TABLE OF CONTENTS

• NEWS
  • New Electronic Journal of the Global Communication Research Association
• PROGRAMS AND SCHOLARSHIP
  • January/February: International Focus:  Program Schedule
  • January 17-28:  E-Forum on Measuring the Impact of Development Communication
  • January 20:  IWA Workshop for Discussion Group Facilitators
  • January-March:  2005 "Great Decisions" Series
  • February 1:  Paper proposals due for 4th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences
  • February 1: Paper proposals due for "Media and Society in China Today" Conference
  • March 7 and June 1:  Deadlines for GSA Conference Submissions
  • March 17:  Submissions due for Making Our Media text
  • April 26:  Kennan Forum
  • June 16-17:  Incommunicado Work Conference (ICT4D)
  • July 26-28, 2005:  IAMCR Conference:  “Media Panics"
  • The Fund for American Studies:  Student Internship Program in DC
• GRANTS, FELLOWSHIPS, INTERNSHIPS & AWARDS
  • February 21:  Applications due for Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships
• EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
  • February 1:  Applications due for Student Services Coordinator Sought by CIE
• FEATURED WEB SITES
  • Worldview
  • Women in World History Curriculum
  • National Statistics Online
  • The State of the World's Children 2005
  • Iraq and China: Ceramics, Trade, and Innovation
  • United States Institute of Peace

New Electronic Journal of the Global Communication Research Association
The jGCRA is now accessible at http://gcra.uaeu.ac.ae/journal/index.htm.

jGCRA management will be discussing in the next few weeks the feasibility of publishing editions that accept articles in other languages. Under this plan, the jGCRA site will link in the future to Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Urdu and other languages.

For more information, please call 414-229-3220 or visit  http://www.iwa.uwm.edu.

• January 23 -- “Humanitarian Aid after the Tsunami”
  • Panel of Aid and South Asian Experts
• January 30 -- “World Affairs Roundup”
  • Panel of Local Foreign Policy Experts
• February 6 -- “The Dollar, The Euro and World Finance”
  • Panel of Local International Business Figures
• February 13  -- “World Affairs Roundup”
  • Panel of Local Foreign Policy Experts
• February 20 -- “US Intelligence Reform”
  • Ray McGovern, Former CIA Intelligence Analyst

This is one of the major themes that will be addressed at the World Congress on Communication for Development to be held in Rome, Autumn 2005. The input from the e-forum will feed into the design of the Congress.

The E-Forum will be organized around two main topics:  Quantitative Assessments of the Impact of Communication, and Qualitative Assessments of the Impact of Communication.

This e-Forum is intended to debate and, if possible, bring out evidence on the effectiveness of communication in development interventions. It aims to bring together the experiences, information and perspectives of development practitioners, decision-makers, academicians and communication specialists representing various national institutions, NGOs, international institutions and donors active in the field of development.

Moreover, the e-Forum intends to:

• stimulate the debate on how to assess the impact of communication in development initiatives;
• help to raise awareness of the need to focus efforts in demonstrating the value of communication, searching for methods and techniques that can provide valid measurements, both at the quantitative and qualitative level;
• compare and contrast the data so far available on this subject.

For more information about the e-Forum click here:   http://www.worldbank.org/developmentcommunications/where1/environment/e-forumjan05.htm

During the e-Forum we will ask participants to take a survey for the purpose of gathering information on the key factors influencing the impact of communication in development projects. The goal of the survey is to better understand current communication practices and constraints when measuring the impact of communication as well as demonstrating its value added. This survey also aims to provide insights on how to better monitor the impact of communication in development projects and ensure that adequate human and financial resources are allocated to this end.

Wisconsin Great Decisions 2005 Co-sponsors: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Midwest Airlines, The Foreign Policy Association, Wisconsin Public Radio, UWM Center for International Education, USBank, and Brady Corporation.

Great Decisions 2005 Cooperating Organizations:   UWM Student Union,Mead Public Library Racine Unified School District, J.I. Case High School, Waukesha County Technical College, Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee Public Television, UW College-Sheboygan, Fond du Lac Public Library, Marian College, UW College-Fond du Lac, Bemis International Center, and St. Norbert College.

For information, contact the Institute of World Affairs at 414-229-3220 or iwa@uwm.edu.

To register online:  http://www.iwa.uwm.edu

Sponsored by: East West Council for Education, the Asia-Pacific Research Institute of Peking University and the University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods

The 4th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences will be held from June 13 (Monday) to June 16 (Thursday), 2005 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii.  The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from social sciences related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines.

