Today Tim Markham and I have comprehensively updated the website for the ICA preconference we are co-organizing, titled Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Approaches to Media, Technology and Communication. Amongst the new information added is: * A provisional conference programme, including abstracts * Biographical details of all presenters and keynote speakers * Complete instructions on how … Continue Reading
Good blog post on my BISR seminar
The great interns at BISR have written an excellent post on my seminar on ‘the networked academic’ which I think captures the event really well, in terms of content as well as the audience’s contributions (which I regret not allowing more time for at the end). One small correction – where I was referring to … Continue Reading
BISR seminar on ‘The networked academic’
This Thursday 2nd May from 12.30-2.00pm I will be giving a seminar for the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research (BISR) on ‘The networked academic: social media and your research identity’. It is part of BISR’s ‘Developing Your Research Career’ seminar series, and will comprise both a (partial) survey of various social media platforms currently being … Continue Reading
(Yet) another media city conference: Mediating Cityscapes
With forthcoming conferences in Leeds (Communication and the City) and Helsinki (The Spectacular/Contested/Ordinary Media City), not to mention the special Media and Urban Life (PDF) track in which I recently presented at the Urban Affairs Association conference, it’s been a very busy year for all things media and cities. Now, we can add yet another … Continue Reading
Social media as academic environments: how we think, do and say
When I first inaugurated this blog, way, way back in the salad days of early 2010, I had a fair range of ideas about why I was doing it. Partly, I thought, it would be a platform on which I could work through ideas, and perhaps tease out conceptual and theoretical questions that I was … Continue Reading
New article published: The journalistic field and the city
I’ve just learned that, surprisingly rapidly, my article ‘The journalistic field and the city: some practical and organizational tales about the Toronto Star’s New Deal for Cities’ has been published in the urban sociology journal City and Community. When I say rapidly, I mean from the point of acceptance. Otherwise, it has been a long … Continue Reading
The ouster of Blockbuster (or, formats dying a slow death)
I’ve been meaning to get this photo off of my camera and post it for a while. At least a year ago, I took a photo of this same Blockbuster outlet (in Crouch End, North London) and the sign read ‘OC BUSTER’. It may or may not be surprising that they’ve simply let their presence … Continue Reading
Doreen Massey interview with Nigel Warburton
A number of peeps have already shared this: spatial theorist Doreen Massey speaks with Nigel Warburton, of Philosophy Bites fame, on spatial theory and why it matters (of course). It’s part of Social Science Bites, a new-ish series made in association with Sage. Two other interviews caught my attention: one with Toby Miller on what … Continue Reading
Stuart Hall film: The Unfinished Conversation
I must have been completely sleeping on this, but a film has been made about Stuart Hall, the Jamaican-born British media and cultural theorist, a key figure in the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies, and later, a Professor of Sociology at The Open University (I remember fondly, from my short time there, working in a … Continue Reading
Alison Young seminar this week: Street art and the contemporary city
This week, as part of its Distinguished Visiting Speaker Seminar series, the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research will be hosting Professor Alison Young from the University of Melbourne, who will be speaking on ‘Street Art and the Contemporary City’. In the past I have assigned at least one of Young’s papers in my class The … Continue Reading