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Verksamhetsberättelse 2014
No full textUnder 2014 har BIT haft fokus på interna organisations- och lokalförändringar och på att klara av fortsatta krav på budgetbesparingar. Omflyttningen innebar att BIT:s medarbetare med arbetsplats i Orkanen nu är samlade på plan 4 och 5 och att bibliotek och IT har ett gemensamt lunchrum
On Deadlocks and Simulations
Get PDFIn Sweden we have still not recovered from the shock after the general election in September, when the expected change of government, from the centre-right Alliance to a coalition between the Social Democrats and the Green party, was overshadowed by the fact that the neo-fascist party “Sweden Democrats” reached 13 per cent of the poll. Although they had entered Parliament already in 2010, many among the 87 per cent who didn’t vote them liked to believe that Sweden remained an exception to the European rule, and even to the situation in the neighbouring Scandinavian countries, where right-wing populist parties have long since played an influential political role (in Norway they are even in government.) As this new issue of Glocal Times goes online, only two months after the formation of the new Swedish red-green government, their budget proposition was outvoted in Parliament, after the Sweden Democrats supported the competing budget from the right-centre opposition and the prime minister failed to reach a strategic agreement with any of the former government parties. Hence, for the first time since 1958, there will be an extra election, in March 2015, in order to break the current political deadlock and solve the paradoxical situation where the new government administers the opposition’s budget. There is little reason to believe that the result of the new election will be substantially different from the recent one. The Sweden Democrats may be punished by the electorate for obstructing the codex of parliamentary behaviour, but they may just as well gain even stronger support. They are already the third largest party, and they have self-assuredly declared that they will fail every government that holds on to the country’s current, by European standards very generous, immigration policy. (Sweden is, in proportion to its population, by far the biggest recipient of refugees from Iraq and Syria within the EU, and the prognosis is an ever-increasing number of asylum-seekers, who are guaranteed to find shelter if they manage to reach Sweden.) Even if the right-centre opposition in the extra election again becomes bigger than the red-green block, they will hence not be able to govern either, without approval from the cocksure neo-fascists, who have clearly demonstrated that they intend to fully exercise their position as balance of power The cynical comment may be: “Welcome to Reality!” This is what the situation looks like all over Europe. This time of season is normally depressing in the Northern hemisphere, but this year the darkness appears remarkably unbearable, partly due to the fact that I have just returned from spring in Australia. We were a large delegation from Malmö University at Flinders University in Adelaide, where we did a joint ComDev conference and workshop as part of the on-going Glocal Classroom project of collaboration between four universities on four continents for the advancement of web-based pedagogy. The theme of the two-day event was “Timor-Leste: Challenges of a New State in The Asian Century”, and the prospects for the youngest state in the Asia-Pacific were thoroughly examined from all angles. Most Europeans (with the exception of the Portuguese) are most likely not even aware of the existence, let alone the location, of this former Portuguese colony on the island of Timor (East Timor), which was occupied by neighbouring Indonesia from 1974 to 1999 and became independent only in 2002. In the Asia-Pacific perspective, however, this tiny republic has a very strategic position between the regional powers and in the crossroads of the interest spheres of the new rivals for global hegemony, USA and China. Looking at the world from another viewpoint is an illuminating experience. The perspective from “down under” has certainly changed in the last decades. From having been regarded (and seeing itself) as a European outpost at the end of the world, Australia is now assuming its strategic position in the Asia Pacific powerhouse, with India and China competing over its favours, and with emerging Indonesia on its doorstep. The huge but sparsely populated country has a severe legacy of racism and discrimination of its aboriginal population – way up until the 1970s, non-white immigrants were not allowed – and the waters to the north are the grave for thousands of wrecked refugees, just like the Mediterranean. But the new Australasian profile is very tangible in the cosmopolitan urban centres. Australian universities attract students from all over South and East Asia, making education one of the major industries. Apart from the Ivy League institutions in the UK and US, nearby Australia is simply more attractive to aspiring Asian students than far-away Europe and North America. The Timor-Leste conference at Flinders contained a one-day “hypothetical” workshop where ComDev students from Malmö and Flinders students in Development studies and International Relations acted as counsellors to the East Timorese government, whose part was played by a group of Timorese civil servants who happened to be in Adelaide on an English training course. It was the first time on the ComDev programme that simulation was applied as a pedagogical tool, and we were all overwhelmed by its potential, even though the 9,5 hour time difference complicated the interaction between students online and in situ. The Timorese played their part of the simulation very well, and found it rewarding to have their home country examined by foreign eyes. Next year we intend to recreate the collaboration with Flinders in another Glocal Classroom experiment, the nature of which remains to be decided. One suggestion that came up at the debriefing after the conference was to do a similar case study on a small nation in the European margin. Like Denmark – or Sweden. Would there be a ComDev strategy to tackle the current Swedish deadlock – or the European crisis? Think about that while you enjoy this issue of Glocal Times! And look forward to a new prosperous year for ComDev! [1] Professor of Journalistic and Literary Creation and head of the Master’s programme in Communication for Development at Malmö University since its inception in 2000.
