Last chance to register: Language in the Media workshops, Friday 27 September 2013, London

[Philippa Law]

* apologies for cross-posting *

REGISTER NOW FOR LANGUAGE IN THE MEDIA WORKSHOPS, FRIDAY 27 SEPTEMBER 2013, LONDON

* 10am-3.30pm -- WORKSHOP 1: Making Media in Your Language

* 3.30-5pm -- WORKSHOP 2: News Values and News Discourse

* 5-6pm -- WORKSHOP 3: Understanding Specialty Journalism/Social Media

Workshop 1 -- Making Media in Your Language ~~ Convenor: Philippa Law (The Guardian and QMUL)

The aim of this workshop is to bring together producers, presenters, journalists and academics who work in different languages and across different media platforms (radio, TV, print and web) to discuss experiences of multilingual media production. Although the issues can be very similar, there is currently little dialogue between the indigenous (e.g. Welsh, BSL) and non-indigenous (e.g. Gujarati, French) media in the UK. Participants are encouraged to come with examples of problems or successes to discuss. Speakers include Beth Angell, TV producer, Rondo Media; Pascal Grierson, CEO, French Radio London. Workshop organizer Philippa Law, whose PhD research investigates audience participation in minority-language media, brings her professional expertise as a media producer, currently as community coordinator for The Guardian.

Workshop 2 -- News Values and News Discourse ~~ Convenors: Colleen Cotter (QMUL), Monika Bednarek (The University of Sydney), Helen Caple (University of New South Wales)

With their backgrounds in news and academia (in the US, Australia, and the UK), Cotter, Bednarek and Caple bring complementary practioner/linguist perspectives to a discussion of news values -- the qualities that make a news item "newsworthy". From a practitioner perspective, we discuss what motivates the selection of news or the angle of a story? How does local culture and context come into play? What linguistic tools can aid our understanding? From a linguistic perspective, we explore how news values are constructed through and embedded in language and images. We ask participants to bring copies of local, regional, and/or national papers from where they live -- or from
the airport or train station they're traveling from -- for workshopping and discussion.

Workshop 3 -- Understanding Specialty Journalism/Social Media ~~ Convenors: from London print and online news organizations

This practioner-focused workshop involves journalists (from The Times and from an online business journal) talking about their workplace routines,  reporting and production goals, professional justifications, and the changes to story form and journalistic practice that technology and new media bring to bear. The focus on practice in newer domains (online) ties in with larger questions -- linguistic and historical -- about changes in journalism, coverage norms, news discourse, visual /multi-modal communication, ethics, and public responsibility. Participants are invited to raise these questions and others in conversation with the journalists.

Register now: http://eshop.qmul.ac.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=2&catid=1&prodid=390

Workshop 1: £20
Workshops 2 and 3: £20

Locations: Workshops 2 & 3 are at the same place (137A Grays Inn Rd [upstairs], London WC1X 8TU), a two-minute walk away from Workshop 1 (London Welsh Centre, 157-163 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8UE). It is possible to attend all three workshops; we will allow sufficient time for the short walk between the two locales. Please note: There is no step-free access.

These workshops are part of the 5th International Language in the Media Conference, organised by Queen Mary, University of London. For details of the academic conference, see: http://linguistics.sllf.qmul.ac.uk/langmedia2013

For more information, please contact lim5 at qmul.ac.uk