Listening Practices Workshop
17 October 2008, University of SydneyConvenors: Penny O'Donnell (USyd) & Juan Salazar (UWS)
"It is as if we must stop speaking only in the terms we ourselves prefer and know best, in order to open up a space where we can hear others with whom we may share at least a commitment to the greater value…of living well together. It is this that the media must help us to do, which requires an evaluative framework to which it is open to everyone affected by media to contribute" (Nick Couldry, Listening Beyond the Echoes, 2006).
This workshop will take up questions about the significance of listening in media culture: What type of things do people do in relation to media and listening? What is media-oriented listening, and what are people listening for? What types of things do people say in relation to media and listening? Is listening displacing speaking/voice as the metaphor for 'democratic' media participation and reform? If, as we suspect, listening is emerging as a distinctive media-oriented activity then we should be able to find observable examples of it; examples that provide a means for thinking about and evaluating the realities, rationales, rules and significance of listening practices.
The global political context provides an interesting reference point for this exercise. Media sociologist Nick Couldry (2006) suggests the global media system is an 'institutionalised injustice', generating an important, shared public space but only at the cost of fomenting conflicts born of the system's characteristic and profound inequalities in the distribution of symbolic resources and media power. In the face of this injustice, media presence has become a primary means by which states, groups and individuals seek and achieve recognition and agency, that is, ways of 'speaking out' or 'speaking back' to the system. Yet, one way or another, the broader aim is justice rather than just increasing media flow/volume and, hence, the risk of cacophony. This raises the interesting question of whether media-oriented listening offers a stronger path not only to recognition and agency but also to justice?
This workshop will examine different listening practices with the aim of developing our capacity to both experience and theorise more open forms of communication. It will provide a space and time for listening. Participants will be encouraged to collaborate in the development of a shared archive of listening practices by bringing along exemplars of things people do and say in relation to media and listening.
Listening, speaking, practice, recognition, agency and justice are key categories in this workshop. Media-oriented listening activities that raise questions and offer insights about struggles for justice in the global political context --- including responses to the structured inequities of the global media system --- will therefore be one area of focus.
Penny O'Donnell (with Justine Lloyd and Tanja Dreher) is coordinator of The Listening Project and convenor (with Juan Salazar) of the Listening Practices workshop. She is a senior lecturer in International Media and Journalism in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney. The workshop will draw on findings from the 'Mapping Marrickville Media' project, an investigation of the communicative and cultural practices that sustain vibrant multicultural communities. The project was made possible through the inaugural 2007 UTS Shopfront Community Engagement Fellowship. Contact details.
Juan Salazar (with Penny O'Donnell) is convenor of the Listening Practices workshop. He is located in the Centre for Cultural Research at the University of Western Sydney. Juan researches in the areas of media anthropology, indigenous and community media, social change and participatory communication and mapping. In particular, his work explores the uses and impacts of new information technologies, the interface of society and technology, intersections of society, the environment and the media and cultural representation.