In this issue (December 2014)
Get PDFSix months have passed since the publication of Issue No. 20 of Glocal Times. In the meantime there has been plenty of activity within the field, including the Voice & Matter conference, held in September of this year by the Ørecomm Centre for Communication and Glocal Change. Issue No. 21 of Glocal Times brings us four reports of other fora across the world where communication for development was both practiced and debated in recent months. To begin with, expert practitioners Birgitte Jallov and Sofie Jannusch share rich details about a worldwide two-week debate on community participation for radio sustainability that took place in April 2014 through the online networking tool LinkedIn. Organized by the Catholic Media Council (CAMECO), and facilitated by Jallov and Jannusch, the online debate was a pilot experience for gathering, sharing and discussing experiences on the matter from around the world. The authors reflect on the communicational aspects of the experience, on what worked and what didn’t work according to plan and on the themes that emerged, and advance ways forward for the conversation to continue. Next, scholars Verena Thomas and Clemencia Rodríguez give us a thorough account of the 10th OURMedia conference, held in July 2014 at the University of Goroka (UOG) in Papua New Guinea. Organized by the Centre for Social and Creative Media, which is a media research center of UOG, the conference was important for rendering visible and analyzing the situation of community and alternative media in the Pacific. The ideas put forward by the participating scholars, activists, and community media practitioners call our attention to the potential of media-bound efforts undertaken on the margins of institutionally-driven development, and to the challenges they face. Then, two articles contributed by Ph.D. candidates introduce us to discussions of (or around) communication for development in recent events in which they participated. Paola Sartoretto, based at Karlstad University in Sweden, tells us about the conference “Media and Governance in Latin America – Exploring the role of communication for development”, organized in May 2014 by the University of Sheffield and the Sheffield Institute for International Development in the UK. Mery Perez, based at the University of Guelph in Canada, refers to the newly-created network “Redecambio”, a network of graduate programs with a focus on communication, development and social change convened in August 2014 in Colombia by the tertiary education institution Uniminuto. Last but not least, two recent graduates from Malmö University’s Master’s program in Communication for Development introduce us to the main features of their respective theses. Sofia Hafdell investigates the potential and limitations of activist use of social media to report on the Gezi Park protests in Turkey in 2013 in the absence of mainstream news coverage. Based on critical discourse analysis of alternative media texts and qualitative semi-structured interviews to activists, Hafdell analyzes the complicated relationship between media and the state and its consequences for open, democratic debate in Turkey. YeeYin Yap enquires into how modern ethnography museums, and certain exhibitions in particular, frame their messages about Self and Others. Based on on-site observation, textual analysis and interviews to museum visitors, Yap discusses the importance of contextualization in order to engage audiences in ways that acknowledge past inequalities, allow bottom-up views of history and bridge differences. We hope that you will find this new issue of Glocal Times both informative and thought-provoking, and we welcome your views on the matters raised here, and your suggestions for future issues.
