June 24, 2024 (1:30 PM - 2:45 PM)

Currumbin Boardoom (Star L2), Gold Coast, Australia

Deadline: April 1, 2024

Proposers:

Dr. Lindsay Palmer (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)

Dr Soomin Seo (Sogang University, South Korea)

Dr. Ruth Moon (Louisiana State University, USA)

Prof. Saba Bebawi (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia)

Dr. Saumava Mitra (Dublin City University, Ireland) [Acting as Chair]

About the workshop

When conducting journalism research in spaces where groups of humans are experiencing marginalisation, the academic researcher and human research subjects necessarily encounter each other on an unequal plane of power and privilege. While critiquing the power imbalances between Western journalists and their news subjects, or their non-Western colleagues working alongside them, journalism scholarship in this area remains largely silent about its own problematic position vis-à-vis the actors it studies in liminal spaces.

To address this silence, we are organising a Blue Sky Big Ideas workshop for attendees of ICA 2024 in Gold Coast, Australia. The workshop will facilitate a dialogue among a diverse group of researchers who have previously conducted fieldwork among journalists and journalism-adjacent workers in liminal spaces, particularly those in the Global South but also in other relevant marginalised contexts. It will also include those who might be planning such fieldwork. The participants will come together to reflect on their own practices as researchers, and engage with each other to find common ground across their various positionalities, identities and experiences. The aim of the workshop will be to outline the inequities and imbalances which scholars need to be aware of in their work.

How to join

The workshop will be open to 10 interested participants apart from the initial proposers. Please write to Saumava Mitra (saumava.mitra@dcu.ie) to express your interest by 01st April 2024 with a short rationale of 75 words outlining why you would like to participate. Scholars based in ICA-designated tier B or C countries and early career or student scholars planning fieldwork in marginalised research contexts will be prioritised as workshop attendees.