Call for Papers for proposed edited collection.

 

Title

 
Media, Policy and Interaction.

 

William Housley and Richard Fitzgerald. (eds)

 

 

Increasingly, the media represents and is represented as a site not only for
reporting news but also breaking government initiatives and policy to the
wider voting public. Furthermore, the media is seen to be a symbol of
'accountability' where forms of democratic checks and balances are performed
and the public voice presented through mediated public access formats.
Recent media debates concerning policy associated with BSE, foot and mouth,
devolution, military action, health, education, terrorism and so forth have
been articulated within the ever-expanding space of influence that is
occupied by media institutions, programmes and practices. An understanding
of the fine grained accomplishment of these activities through an
examination of the language and discourse employed within various media
formats provides avenues and insights into the 'practical deconstruction' of
the media in terms of practical action, but also inform future avenues of
applied language research

 

The proposed collection will focus on the interactional machinery of policy
debate within media settings. Situated within the field of discourse
oriented approaches to media and government the collection intends to
explore the interface between government, media and the public highlighting
the increasing importance placed on media channelled 'public opinion' as
part of a democratic process. Broadly arguing that the media is increasingly
finding itself taking on the role of gathering public opinion on policy
matters the theme is the actual sites of interaction examining in detail the
language and discourse deployed by various parties in the process of debate
and in relation to various social collectivities (i.e. culture, the public,
the voters and wider society). The collection is aiming to include a variety
of discourse analytic methods including CA/MCA, Discourse Analysis and
interactionism to provide a series of discussions around the social
organisation of policy debate in media sites such as: news interviews,
public access broadcasts, broadcast debates, panel discussions, newspapers,
news broadcasts, blogs, official and unofficial news sites etc.
Consequently, the collection will serve to illustrate and demonstrate how
these settings are used to organise and present activities associated with
the dissemination of information, public scrutiny and accountability within
democratic social forms. 

 

We are in contact with possible publishers, and at this stage invite
expressions of interest in the form of a 500 word abstract with key words
and references.

 

Deadline for Expressions of interest and abstracts. June 1,  2006

 

Please send correspondence and abstracts in the first instance to Richard
Fitzgerald at

 

 <mailto:r.fitzgerald@uq.edu.au> r.fitzgerald@uq.edu.au

 

Dr Richard Fitzgerald
Lecturer in Language and Communication
School of English, Media Studies and Art History
University of Queensland
Brisbane

  

 

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