Academia

Talk on News Media, New Media and Elections

21/10/2009 By christina Leave a Comment

The US Embassy in collaboration with the Communication Studies Unit of FSSH is organisinf a talk on the above theme by Ellen Hume, US Media expert, on Thursday, October 22, 2009 from 12 30-14 00 hours at the University of Mauritius.

The talk will the held in the old Engineering Building in Lecture Theatre 1 (to access, take the lift in the New Engineering Tower to the second floor, then take the long corridor on the left. LT1 is on the right at the end of the corridor).

Read the rest on the UoM-Communication Studies blog.

Diksioner Morisien d’Arnaud Carporan

09/10/2009 By christina 1 Comment

Ene ti mesaz Arnaud Carporan ki mo ena plezir difizer isi:

Invitasion nasional pou enn partisipasion dan
deziem edision premie diksioner kreol monoleng

Koleksion Text Kreol pe anons bann Morisien ki stok premie edision Diksioner Morisien finn epwize. Nou remersie tou dimounn (etidian, partikilie, lapres, institision, etc.) ki finn permet sa premie lavantir-la vinn enn sikse lor plan nasional, rezional ek internasional.

Nou finn deza rant dan faz preparasion deziem edision. Nou pe lans enn lapel nasional pou ki sak Morisien ki anvi kontribie ladan kapav fer li. Zot kontribision kapav dan form :

1. Koreksion lor bann definision ki ena dan premie edision;
2. Propozision lor bann mo ki manke dan premie edision.

Dat limit pou kontribision : 31 oktob 2009

Kontribision kapav fer direkteman lor

ouswa par SMS lor enn sa bann nimero-la :
7954652; 7597095; 7522908.

Pou plis detay, pa ezite kontakte nou.

Mersi.

Dr Arnaud Carpooran
Responsab proze
koleksion

Back to life

08/09/2008 By christina 2 Comments

Photo courtesy of Avinash

This blog has been dormant since May (yes, more than 4 months). So, it’s about time I brought it back to life. What happened? Well, the usual. Got busy doing many things, inter alia,
– playing a very tiny role in Wassim Sookia’s last film Rouzblézonnver, which won lots of first prizes in the MFDC festival
– acting as member of Mauritian assessment panel for the African Media Barometer of the Friedrich Ebert Stieftung Foundation
– being part of several committees for media campaigns at national level
– organising talks and being invited to several others
– getting busy for the UOM Research Week where we had the opportunity to test our cameras for micro-interviews with some volunteer students acting as journalists
– and of course, fun with the family at the hotel and for a series of birthday parties (no less than three parties for Anya alone!)

The latest activity was today when we were invited to a digital video conference at the US embassy about the nominating conventions for US presidential elections. This was the second DVC I attended and it was quite interesting though fraught with technical problems (aha, our infamous internet connection) and also intense debate between the speakers from Paris (a Republican vs. a Democrat!).

There were also some high profile local politicians (specially from the Opposition) which limited opportunities for asking questions as they tended to be given priority. It’s sometimes funny to see how politicians turn up and become active for all sorts of events when they are in the Opposition. Naturally when in government, they have other things, more important to do, which must have been the case of current members of government, of course, since they did not turn up…

The Mediacom Studio is alive

26/04/2008 By christina 7 Comments

I am pleased to announce that the Communication Studies Unit is now equipped with a multimedia studio which I have set up with (a lot of) help from Avinash. The studio has been baptised Mediacom Studio and even has a website which we have launched yesterday at www.mediacomstudio.com

The facility has been created thanks to funding from the UNESCO-IPDC which approved my project last year. Avinash has been the mastermind behind the technical setup and has spent a lot of time selecting and fine-tuning our equipment list. We had a lot of constraints such as limited availability of certain items and also the dollar exchange rate which shrunk our budget. But, we managed to have a nice setup nevertheless with:

– Apple iMacs complete with the iLife and iWork suites
– Panasonic HD camcorders with tripods and a lighting kit
– Olympus audio recorders with tie-clip microphones
– Philips LCD TV, DVD player and an Apple TV
– a gigabit local network

The idea is to provide more hands-on practical training to our Communication and Journalism students, to give them the opportunity to come up with professional products and showcase them on the website.

