Reclaiming the Public Sphere: Communication, Power and Social Change

GPoT Center’s Sofia Hafdell attended the 2012 Ørecomm Festival “Reclaiming the Public Sphere: Communication, Power and Social Change”, organized by the Ørecomm Centre for Communication and Glocal Change.

The Ørecomm research centre, originated by Malmö University, Sweden and Roskilde University, Denmark, invited researchers, students, and practitioners to its four-day seminar that started in Roskilde (1 day), moved on to Malmö (2 days) and closed in Copenhagen (1 day).

According to Ørecomm, “Since the advent of the Arab Spring began to unfold late 2010, there has been a dramatic rise in attention to the role of information and communication technologies in social change. Now, looking back, a deeper momentum of critical reflection has arisen.” Thus the festival aimed to provide a forum for this critical reflection about how the public sphere is being reinterpreted in recent years, and the ways in which new spaces and new agents in the public sphere come to influence the relation between communication, power, and social relations.

The Ørecomm Festival hosted 41 key speeches by media professionals, intellectuals, and researchers from 20 different countries around the world, including Denmark, Norway, Sweden, UK, Mexico, USA, India, Brazil, Uganda, Ghana, and Egypt. It also acted as an integrated part of the Malmö University Communication for Development MA curriculum.