The Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester will be hosting a workshop on "Climate Change Communication and the Internet: Challenges and Opportunities for Research" on Thursday 12 April, 2013.
The new communicative landscape shaped by Internet and mobile technologies has had profound implications for communication research on climate change and environment. It has opened up new areas for studying public engagement with science, as the audiences are becoming active co-producers of media content. The emergence of tools that enable searching, aggregating, and analyzing on line data has also brought new challenges: multiple web-based channels and platforms often make it difficult to assess how and by whom the online content is accessed, used, and co-produced.
This event, organized by the Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MECCSA) Climate Change Network, will gather scholars in the fields of media studies, science communication, information science and computer-mediated communication to focus in particular on the following topics related to Internet-based communication on climate change:
- Environmental activism on line
- Methodological approaches for studying user-generated content on climate change and environment
- Citizen journalism and climate change
- Social media discourses and framing of scientific uncertainty, risk, and expertise
- The role of Internet use in public engagement with climate change
The workshop will feature keynote talks, a panel discussion, as well as paper presentations for participants to share their own frameworks, methods and research experiences. Participant fee is £20 for staff, £12 for post-graduate students (including buffet lunch and refreshments).
Abstracts of maximum 300 words should be submitted as Word document no later than 15 January 2013. The contact person for expressions of interest and abstract submission is Dr Nelya Koteyko (nk158@leicester.ac.uk)
More information available at the MECCSA Climate Change Network page.