Joel de Rosnay

12/11/2007 By christina 2 Comments

French futurologist and scientist Joël de Rosnay gave a conference last week at UOM on ‘Nouvelles Technologies, Innovations et Résistances au Changement’. He drew a well organised map and catalogue of the crucial areas of innovation and listed the many stumbling blocks that need to be overcome in order to make the most of these new technologies with special reference to Mauritius (with which he has some family ties BTW).

He identified the main areas as being those of infotechnologies (basically Internet 2.0, what he calls ‘technologies de la relation’), biotechnologies (research in genetics), nanotechnologies and ecotechnologies (solar energies). I was particularly interested in listening to his talk about new information technologies as I have read one of his books ‘La Révolte du pronetariat’ which I bought last year and also use in my class for ‘New Forms of Media’. Joël de Rosnay’s enthusiasm about the Internet revolution, what he calls the ‘media of the masses’ (in opposition to ‘mass media’) is unabated and he even came up with a funny equation when it comes to the new business model i.c.w. the technologies of relation which runs as follows:

FLUX + BUZZ = BIZZ

Meaning (from what I have understood) that businesses need to attract people (by providing information-rich services for free) to create flux and those people will themselves attract other people through recommendations thus creating buzz and the business will be there.

His intense presentation cited, inter alia, the Long Tail, the idea of collective intelligence, new management styles (systemic as opposed to hierarchical). More interestingly, he also criticised the way the Cyber island initiative has turned out (in his words more a technopark where big companies pay big money to rent a locale), his initial vision being more that of a technological pole with incubators, public exhibition and meeting places to learn about technological developments. Yet, he still seems optimistic as he mapped out some ideas about the use of technology for tourism purposes (e.g. info on mobiles for guided tours, WiMax everywhere).

His presentation was so packed that it is not possible to summarise all the ideas he evoked, which were all enthusiastically received by a small audience composed of well-known entrepreneurs, academics and a few students. One can only wonder how much of his advice will have been understood and implemented… But, it’s refreshing to hear people who are on the same wavelength from time to time. Lifts your spirits up temporarily until you hear about the Facebook faux-pas of the ICTA, that is!

News from me

14/09/2007 By christina 2 Comments

It’s been a while since I last wrote a post. My apologies to regular visitors. It has indeed been a busy month, in a weird kind of way in some respects. Just to recap:

– We’ve had the oddest start of academic year ever with a string of decisions taken by management without any consultation whatsoever with us academics. One thing they need to learn up there is that reforms cannot be properly implemented without planning, consultation, explanation and, more importantly, you need to obtain the collaboration of most actors/stakeholders. In fact, change management encompasses internal marketing. Sell the damn thing to your internal audience, seduce them, persuade them it’s the right way to go! And also, obtain their feedback to make adjustments that will enhance the chance of success because at the end of the day, they are the agents who will implement everything. I wonder if they have at least realised that up there…

– As for me, I have been able to submit my paper on newspapers in Mauritius to the conference on the Future of Journalism which was organised on Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Cardiff. I was not able to attend but my paper was nonetheless accepted and presented in absentia. And that’s not all, I have to write up another paper for a conference and my deadline for submission is fast approaching (only 10 days left Oh My God!). So, I might again disappear for the next two weeks…

– As far as lecturing is concerned, I have also been revamping/upgrading a lot of my modules (Introduction to Media and Communication, Aspects of Film Theory and New Forms of Media). So. it has been a frenzy of reading, synthesising and preparation of material for lectures…

– On a personal note, those of you who also read Avi’s blog know that we’ve had a string of things to celebrate and events to organise, starting with my birthday (I’m getting old, snif!), going on with Anya’s and Kyan’s birthdays, then lastly our 13th anniversary as a couple. Next will be Avi’s birthday in 11 days. 25th August to 25th September is a birthdays-packed period for the Meetoos 😉

That’s it for the roundup. Ah no, I also forget that I was affected by a very bad throat infection (‘infection des voies aériennes’, said our doctor who gave us an interesting and lengthy lecture about viruses and pandemics) two weeks ago and still suffer from its after-effects. Which did not prevent me from getting embarked on a mountain-climbing expedition on the Black River Peak with Avi and his colleagues (Picture above was taken on top of the mountain;-))