CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

“Media ecology is shaped by a globally interconnected world, transcending spatial and temporal communication trends. Old media (traditionally, radio, television and print) has been complemented by innovative and speedier forms of messaging in a heightened digitised world. New media (namely computers and the internet) relies on distribution, delivery and consumption of messages to support engagement with a much larger audience shaped by the global flows of information access.

New media triggered a communication revolution to (re) shape societies (the social, human, political, economic context) and moved us further beyond Manuel Castell’s pioneering idea of the networked society. New media, as John Hendricks suggests, is connected to a changing and evolving relationship with media industries.

A critical issue is how new media activates and facilitates intellectual rethinking of society in a disruptive, discordant, ambiguous, discursive and transforming context. Beyond the ‘wicked problems’ of socio-economic challenges (and the current COVID-19 conundrum), what ideas accrue for rethinking the utility of new media in contemporary times?

This lecture presents insights based on my research, teaching and policy advocacy to motivate an argument that the disrupted times we live in require the creation of new media as a site for expressions and representations of an agenda for reimagining a new society.

I suggest that new media should seek to become an open, democratic, pluralistic and diverse public sphere that enables access and voice to the majority of citizens as a practical realisation of media freedom that advances the human right to freedom of expression.”