International Broadcasting, Public Diplomacy and
Cultural Exchange

18-19 December 2007
Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London W.1

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

This conference brings together academics, broadcasters 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?

Deadline for abstracts: Friday 5th November 2007

Please send to m.gillespie_at_open.ac.uk and a.sreberny_at_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 and The Open University.

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Received on Sun Sep 23 2007 - 16:14:37 EDT