International Broadcasting, Public Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange

An international conference to evaluate 75 years of the BBC World Service

Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London W.1

18-19 December 2007

This conference brings together academics, broadcasters, translators and policy makers to debate the past legacy and future direction of international broadcasting. Through the prism of the BBC World Service and similar international broadcasters we address questions of objectivity/impartiality, freedom of expression, public and cultural diplomacy, national interest and cosmopolitan identities, cultural exchange and translation, transnational and diasporic media practices, publics and politics.

We invite contributions from both historical and contemporary perspectives that address the following questions:

· To what extent do international broadcasters like the BBC World Service function as agents of public diplomacy, acting in the interests of their sponsoring governments, or are they better conceived as relatively autonomous inter-cultural brokers?

· How do they mediate conflicts and debates over cultural, ethnic, religious and political identities and, with what consequences?

· In what ways might they connect transnational and diasporic groups, mobilise identities and mediate issues of migration, mobility and displacement?

· How do choices of language and translation in broadcasts affect the meanings of texts, and how are texts translated and transformed by audiences in the process of interpretation?

Among the confirmed contributors are: Nigel Chapman, Behrouz Afagh, Hosam el Sokkari, Gwyneth Williams, Jerry Timmins, Paddy Scannell, Jean Seaton, Philip Seib, Zinovy Zinik

Deadline for abstracts: Friday 5^th November 2007

Please send to m.gillespie@open.ac.uk and a.sreberny@soas.ac.uk

The conference is based on a collaborative research project funded by The Arts and Humanities Research Council Diasporas, Migration and Identities Research Programme. For details of research and researcher collaborators please see http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/diasporas/

We will be presenting ‘work in progress’ papers from the above project.

The conference is supported by the Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change www.cresc.ac.uk , The Open University and the Centre for Media and Film Studies, SOAS