For more information:

Web address:  http://www.hicsocial.org
Email address: social@hicsocial.org

Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences P.O. Box 75023 Honolulu, HI 96836 USA
Telephone: (808) 946-9932
Fax: (808) 947-2420
E-mail:  social@hicsocial.org
Website:  http://www.hicsocial.org

The rapid transformation of Chinese society over the last two decades, and the increasing importance of the market in economic and social life, has had a major effect on the mass media. Increasingly, the old command model of media is being replaced by a market-driven media. On the other hand, the continuation of the CCP monopoly of legitimate political expression has meant that there is still strong political influence over some media, and political concern about many others.   These changes in the media have been accompanied by a flowering of scholarly research on the mass media, both from scholars in China itself and those working outside. This conference aims to provide a showcase for this richly diverse work and to encourage a conversation between scholars from different traditions. To that end, proposals are invited that address any subject within the broad theme of the conference. We would, however, particularly welcome work on the following questions:

• The regulation of Chinese media in a market environment
• The economics and management of Chinese media
• Politics and the media
• Journalism in China: history, forms and functions
• Chinese culture in an epoch of market-oriented media
• Audiences for the media
• The impact of new media, particularly the Internet
• Media exchanges between different Chinese societies

Spend part of your summer in Mexico.  >From July 27 to August 3, 2005, the Global Studies Association will co-sponsored with the Center for Global Justice a conference on “Women And Globalization” at San Miquel De Allende, Mexico. Registration will be $200.  The abstract deadline is June 1, 2005.

For complete details, please see the GSA web site:  http://Www.Net4dem.Org/Mayglobal

The book will consider several dimensions of the emerging transnational movement for a more just and democratic communications environment, including the development of alternative information and communication systems; new relationships between the alternative media sector, social movements and corporations or governments; and renewed efforts to democratize the public sphere.

"Studies published in the series consider advancements in democratic theory, and are grounded in empirical investigations of recent communicative innovations. Although the primary objective of Euricom Monographs is to contribute to intellectual understanding of transformations in the democratic process, some titles are designed to contribute to improved political practice, policy and action."

Hampton Press is an internationally oriented publisher specializing in the field of communications.  Hampton Press publishes in English, but we will also aggressively pursue the possibility of a Spanish language publication.
 

The book is divided into several sections for which we seek relevant chapters: Theoretical perspectives.  We are looking for submissions dealing with conceptualizations of citizen's media, prescriptions for a more democratic public sphere, and articulations between social movements theory and communications theory.  Submissions might also consider the relationship of information and communication technologies to civil society, community, and public commons. Policy issues.  We will explore political, legal or policy interventions regarding the democratization of media.  What tensions are manifest between civil society, corporate media and states at the policy level?  How do policy advocates, activists or allied social movements interact with the state and multilateral organizations, such as the World Trade Organization or the World Summit on the Information Society? Empirical studies.  We seek historical or contemporary case studies of citizen's media, though it is essential that such articles also have a scholarly or theoretical foundation.  Submissions might focus on Indymedia, community radio, citizen's media, or alternative community media development, practices, aims and goals, strategies, effects, participants or audiences.  We are also interested in the larger structural political and economic factors that affect these media. Methodological issues.  We seek studies that propose, design, develop or analyze methodological processes to evaluate citizen's media and other democratic uses of media, to study media and social movements, or to investigate grassroots initiatives around media policy. Future directions.  New ways that citizen's media are interacting with and affected by the political and technological landscape, including issues related to communication rights and the information society, intellectual property regimes and other global issues, peace and justice media, and the role of new media forms and functions.  We seek studies that report and analyze new directions for the movement for democratic communication.

Interested authors should submit a 500-700 word abstract or summary of their article, a list of relevant references you'll be drawing on for the article, a 100-150 word short biography and a list of any articles you have published on related topics.  If available, please send the complete article as well.

Abstracts should indicate the author's specific theoretical or scholarly approach; the method of analysis; the substantive topics, cases or issues examined; and the conclusions drawn.   Submissions may be made in English or Spanish.   Submissions can be made via email or in hard copy or on disk (3.5" floppy or CD ROM).  Disks should be labeled with the author's name, the title of the article, and the type of software used.  A cover page on your article should include your name, any affiliations or titles, your full contact information, and your article title.

Please send submissions by March 17, 2005 to:

Dorothy Kidd, Clemencia Rodriguez and Laura Stein

Department of Media Studies
University of San Francisco
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, California, 94117-1080
USA

Or E-mail them to Kiddd@usfca.edu

Date: April 26, 2005
Time:  4:00 – 6:00 p.m.
Location: Pabst Theater in downtown Milwaukee

Price: $10 general public, $5 IWA Basic and WPR members, complimentary admission for Premium members and above and students.