Ethnographic Representations of Self and the Other in Museums To whom do they speak, and what do they say?
Get PDFThe article examines how ethnography museums, in inventing and reinforcing the desire for modernity through their exhibiting clout, have been representing Self and the Other via the nexus that connects issues of identity, race, and difference. Based on research conducted using textual analysis and interviews to museum visitors, the article examines whether modern ethnography museums are moving past their colonial frameworks and managing to integrate the voices and experiences of the post-colonial Other through the lenses of heritage, history, and memory
The Communication for Development (C4D) Network
Get PDFIntroduction \u27So how do you do it?\u27, I am sometimes asked. \u27How do you create a successful social network?\u27 And I am not sure what to say, because I wonder myself. Although there is no magic, no formula, I can share here a few principles and lessons we have learnt in the process of starting up and developing the Communication for Development Network since 2007. When I say ‘we’, I mean initially myself, a C4D consultant and graduate of Malmö University’s Master’s in Communication for Development’ who acts as Manager and ‘Jack of all Trades’, and Nicola, a former Oxfam communication officer who is C4D’s Editor. Gradually, as the Network developed, this core team came to be supported by a number of volunteers who lead international and regional groups. The ‘we’ has also expanded to include occasional part time staff, and as of this year an Advisory Board. That is the core team, but ‘we’ also refers to the Network as a whole, i.e. all the people who have joined it since it began – and that is upwards of 1400 people worldwide at this point. I initiated the Network with some fellow C4D consultants in 2007 as an informal lunch group based in London. A number of us where just starting out as freelancers and feeling somewhat isolated; others were still in ‘proper jobs’ at organisations such as Panos, the BBC World Service Trust (now BBC Media Action), OneWorld.net and Internews, to name a few; and some belonged to academia
Action! Livestreaming as means of civic engagement: A case study of citizen journalism in Egypt and Syria
Get PDFThis article focuses on the use of livestreaming by citizen journalists in Egypt and Syria to accomplish social change, and on citizen journalism as an act of civic engagement. As an analytic frame, Dahlgren’s (2009) six modes of civic engagement are used to better understand the role of citizen journalists in a changing society. Through a number of qualitative interviews with citizen journalists, traditional journalists and Bambuser, this article concludes that citizen journalism not only played an important role in regards to civic engagement in Egypt and Syria during the recent uprisings in the countries, but continues to do so in the present. Keywords: Egypt, livestreaming, media convergence, public sphere, social change, Syria
A fine balance
Get PDFIn the city centre of Albania’s capital, Tirana, there is a strange building that inevitably attracts the visitor’s attention although there is no mentioning of it in the official tourist information. It is a pyramid, eight storeys tall and covering an area of 17.000 square meters. It looks like a faded futuristic monument from a distant near-past, and it is completely trashed -entrances blocked, windows broken, walls covered with graffiti. The strange building was erected in 1988 for the 80th birthday of the dictator Enver Hoxha, whose communist regime ruled Albania for more than 40 years. The most modern and extravagant construction in the country, in striking contrast to its dismal surroundings of concrete apartment blocks, the memorial to honour Hoxha was, however, short-lived. In 1991, less than three years after the inauguration, it was stripped of its exhibitions and the main statue of the former leader at the entrance was chiselled into pieces. The fate of the Pyramid has been the subject of heated discussion ever since. Part of the building was rented out to the major oppositional private radio and TV station, Top Channel, which still resides in the rear part of the ruined monument. Several attempts have been made to turn the former museum into a cultural center; in 2007 it was even named after one of the most famous opponents to the former regime, Pjetër Arbnori, who had spent 28 years in prison. To the generation who grew up in the ‘90s, it was most famous for a disco in one of the corners, called Momia (The Mummy). Finally, in 2010 the decision was made to demolish the building and lay down a new parliamentary complex in its place. This resolution has however not been carried out, partly due to protests from activist groups, and the Pyramid still stands as the only remaining testimony to the most extreme communist regime of Cold War Europe, which was in place little more than two decades away. Its only present-day comparison would be North Korea. I spent a week in Tirana in June as guest teacher in Research Methodology for the University of Tirana’s Master in Social and Behaviour Change Communication, and asked the students to conduct a small investigation on the Pyramid