The digital age transformed the traditional forms of violence but also caused new ones. The hopes to overcome the negative sides of the human community in the age of Internet and social networks have come true only to a certain degree. New 'weaker' and more democratic communication modes reproduce the system of control and overall oppressing structure of victimization, but in an even more inclusive sense.
The legitimacy of "Europe" and "the West" as identifiable territorial and imagined entities is in crisis. The awareness has grown of a world becoming more polycentric. At the same time, the field of Discourse Studies is growing at a dazzling rate across the globe. Discourse Studies is known for theoretical orientations and methodological tools that account for meaning production as a social practice mobilizing languages, media and technologies.
Discourse Studies cover a growing field of interdisciplinary research on meaning making practices, communicative activities and symbolic representations. Cultural studies, linguistics, media analysis, geography, and history, among others, highlight the role of texts, pictures and language in the constitution of truth and reality. Actor-oriented disciplines such as political science, sociology, pedagogy or economics and management studies are interested in the formation of subjectivities,
Discourse can be addressed as a vehicle for power, a positioning practice which enlightens the role and the relationship among the speakers. Power is a way of defying and measure relationships and interactions between individuals. These relations and interactions lead one part to affirm its will against another part, no matter on what bases this will is grounded (Weber, 1974).
In photography, the lens of a camera can be tilted and shifted to create new perspectives. Using discourse analysis as a lens enables us to gain new perspectives on the social world and generate new insights into influences and changes in a range of social phenomena. Discourse analysis encompasses a diverse range of analytical techniques and draws on a variety of theoretical and epistemological perspectives. Through an examination of talk, text and associated social practices, issues of identity, agency, structure, representation, power and practice can be addressed.
ADVANCING CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES FOR HEALTH AND HEALTH CARE
The 7th Biennial Conference of the International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP) will be held at the University of Adelaide on Monday 18th - Wednesday 20th April, 2011.
A series of workshops for postgraduate students and emerging researchers will be held on Sunday 17th April, 2011.
We are delighted to include Professor Raewyn Connell and Associate Professor Pat Dudgeon as keynote speakers. More keynote speakers will be announced soon!
About the conference
[With apologies for cross-posting]
Abstract Submission Deadline: October 31, 2011
IGALA 7 (7th International Gender and Language Association Conference)
invites submissions for oral presentations, posters, organized round tables
(aka panels), and workshops on all scientific approaches and disciplines to
analyzing and interpreting the relationships among language, gender and
sexuality.
The special theme of this edition is:
Narrative pragmatics: Culture, cognition, context.
But as always, the conference is open to ALL OTHER PRAGMATICS-RELATED TOPICS as well (where pragmatics is conceived broadly as a cognitive, social, and cultural perspective on language and communication).
Keynote speakers:
- Nicholas Johnson, former FCC Commissioner and Visiting Faculty, University of Iowa College of Law
- Des Freedman, Reader in Communications and Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths University of London
The Carsey-Wolf Center’s Media Industries Project [MIP] announces a call for participants in the Dirty, Sexy Policy Conference at UC Santa Barbara.
The goal of the joint conference is to promote both theoretical and
applied research in pragmatics, and bring together scholars who are
interested in different subfields of pragmatics (philosophical,
linguistic, cognitive, social, intercultural, interlanguage, etc.).
Three main topics of the conference are as follows: