As is customary, IAMCR will host a special panel at the International Communication Association (ICA) annual conference. This year's panel will focus on the theme of IAMCR's own conference that begins in Dublin on 25 June, a short distance and a few days away.
“Crises, ‘Creative Destruction’ and the Global Power and Communication Orders”, the Dublin theme and the title of the panel, centres on whether and how the current economic crisis and its attendant gales of "creative destruction" may serve to reshape geo-political and communication orders.
Much of the 'Western' core of the international system is now experiencing the deepest economic and financial crisis since the 1930s, manifest in a sustained period of austerity and low economic growth. Amidst the 1930s crisis and depression context, Schumpeter invoked the image of the gales of "creative destruction" to refer to the multiple forms of struggles, innovations and restructuring involved in the search for sustainable solutions to such deep crises. Such historically-rare crises and depressions tend to prompt multi-dimensional change - social, organisational, political as well as techno-economic innovations. They are not only financial or economic in scope, as such deep crises also engender struggles over causes and solutions which link to differing political, social and economic interests as well as cultural and value systems. Furthermore, such deep crises in the global north also articulate with crises in the global south in complex ways (e.g. the former may provide opportunities for development in the south).
Moderator
Janet Wasko, President, IAMCR, University of Oregon, USA
How the Economic Crisis & ‘Creative Destruction’ Matter for Communication Studies
Paschal Preston, Dublin City University, Ireland
The presentation discusses the multiple uses of the term ‘crisis,’ and identifies the specificities of the current economic crisis. It explores the implications of this historical perspective on the current crisis and attendant ‘creative destruction’ for strategic analyses of the mediated communication sector. It examines how this perspective poses significant intellectual and political challenges for many taken-for-granted concepts, assumptions or significant silences in core areas of the communication studies field.
The Governance of Communicative Spaces in Crisis: Systemic Failure and the Limits of ‘Creative Destruction’
Katharine Sarikakis, Universität Wien, Austria
Media occupy a double role in crisis zones, charged with the role of watchdog while compromised by private interests. Their governance through a combination of law and practice is operationalised by the development of new policies, but also in subverting those. Citizens have been circumventing the media systematically, as part of institutions to which they are disconnected. Meanwhile, legal and financial reasoning has been used to control selected media and journalists. The presentation will question the limits of ‘creative destruction’ under these conditions.
New Media, Different Actors and Alternative Challenges: Egypt’s Dilemma between Social Movements, Religious Fascism and Socialist Anarchists
Ibrahim Saleh, University of Cape Town, South Africa
The 'Arab Spring' that has transformed the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is increasingly marked by an intense environment of crisis and hostility. In this volatile setting, new actors, voices and objectives have shaped the media narrative and political knowledge. The troubled region generated a new kind of activism that uses creative and innovative forms of media and politics. But many questions remain unresolved: who participates in the media? Who are the new activists? Or simply, who speaks and who listens in this media hostile debate?
The Economical Crisis Management and Political Communication: Sarkozy and Hollande, Two Opposite Ways of Government Communication Management?
Philippe J. Maarek, Université Paris Est, France
French President François Hollande seems to have taken a new route of government communication management. Nicolas Sarkozy had monopolized the public responses to the economical crisis. François Hollande has seemingly taken a different pattern, under the banner of a "normal" presidency, by opposition to his predecessor's flamboyant style. Do these differences correspond to a different reality, or is François Hollande just trying to differentiate himself from Nicolas Sarkozy, in the line of his winning campaign?
Eyes in the Future with Hands in the Past: Whe Emerging Movements Rediscover the Meaning of Public
Adilson Vaz Cabral Filho, Fluminense Federal University, Brazil
Media concentration, including the growth of internet and telecomm companies and ICTs available worldwide to more users, are part of government discsussions about economic and political crises and its relation to public service media. This presentation looks into contemporary social movements that are reshaping proposals for updating the meaning of public, based on direct democracy and the reinforcement of regulations in different areas of public interest, including media appropriation for the development of new practices.
IAMCR Panel: Crises, ‘Creative Destruction’ and the Global Power and Communication Orders
Thursday, 20 June, 11am-12:15pm
Hilton Metropole Board Room 1