Ben Merens, Host at Wisconsin Public Radio, will be moderating this exciting debate at the Pabst Theater.  The program will be broadcast live on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Program in partnership with Ideas 90.7 Wisconsin Public Radio.  Support from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Midwest Airlines, Wisconsin United Nations Association, Wisconsin Governor’s Commission on the United Nations, and the Annette J. Roberts Fund for World Peace, World Law and Peace Education.

 For more information, please call 414-229-3220 or visit http://www.iwa.uwm.edu.

Incommunicado http://www.incommunicado.info is a two-day workshop that intends to approach the growing 'ICT for development' (ICT4D) sector and its conceptual and organizational idioms from a committed yet- critical 'insider' perspective.

The Incommunicado gathering wants to explore discourses, concepts and strategies. It offers neither an esoteric, self-referential 'critique fest' nor a mere exhibition of best-of-ICT4Dprojects. Instead, it aims to create a space to allow those active mainly in the field of ICT4D to come together with people from other areas of media activism and criticism.  To facilitate such encounter and exchange, the Incom event will not follow the standard academic conference format but organize an open workshop to encourage cooperative work and informal networking.

The call outlines five (overlapping) topic areas, and an editorial collective will ensure that current information on all topics as well as moderators and focused presentations are available. A pre-conference publication will bundle perspectives considered most relevant by participants and made available online. The conference location itself supports open exchange and networking and can accommodate self-organizing groups anywhere between 15 and 200 people.

Pre-conference cooperation via the conference wiki or the incommunicado mailing-list is encouraged.  With this conference the Waag-Sarai exchange platform also intends to intensify Euro-Asian dialogues.

The event is part of the activities of the Incommunicado network, a research list and weblog that focus on the reappropriation of ICT across the 'Global South'. The idea of being (held) incommunicado - to be in a liminal state vis-a-vis multiple regimes of information as well as human rights - serves as point of departure for analyses, critiques, and projects beyond the standard agenda of ICT-for-Development.

For more information:  http://www.incommunicado.info

For more information on this International Association of Media and Communication Research Conference, please see: http://iamcr2005.shu.edu.tw/basic_info.htm

Certain events, from time to time, shock the world: sometimes into action; sometimes into paralysis. Often, it seems, it is because of the way they are featured in the media. Generally, they are 'bad news' - disaster and conflict. Recall the Chicken Flu sacre in Asia, the SARS epidemic, various terrorist atrocities, the 911 attacks in the USA. Even Janet Jackson's exposure of herself. Twenty five years after observers of the 'active audience' challenged effects theory, the media and their messages seem to reassert their power. And some governments seek to strengthen their controls, whatever the cost to democracy.

Media panics have themselves became the focus of media attention, as well as of scholarly interest. The 2005 IAMCR conference will focus on the topic "Media Panics: Freedom, Control and Democracy in the Age of Globalisation."

At least two theoretical perspectives apply. One is that exaggerated media reports of disasters and violence are either things to be corrected and controlled or as reflective of the culture of our time. Any attempt to curb them is an infringement on our freedom. The other involves the age-old debates that pit social and psychological effects of media against their mass market orientations. How and why have media panics come to be the major concerns of our societies? How do people in different worlds and circumstances respond to this communication phenomenon?

The use of new technology in communication, the process of news production, the content of media coverage from opposing perspectives, and the influence of these events on different audiences and national are some examples. Furthermore, regulation/deregulation of the global media, empowerment of audience in the development of media literacy, as well as meanings of the global and local interactions in this "panic" context are all critical issues to be examined.

Four programs are offered in the summer and Capital Semester is held in the fall and spring.  Programs are offered in the following subject areas:

• Politics and Economics
• Journalism
• Business and Government Affairs
• Nonprofit and Community Service

• Internships – Competitive placements with top sites in DC
• Classes – Transferable credits from Georgetown University
• Housing – Furnished on-campus apartments in the heart of DC
• Scholarships – Over half of all students receive full or partial funding
• Networking – Numerous opportunities for professional growth
• Leadership Development - Leadership and career building activities
• Site Briefings— Hear from national leaders at Washington’s places of power, such as The White House, State Department, House of Representatives, and the Federal Reserve.

Professors and academic advisors have proven to be our most valuable resource in recruiting quality applicants.  We invite you to utilize our new online nomination form, where you can choose up to four students to receive priority acceptance and scholarship consideration (https://inq.applyyourself.com/?id=tfas&pid=1054).

If you have any questions, please contact us at admissions@tfas.org or (202) 986-0384.

Information can be found on the CLACS website: http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CLACS/student/scholarship.html.

