Noise of the Past

Institution:Goldsmith University
Researchers: Sanjay Sharma (Brunel).
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council
Status of Project: From Sept 07 to Feb 09

www: http://www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/methods-lab/noise-past.php

Research:
The AHRC funded Noise of the Past project engages with the resident narratives of consecrated sites of war and memory. Working with the international, critically acclaimed musician Nitin Sawhney, the research project - in the form of an installation - is a creative response to exclusionary narrations of the nation, from the perspective of postcoloniality. Representing a disruptive noise to the performative enactment of the nation in stone, sound and ritual, it is now widely recognised that some stories and bodies have been drummed out of war and remembrance. This project seeks, through co-production, to explore how the noise of the past can be put into play in a series of interactions that make it possible to remember and converse beyond nationalistic and militaristic consensus. Methodologically activating a multicultural encounter, 'Noise of the Past' will publicly converse through multi-sensory modalities – of poetry, historical documents, music and visual art. This collaboration will unleash tension and incommensurability to produce new configurations of open-ended belongings to the nation.

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The Role of Peace Journalism in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

Institution:Thisday Newspaper, Nigeria
Researchers: Oma Djebah
Funder
Status of Project: ongoing

Research:
The research dealt mainly with the role the media should play play in promoting peace in war-torn regions of Africa. This was done after a careful analysis of media coverage of the 2004 conflicts in Nigeria's Niger Delta Region. The newspapers studied were THISDAY, VANGUARD, PUNCH and THEGUARDIAN

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Audiovisual Representation of War (1898-2003)

Institution:University Miguel Hernandez de Elche
Researchers: Jose A. Garcia Avilés (see below for additional researchers).
Funder: Spanish Ministry of Education
Status of Project: ongoing

Research:
The object of study is how War is portrayed to Spanish Audiences through different mass media. From the Spanish Civil War during 1936-39, to the Second World War in 1939-45 and the Iraq War in 2003. We focus on the analysis of iconic and audiovisual sources broadcasted in Spain, produced nationally and abroad. We attempt to identify the expressive, formal and symbolic techniques that build up the image of War in the various audiovisual media

Project Director: Julio Montero Díaz, Complutense University (Madrid)
Researchers: Maria Antonia Paz Rebollo, Complutense University, Madrid Santiago de Pablos, Basque Country University, Bilbao Jose Alberto García Avilés, University Miguel Hernández, Elche Javier Cervera Gil, University Francisco de Victoria, Madrid Araceli Rodríguez Mateos, University King Juan Carlos, Madrid Antonio Sánchez-Escalonilla, University King Juan Carlos, Madrid José Cabeza, University King Juan Carlos, Madrid Francisco Segado, Complutense University, Madrid Salvador Gómez García, Complutense University, Madrid José Carlos Rueda, Complutense University, Madrid Mar Chicharro, Complutense University, Madrid
Assistant Researchers: Carlota Coronado Ruiz, Complutense University, Madrid Fatima Gil Gascón, Complutense University, Madrid Maria Ulled, Complutense University, Madrid Javier Ortiz-Echagüe, Complutense University, Madrid Amaya Muruzábal, University of Navarra.

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Reporting war: mapping meaning and the potential for bias in the news

Institution:Centre for Language in Social Life Macquarie University
Researchers: Dr Annabelle Lukinh
FunderMacquarie University Research Fellow scheme
Status of Project: ongoing

Research:
This postdoctoral research project is investigating the notion of bias by combining content analysis and discourse analysis (in particular drawing on systemic functional linguistics). If bias is considered a tendency of some kind, my interest in this project is to investigate the range and scale of selections - contextual, semantic, grammatical, lexical - made in the process of producing news. One central aim of the project is to challenge the overly simplistic models of bias which dominate public and political discourse [as for instance in the case of the charge of bias made by Australia's then Communications Minister , Richard Alston, against the ABC regarding their reporting of the invasion of Iraq. In this process, I am seeking to bring out some of the more covert kinds of choices made when reporting war, including the war in which phases of intense violence are reported, and how certain kinds of linguistic options are involved in effectively 'mu ting' the experience of this violence for viewers and readers.

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