Charles Sturt University (CSU) academic Professor Lyn Gorman is among a select group of international scholars invited to address the annual Oxford Round Table in the United Kingdom in August.

 

Hosted by the Harris Manchester College at the University of Oxford, the Round Table will see a small interdisciplinary group of academics discuss History as a Guide to the New International Order: The World in the 21^st Century.

 

Professor Gorman will present on the topic Globalization and Media: Do 20^th Century Concepts Remain Relevant? Professor Gorman says her paper will examine relationships among changing media and communication technologies, history and world politics.

 

“For example, because there is almost instantaneous coverage of events globally, policy decisions are expected at significantly escalated speeds. Pressure is being put on decision makers because of the way in which contemporary media can cover breaking events at a global level.

 

“The suggestion is that decisions may be made that take account of short term rather than medium or longer term interests.”

 

Professor Gorman’s paper will also examine the effect of the decline in public service broadcasting, concentration of media ownership, and the dominance of global media corporations, saying these can have considerable impact on the extent to which the public are well informed, especially on international affairs.

 

“If you look back over a century of history there has been an increasing concentration of media ownership, while the battle by public broadcasters to retain sufficient finance and profile in the market becomes ever harder. September 11 has also aggravated the tendency to emphasise nationalism at the expense of more objective analysis.”

 

Professor Gorman is acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration) at Charles Sturt University and was previously Dean of the University’s Faculty of Arts.

 

In 2003, she co-authored Media and Society in the Twentieth Century: An Historical Introduction with David McLean. She says the revised version, due next year, will include up-to-date analysis of the impact of the internet and new phenomena such as blogs. “A lot is happening there. It does mean that there is a lot more unfiltered information and expression of personal viewpoints and their global dissemination.”