The first seminar of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, Jan 29-30, 2009

FRAMES OF REFERENCE

Unpacking The Real: Contesting Media Realities
The first seminar of the Centre for Media and Cultural Studies (CMCS)
Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai
Jan 29-30, 2009 

http://unpackingthereal.wordpress.com

Distinctions between the real and the imagined are often understood in black and white. This seminar seeks to unsettle such simplistic binaries. It will critically examine the media’s representations of ‘reality’ and raise questions about its frames of reference. Does the media, fictional or non-fictional, propagate certain ideas about truth, the real and the world? The seminar will unpack representations of reality in news, documentary and fiction films.

Speakers will include eminent professionals from the media industry and academics working the area of Media and Cultural Studies.  Students from around the country will also present papers and research work. The best student presentation will be awarded a cash prize.

Guidelines

Paper presentations must be made on the theme of ‘reality’ as mediated in news, documentary and fiction films.

The paper must be submitted along with the seminar application form. The word limit is 3000 words. The last date for submission is 15.01.2009. The application should be sent to:

Centre for Media and Cultural Studies
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
V.N Purav Marg
Deonar, Mumbai 400088
Tel. No. 022 – 25525000

A nominal delegate fee of Rs. 200 will be charged.

About CMCS

The Centre for Media and Cultural Studies, (CMCS) is an independent centre of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, engaged in media teaching, production, research and dissemination. In 2007, it offered, for the first time, a two-year Master’s in Media and Cultural Studies. This seminar has been organised by the post-graduate students of the Centre.

A unique feature of the Centre is the close linkage between the technical and academic areas of its work. The work of the Centre straddles both realms, thus facilitating a synergy between research, teaching and production, all of which are informed by a keen sense of connection with local subaltern cultures of resistance and invention. The CMCS has done pioneering work in critical media education in the country.  It also has to its credit, twenty-one awards at national and international festivals.

Lingo-istic

By Sneha Anand

“In the beginning was the word. And the word was made flesh.
It was so in the beginning and it is so today. The language,
the Word, carries within it the history, the culture of traditions,
the very life of a people, the flesh. Language is people. We
cannot conceive of a people without a language, or a language without a people.
The two are one and the same. To know one is to know the other.”
–Ulibarri, 1972

Identity is a funny thing. No, really. You can go on living your life without ever questioning your identity or you can suddenly be consumed by the question: What is my identity and what makes my identity? The place where I was born, the institution from which I completed my education, or my mother tongue – do these make my identity? Or it is just what I think I am and not what others want to slot me as according their own understanding of the category most befitting me? I think identity can be ten thousand things and then, there are another ten thousand and ten things it isn’t.

Use me

This public service ad by Karuna D’souza, Rajesh Ranjan, Smita Lakra and Shephalika Mishra is on the issue of littering. Being conscious of putting your trash in the dustbin, it says, is not difficult. ’Use Me’ was made as an assignment for a video class on social communication in January 2008.