and its role in the collective memory of transitional Albania. The youngest students, born in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s did only have faint notions of those times, and apparently no particular interest in knowing more. For the older students, 30-years old and upwards, the Pyramid evoked memories of their own brainwashing as children. They were taught to love and worship the Leader and the Pyramid to them was a construction of unearthly beauty. All students were very open and out-spoken, yet I could sense that my curiosity struck a chord of discomfort. The theme of this year’s Ørecomm Festival is Memory on Trial, and I can’t think of a better example to illustrate the complexity of the politics of memory in its relation to social change context than the fate of Enver Hoxha’s Pyramid. On the one hand, this monument undoubtedly represents an important part of the country’s modern history and cultural heritage, and has some, albeit disputable, aesthetic value. On the on the other hand, it is a symbol and reminder of one of the world’s most gruesome dictatorships. If it were to be saved from demolition, which seems to be the popular opinion, the dispute that follows is whether it should be preserved in its current state of decay, or refurbished to its original shape. Any attempt at restoring its former glory would of course be an insult to the thousands of Hoxha’s victims and their relatives. In Albania, amnesia seems to be the most apposite term to describe the relation to the not too distant past. Sometimes, closing the book on the past may even be a condition for transition. That was the case in Spain, where the third and fourth generations of the victims of the terror during and after the 1936-39 Civil War are now coming forth, demanding recognition and justice for their murdered grand and grand grandparents. Spain, which used to be held up as the model for successful transition from dictatorship to democracy, is also an example of the perils of reconciling a contested past without undertaking a judicial process. An even more striking example of the lingering consequences of silenced trauma is the partition of India in 1947, which displaced some twelve million people and caused the death of up to one million in gruesome communal violence. No official memorial has ever been raised over the victims of the Partition. In other places, like present-day Russia and China, even times of horrific terror and repression tend to be permeated by nostalgia in the public memory. It is a fine balance. An excessive memory culture may tend to turn us into prisoners of the past, impeding transformative change. Yet the opposite is obviously a thousandfold worse: Those who do not remember the past are, to use philosopher George Santayana’s oft-quoted words, condemned to repeat it. But what then does memory have to do with Communication for Development? Long-term social change and development are of course largely a matter of communicating the experiences of one generation to the next. The historical dimension seems the more important today, when we are living under what has wittily been called the tyranny of the moment. Living memory is therefore not only the theme of the third Ørecomm Festival, but also a crucial element of the first PhD position in Communication for Development at Malmö University, to be announced simultaneously with this issue of Glocal Times. The position will be one of two interregional PhDs, in collaboration between the universities of Malmö and Roskilde (just like the Ørecomm Festival), and their overarching theme is “Histories and Dynamics of Globalization, Communication and Development”. You’ll be sure to read more about this project in coming issues of Glocal Times. Meanwhile, enjoy this issue’s line-up, including articles by recent graduates of Malmö’s Master’s degree programme in ComDev. Oscar Hemer Malmö, Sweden September 201
In this issue (September 2013)
Get PDFOne year has passed since the publication of the Special Issue (No. 17/18) of Glocal Times in collaboration with Nordicom Review, Communication, Media and Development: Problems and perspectives. Between then and now, debates about the state of the art of communication for development as an academic discipline have continued in a number of forums. To give but a couple of examples, in January 2013 the Centre for Communication and Social Change, based at the University of Queensland in Australia, organized the conference “Beyond the Impasse: Exploring new thinking in Communication & Social Change”, which brought forward questions raised in the above mentioned Special Issue. And, as we publish this new issue, the Ørecomm Festival 2013, organized by the Ørecomm Centre for Communication and Glocal Change, based at Malmö University in Sweden and Roskilde University in Denmark, sets out to debate the relationship between media initiatives, citizenship and social justice. Attentive to a threefold understanding of communication for development –as a field of study, as professional practice and as an institutional project, in this issue we bring it into focus from a variety of perspectives: learning, teaching, networking, conferencing and researching. To begin with, three recent graduates from Malmö