UQ seminar discusses media convergence

The rapid drift toward media convergence, and the growth of cable and Internet news and entertainment will be discussed at a UQ public seminar next week.

Professor Carmen Luke will present a seminar for UQ`s Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies entitled: As seen on TV or was that my phone? New media literacy on Thursday 15th September 2005 at 2pm.

Professor Luke will examine changing consumer preferences in media usage.

She will argue in this presentation that a critical media literacy relevant to today’s school-aged users of new media and ICTs can no longer afford to fixate on broadcast media or narrow "media text" deconstruction.

She says it must engage with the cultural politics of representation in ways that move beyond a view of "politics" as equivalent to analysis of textual or image stereotyping, exclusions, reading paths or positions, and media bias.

“Rather, what is required is a critical social and cultural literacy—a cultural analysis of the politics of new times,” she said.

Professor Luke will discuss recent world events (such as 9/11 in New York; Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; and the Boxing Day Asian tsunami).

She will use them to illustrate media and political issues that provide a rich multimedia, multimodal text-image base to engage students in political analysis of, and dialogue about media globalization, the rapid metamorphoses of new media and the staying power and hybridization of old media, and new world orders.

Carmen Luke is Professor of Education and a Professorial Research Fellow in the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at UQ. She is a leading international scholar in the field of media literacy and new media, feminist studies, globalization and higher education. Her work on multiliteracies and media literacy is used by educators in Australia, the UK and US.

The seminar will be held in the Social Sciences and Humanities Library Conference Room, Duhig Building, Building No. 2, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus.

Members of the university community and the general public are invited to attend this free seminar with refreshments to follow.

For further information, please contact Ms Rebecca Ralph, Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies, telephone (07) 3346 9764 ; Fax (07) 3365 7184; Email: admin.cccs@uq.edu.au