Apologies for any cross postings: *****CALL FOR PAPERS***** MEDIATING DEMOCRACY A one day conference for postgraduates and academics Department of Communication Studies Faculty of Art, Design and Communication RMIT Melbourne April 1 2000 This conference will reflect on the changing nature of democracy in contemporary culture. How do we need to reconsider the democratic configurations that are possible and desirable in a culture characterised by the inundation of mediated imaginings, the sound-bite, the heightening of simulation, and the prospect of virtual politics? What are the conditions of democracy, how are its traditional parameters changing, and is it under threat? POSSIBLE THEMES INCLUDE: Personal Politics and Public Spaces - New configurations of identities and subjectivities - Formations of communities and conditions for public debate - The democratic visioning of computer-networked communication - The body and technology: personal democracy or postmodern hallucination - Ethnicity and representation The Politics of Persuasion and Instant Culture - The rise of image and personality politics - Visions of democracy in arts and popular culture - The news media: vehicle or roadblock? - Issues of persuasion and truth - A democratic imaginary? Condensation, simulation and the hyperreal Send 150 word abstracts by December 20 1999 to: 'Mediating Democracy' Department of Communication Studies Faculty of Art, Design and Communication RMIT GPO Box 2476V For more information contact: Daniel Black e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Bookmark the conference website: http://mediating.democracy.rmit.edu.au --------------------------------------------------------------------------- hothouse: media arts discussion and action at the threshold of technology and the 21st Century MANIFESTO 2nd - 12th November 1999 Experimenta Media Arts www.experimenta.org
