CCAT Seminar Series 2015:
Dr. Beth Haller on
Social Media & Disability Rights Activism
Wednesday 18th February, 2015
CCAT were very honoured to launch the 2015 CCAT Seminar Series with a seminar by visiting Fulbright Scholar Prof. Beth Haller, Professor of Journalism/New Media at Towson University in Maryland.
Prof. Haller’s seminar Social media and disability rights activism: Is online communication finally providing ‘liberating technology’?, analyzed current disability activism that uses social media, and argued that the promise of the Internet and cyberspace as a ‘liberating technology’ (Sussman, 1994) is finally being fulfilled through social media, allowing the communication of disabled “colleagues in justice” (Volkman, 2009). Citing research examining the social media presence of several disability organizations, Dr. Haller argued that social media has reinvigorated some disability rights activism—allowing them to better promote the issues or events important to them—as well as fostering more interaction within the disability community regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, disability, or geography.
Prof. Haller is the author of Representing Disability in An Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media (Avocado Press, 2010). For additional information about Professor Haller, her publications and research, please refer to: About Professor Haller @ (https://bethhaller.wordpress.com/)
Cultural Heritage and New Media Workshop
One day special event
25 September 2014
Date: 9am – 5.30pm, Thursday 25 September 2014
Venue: 104.101/2:LT (across the passage from Common Grounds Restaurant) Curtin University and the Curtin Hub for Immersive Visualisation and eResearch (HIVE).
Speakers include: Erik Champion, Stuart Bender, Sambit Datta, Kate Raynes Goldie, Pauline Joseph, , Ali Mozaffari, Brian Steels, Joshua Hollick, Karen Miller, Michael Wiebrands and Tim Sherratt (Trove).
Program: forthcoming
Keywords: digital visualisation, 3D film & projection, phone apps, interactive environments/games, databases, web interfaces, digital storytelling, TROVE, HIVE, Markham Car Collection, Makerspace, Indigenous film making, built heritage, projects in process, grant applications.
Further details:
RSVP:
CCAT Flagship Event
ZUMC University Staff Development Program at Curtin University
Convened and hosted by CCAT
10 July – 26 July 2014
Background and purpose of the program
ZUMC, or Zhejiang University of Media and Communication, is one of China’s major hubs that trains and educates specialized talents for the broadcast industry and other creative industries in media and communications. Curtin University Faculty of Humanities (CURTIN) and ZUMC regard each other as long-term research and education partners and have decided to build on current cooperation between the two institutions, especially at research and graduate level.
Above: ZUMC personnel with Professor Majella Franzmann, PVC Humanities (centre) and Dr Henry Siling Li (right, front row) from CCAT, one of the key organisers of the event.
The objectives of the program are to enhance understanding of each other, to enable knowledge exchange and to develop skills among university management for efficient and sustainable services. Knowledge exchange builds around capacity building activities for policy formulation/implementation and institutional strengthening of both institutions.
Specifically this program will allow senior management personnel of ZUMC to gain an understanding of quality management and management experiences in the higher education of Australia, so as to improve the professional and management skills of the participants in the training program.
Duration, places and number of people
There are 20 people in the program, mostly deans and heads of departments from ZUMC. They will stay in Australia for 20 days, 16 days in Perth and 4 days in Sydney.
Program content and mode of training
The training program consists of two modules: higher education management in Australia and disciplinary knowledge in media and communication and the creative economy. The first module will cover Australian universities’ management system, curriculum, teaching management and quality evaluation and supervision, research commercialization, and staff development (includes teaching team construction and teachers’ engagement, young teachers’ development, compensation system, and performance assessment and examination), innovative education mechanism, and internationalization, etc. The second module includes presentations on some of the latest developments in education and research in culture, media and communication.
The training will be conducted in multiple formats, including but not limited to lectures, forums, workshops and site visits.
ZUMC Induction program
February 2014
CCAT held a two week induction program for six visiting academics from our partner university in Hangzhou, ZUMC (Zhejiang University of Media & Communications) in February 2014.
The goal – along the lines of the Oxford Internet Institute’s Summer Doctoral Program – was to introduce ZUMC colleagues to the Curtin campus, Faculty of Humanities researchers and post-graduate candidates, to hear and deliver presentations, and to participate in an innovative introduction to ‘research methods’ by means of a practical digital storytelling workshop, to be facilitated by Dr Christina Spurgeon from the Creative Industries Faculty of QUT.
Curtin University Faculty of Humanities regards ZUMC as a long-term research and education partner and is building on current cooperation between the two institutions, especially at research and graduate level. Current projects include a degree articulation program, exchanges of students, and collaborative learning programs. One of the collaborative programs, Earth-sky-us was the only program featured as an example of China-Australia higher education collaboration at the 2013 launch of the new initiative of Study Perth in China, attended by WA Premier Colin Barnett in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
View: ZUMC Program Outline
Image above (L-R): Jan He Zhang, Laura Kittel, Yaoxia Zhu, Henry Siling Li, Wenjie Hu, Sheng Huang, Shanshan Liu, Weiwei Zhang, Guangsheng Zheng at the graduation ceremony. Left: Phd candidate Jan He Zhang with Professor Tim Dolin, Dean, Research and Graduate Studies, Humanities, Curtin University.