Applications must be postmarked by February 1, 2005.  For more information about job duties, qualifications and how to apply, please see our website:  http://www.international.uwm.edu .

UWM is an AA/EO employer.

Worldview
    http://www.worldviewcities.org/
With generous support from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Architectural League of New York has created this Web-based project with the purpose of offering a range of well-organized materials and information on what is new and interesting in urbanism and architecture from different cities around the world. Currently the site offers perspectives on two "world cities": Caracas, Venezuela and Dhaka, Bangladesh. For each city, visitors can peruse an interview with a leading urban planner or architect who is intimately familiar with each conurbation, comb through a historical map that allows visitors to see the growth of each place, and make their way along a timeline of events. For those concerned with policy issues, the "Critical Issues" will be an important destination, along with the featured interviews with architects such as Jalal Ahmad and Francisco Bielsa.

Women in World History Curriculum
    http://www.womeninworldhistory.com/
Under the able direction of educator Lyn Reese, the Women in World History Curriculum project has been developing materials that introduce women's history into the secondary level classroom for more than two decades. Teachers and parents will enjoy perusing the online materials here, which include reviews of various curricula, reviews of women's history books that may be useful in the classroom, and of course, some historical background essays on topics such as women and the Crusades and historical perspectives on Islamic dress. The site also contains 13 activities that educators may use in their classrooms. The topics covered by these activities include the role of women in the early Industrial Revolution period in England and the fight for global suffrage. Additionally, some of the educational materials featured here are available for purchase.

National Statistics Online
    http://www.statistics.gov.uk/
Perhaps you have a burning desire to find detailed statistical information about agriculture in Wales, or even about poverty in London's East End. All of this information can be found on the very thorough and usable National Statistics homepage, which provides information on Britain's economy, population, and society. Given the amount of information on the site, visitors would do well to look through the UK at a Glance area. Here they will find basic information on the gross domestic product, consumer spending, unemployment, and population estimates. Along with these aggregate figures for the entire nation, visitors can visit the neighborhood statistics section, where they can retrieve summary statistics for different locales around England and Wales. A number of fine reports based on the 2001 Census are also available for the general public's consideration, and they include considerations of the state of children's dental health to the provisioning of programs for the elderly.

The State of the World's Children 2005
    http://www.unicef.org/sowc05/english/index.html
December 2004 saw the release of The State of the World's Children 2005 report from the international organization UNICEF, and it contained some rather troubling findings. Based on the material in this report, more than one billion children are denied the healthy and protected upbringing promised by 1989's Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is the world's most widely adopted human rights treaty. The report examines three of the most widespread and devastating factors threatening childhood today, namely HIV/AIDS, poverty, and conflict. Visitors to the site are encouraged to download the entire report, which contains five chapters, four maps, and 10 statistical tables. Those pressed for time may also want to browse through the supplementary section on each of the three factors mentioned above. Here they will find short video clips of interviews with UNICEF program officers and interactive features on such topics as measuring child poverty. It is worth mentioning that the report is also available in both Spanish and French.

Iraq and China: Ceramics, Trade, and Innovation
    http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/iraqChina/defaultIC.htm
The Smithsonian Institution presents this online exhibition, tracing the dramatic changes in the character of Iraqi ceramics during the 9th century, caused at least in part by the influence of imported luxury Chinese goods, carried by Arab and Persian merchants over an ocean route from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea. The luminous white and blue glazes of imported Chinese porcelain were much admired in Iraq. Although Iraqi ceramic artists did not have equal raw materials or firing technology to their Chinese counterparts, they cleverly created their own versions using yellow clay, and glazes that turned opaque after firing, creating ceramics that were described as "pearl cups like the moon." The online exhibition is small, showcasing about a dozen examples of Iraqi blue & white and luster pottery from the period, along with several Chinese pieces for comparison. The Smithsonian exhibit designers have also used their tools cleverly, so visitors can watch as decorative details of the ceramics fill in as if by magic before their eyes.

United States Institute of Peace
    http://www.usip.org/
While it took close to 200 years, an official U.S. peace office was finally created in 1984 when President Ronald Reagan signed the United States Institute of Peace Act. The official mandate of the United States Institute of Peace is "to support the development, transmission, and use of knowledge to promote peace and curb violent international conflict." From the homepage, visitors can learn about the Institute's public outreach programs, such as the National Peace Essay Contest, the Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellowships, and the in-house magazine, PeaceWatch, which is published five times a year. A particularly helpful resource for persons interested in peace and conflict research is the Jeannette Rankin Library homepage, which is also available here. Visitors can learn about online collections that include a number of helpful annotated weblinks for such timely topics as Iraq, terrorism, and U.S. human rights policy.