Category / Communities, Cultures and Conflicts

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS Two-day workshop: Politics in a post-truth era

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS

Two-day workshop: Politics in a post-truth era

10th – 11th July 2017, Bournemouth University

The concept of post-truth, where facts are deemed less important than beliefs, is one that has recently been frequently invoked when making sense of the modern political campaigning environment. The suggestion is that political campaigns exploit and reinforce strongly held beliefs, encouraging the disavowal of contrasting facts, in order to undermine support for the arguments of opponents.

Post-truth has become most associated with campaigns that invoke more populist arguments. Such arguments give voice to privately held beliefs, often hidden by norms of societies which reinforce pejorative stereotypes based on religious and racial differences, gendering of roles and discussing myths of us (as a nation and people) and the others whose differences mark them as not us. Hence there are far-reaching implications of such practices for democratic societies.

The workshop will explore the underlying themes and implications of this phenomenon.

KEY QUESTIONS

1) Is post truth really new, or simply a synonym for the exaggerations and spin long associated with the techniques of political campaigns? Or have political campaigns been proven to lie more?

2) What does a post-truth campaign look like, how is the communication constructed to tap into belief systems and feed the dynamics of a post-truth (belief-based) political environment?

3) Why might beliefs have more power in influencing voting behaviour than more fact, logic or reason based arguments?

4) How does post-truth link to the models of a marketised and professionalised campaign environment?

5) What does post-truth tell us about the current and future state of democratic engagement and of democracy itself?

CONTRIBUTIONS

Contributions need not be full papers, rather informed arguments that promote discussion – although they should have the potential to be full or part papers. The workshop seeks to tease out what post-truth means, how this is encouraged during political campaigns, its root causes, impacts on election outcomes and, importantly, what are the implications for democracy.

PUBLICATION

The longer-term aim is to develop an edited collection of work that would include solo-authored or joint publications from participants that address these questions. The volume will be published in the Palgrave series Political Campaigning and Communication.

DATES

The event will be held on July 10th and 11th with a workshop dinner on the evening of the 10th. There will be no attendance costs – the venue, refreshments and evening meal will be covered jointly by funding from the Centre for Politics and Media Research and the PSA Political Marketing Group.  Participants should expect to cover travel and accommodation. The venue will be the Bournemouth University’s Executive Business Centre close to Bournemouth train station.

ABSTRACTS

Interested participants should propose their participation by offering a short 200-300 word abstract that summarises the main points of the argument, case studies and evidence drawn upon and the broader socio-political implications into which their argument offers insights. The deadline for abstracts is 1600hrs GMT on Friday 6th April 2017. Please email them to dlilleker@bournemouth.ac.uk

British Academy Visit – reserve your place now!

british_academy_logoThe British Academy is returning to BU on 8 March 2017.  This is an invaluable opportunity to find out more about the international and domestic funding available through the organisation.  For those of you who are not familiar with the British Academy, it is the UK’s leading independent body for the humanities and social sciences, promoting funding, knowledge exchange and providing independent advice within the humanities. 

The session will last just over  1 hour (13:00-14:15) and will comprise a presentation focusing on international and domestic funding opportunities along with an overview of the British Academy, followed by a Q&A session.

Representatives of the British Academy will be available to answer any individual queries not covered in the presentation or Q&A session, and members of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office will be on hand should you wish to discuss BU’s processes for bidding to the organisation.

Places for this event can be reserved through Organisational Development here.

 

Wanted! External Bid Writers

rkeo-dev-logo-banner

 

As part of the Research and Knowledge Exchange Development Framework, Bournemouth University is expanding its pool of external bid writing expertise, through a tendering process.

If you have worked with a good bid writer or, as an external subscriber to this blog, you have written successful research funding applications, please contactus in the Research & Knowledge Exchange Office

We are particularly interested in those who can provide short courses, one-to-one support, bid writing retreats, application review or a range of these and related activities.

Examples of key funders include:

  • British Academy
  • European Commission funds including Horizon 2020
  • Innovate UK
  • Leverhulme Trust
  • National Institutes of Health and other US Federal funders
  • Research Councils
  • Royal Society
  • Wellcome Trust
  • etc.

We look forward to hearing from you.