University’s Master’s program in Communication for Development introduce their respective theses. Erliza Lopez Pedersen looks into the mediated and non-mediated communication practices of Filipino au pairs living and working in Denmark in the wider context of bilateral relationships between Denmark and the Philippines. Her work is a good example of how to study communication for development ‘at home’ –or, in Teke Ngomba’s words, of how to empirically westernize research. Rebecca Bengtsson discusses the use of livestreaming by citizen journalists in Egypt and Syria, raising questions about the limits and possibilities of civic engagement in the coverage of ongoing sociopolitical events in those countries. Carolina Törnqvist considers the impact of online distribution in the activity of community radios in Chile in the wider context of communication rights and relevant national legislation and international provisions. In turn, the three articles illustrate issues raised by Anders Høg Hansen in his “Reflections on MA thesis work on Communication for Development”, where he looks back at the evolution of the ‘Project Work’ assignment –that is, the Master’s thesis- which constitutes the last step before graduation for students of Malmö University’s Master’s program in Communication for Development. Høg Hansen discusses lessons learnt, pending challenges and a variety of viewpoints regarding how to strengthen the experience and educational value of thesis work for future students of the program. Another graduate of the Malmö ComDev program, and an experienced communication for development practitioner in her own right, Jackie Davies, unpacks the trajectory of the Communication for Development Network since its inception in 2007, and shares valuable insights about the process of facilitating the network, overseeing its growth to date, and imagining its future. PhD Candidate Valentina Baú follows the thread of communication for development and social change at the International Communication Association conference, which took place in London, UK, in June 2013. By sharing an account of her conference experience, Baú reflects on the somewhat elusive and scattered presence of the academic discipline in the meeting’s structure. Last but not least, Teke Ngomba calls our attention to the implications of the current economic crisis and ensuing austerity policies in Europe and the US for communication for development as an academic discipline. Importantly, Ngomba argues for the empirical Westernization of the field –his is an invitation to undertake research ‘at home’ that merits serious consideration. We hope that you will find this new issue of Glocal Times both informative and thought-provoking, and we welcome your views on the matters raised here, and your suggestions for future issues
Internet-based Community Radio and communication rights: A Chilean case study
Get PDFIntroduction On the International Day of Freedom of Expression 2012, the President of the World Association of Community Broadcasters (AMARC), Maria Pía Matta, called to encourage and strengthen the existence of a third communications sector in Chile, in particular in regards to the community radios. Furthermore, she highlighted the obligation of the state to create conditions that make greater plurality of voices possible, accounting for the cultural diversity in Chile. For long has an increased concentration of media ownership been stimulating a powerful economic ignorance of local needs and an often assumed media revolution has in general been absent in Chile. But since the beginning of the 21st century, community media initiatives and new technological interventions have expanded and participatory communication and Internet based media portals have challenge traditional media constructions. This phenomenon has especially been present 2011, a year full of social eruptions and protest. New practices through Internet seems to have advanced new opportunities of distribution, giving the radio production through Internet a key position in regards of the reinforcement of the debate around communication rights. However, this is not emerging without certain consequences for the access to information. Different access to the use of communication platforms and Internet many times depend on the cost of access, education level or other social, cultural, economic or even political factors
Comprehending social change in an era of austerity: Reflections from a communication perspective
Get PDFThis essay builds on, and furthers, some of the central discussions about the conceptual, theoretical and methodological challenges that have bedeviled the scholarly field concerned with the relationship between communication and changes in a society. Specifically, it is argued that the impacts of the current economic crisis and the resulting politics of austerity in Western Europe and the United States constitute significant ‘shocks’ that should shape future research about the role of communication in social change processes. In this regard, the essay ends by presenting four key issues which arguably constitute the major ‘austerity lessons’ that scholars interested in the relationship between communication and social change need to pay attention to