEO of Bang Radio; Henry Bonsu, Colourful Radio; and Munira Mirza, the Mayor of London's Director of Arts and Culture Policy. Chaired by Myria Georgiou.
Tuesday 3rd November: Identity and Search - in Conversation with James Harkin
Speakers: James Harkin, Director of Talks at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Chaired by Charlie Beckett.
Tuesday 10th November: The Unfinished Revolution - Nick Thorpe
Speakers: Nick Thorpe, author of The Unfinished Revolution and BBC Central Europe correspondent
Chaired by Charlie Beckett.
This is a personal view, from ground level, of a revolution which never quite finished. Of how it re-emerges, in demonstrations and uprisings, on a regular basis. How the demons of the past - of collaboration, of unsatisfied national identity, above all of poverty - continue to haunt the present.
Blood drips on Thorpe’s head as he tries to escape the Romanian secret police, with a dissident's statement hidden in his clothes. Then as the Hungarian government prepares to expel him, he becomes a pawn in the Cold War as the British threaten to retaliate. Through the autumn and winter of 1989, Thorpe hops from revolution to revolution, from Budapest to Prague, Leipzig to East Berlin. And gets to Romania in time for the bloody finale.
But with the victory of democracy, his work was only just beginning. Thorpe guides us through the dramas and traumas of the 1990s, the years of 'jungle capitalism' through a taxi blockade in Hungary here, and the miners invasion of Bucharest. He camps with Vaclav Havel - who borrows his sleeping bag. As Yugoslavia collapses, he reports from Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and FUROMacedonia.
The book concludes in 2009, with the impact of the crisis of capitalism, 20 years after the crisis of communism.
Nick Thorpe began reporting from Budapest in February 1986, the first western journalist to be based there. For the BBC, the Independent, and the Observer, he covered the dying years of eastern Europe’s regimes, then the revolutions which toppled them. He witnessed the collapse of Yugoslavia, popular uprisings in Bulgaria and Serbia, the transformation of nonviolent to violent resistance in Kosovo. As the BBC's Central Europe correspondent he continues to report the successes, and the failures of a revolution which never quite reaches its goal.
Tuesday 17th November: Media Research, Development and Identity
Speaker: Gerry Power, Director of Research & Knowledge Management, Research & Learning Group, BBC World Service Trust. Chaired by Myria Georgiou.
The BBC World Service Trust is the BBC's international development charity. The Trust delivers a range of development projects using media and communication in more than forty countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The projects are designed to address a range of issues in health, governance and human rights, humanitarian response, livelihoods and climate change. Projects are supported by a programme of research from the inception phase through to assessing the impact when projects have finished.
Drawing on a selection of studies embedded within Trust projects, the presentation will examine the questions raised when conducting research with diverse populations about a range of topics: What assumptions are made about the identity of the research participant? How are assumptions about identity reflected in the study design and research methods employed? What research approaches can be considered that offer an alternative perspective on identity? These questions will be framed in the context of research interviews conducted with diaspora, marginalised
and IDP populations, in particular.
Tuesday 24th November: Women and the Media - in Conversation with Catherine Mayer
Speaker: Catherine Mayer, London Bureau Chief, Time Magazine. Chaired by Myria Georgiou.
NB. This event is now being held in the NEW THEATRE, EAST BUILDING, HOUGHTON STREET, LSE.
** Please note this event will start at 7.30
Tuesday 1st December: Rwanda and the Media - Survivors and Reporters
Speakers: Patrick Iregura and Serge Rwigamba, survivors of the Rwandan genocide; and Lindsey Hilsum, World Editor, Channel 4 News. Chaired by Charlie Beckett.
Please note this event will finish at 6.30pm
These events are free. You must RSVP if you wish to attend. Lectures will be held at the New Theatre, East Building, Houghton Street, London School of Economics. For directions please click here.
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