HCPB MEMBERS BLOG
The curious case of the Russian ‘propaganda bullhorn’
By Ilya Yablokov The idea to write a book on RT (Russia Today as the channel was called before 2010) came in 2013 when the channel was growing as an international broadcaster interested in fringe opinions and alternative facts. This was before the catch phrase ‘fake news’ was added to the daily vocabulary of both average news consumers and academics. A decade ago, RT pioneered the usage of controversial opinions (packaged as the manifestation of the freedom of speech), alternative facts,...
Event! 8 November @ 9.30am UK time: Peacebuilding and the audio-visual media with our HCPB Hub members Dr Valentina Bau and Eugenie Mikail
We are delighted to invite you to our HCPB Hub event on the audio-visual media in peacebuilding. We will have two exciting presentations: one by Dr Valentina Bau, Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales, on 'Researching Reality TV and Civic Engagement. What's happened to the Young Palestinians who ran for "The President"’? Our second presentation is by Lebanese peace activist Eugenie Mikail on '“The People’s Parliament” - A Reformist Communicative Media Proposal Towards a...
Attending to the Great American Divide
Attending to the Great American Divide By Stacey Connaughton Professor, The Brian Lamb School of Communication; Director of the Purdue Policy Research Institute and the Purdue Peace Project, Purdue University, USA About this time five years ago, our colleague Jessica Berns and I wrote an article published in The Diplomatic Courier reflecting on what we termed “the great American divide.” We expressed profound sadness and frustration at the growing violence the United States had witnessed at...
Young People Choreographing the Steps Toward a Peaceful, Sustainable Future
Young People Choreographing the Steps Toward a Peaceful, Sustainable Future by Erica Rose Jeffrey and Lesley Pruitt Today’s generation of young people are and will be disproportionally impacted by climate change and conflicts that may result from rising sea levels, reduced access to water, and conflict related migration. Likewise, around the world young people are leading and participating in activism in support of peace and climate action. This includes both explicit political movements...
Imagining a different reality: Filmmaking and Research
Imagining a different reality: Filmmaking and Research
by Nicky Armstrong and Dr Evelyn Pauls
Scholars of the “aesthetic turn” in International Relations have broadened the scope of not only how to study international politics but also what to study (art forms, such as literature or film; aesthetic practices of states, such as military parades or national holidays; and visual material, such as photographs from Abu Ghraib). Bleiker and others have shown how “aesthetic sensibilities can help us rethink some of the most serious problems in global politics” and to find new ways of thinking, seeing, hearing, and sensing the political.
Drawing on the research project “I Have to Speak”, that used participatory documentary filmmaking to explore the long-term reintegration of female ex-combatants as both a method and a dissemination tool, we can look at filmmaking, its potential, and its challenges from three different perspectives: (1) Film as data; (2) film as method and (3) film as output.