New Series with UW: 'The Media Revolution'

The University of Washington Department of Communication is partnering with Town Hall in Seattle to present a four-part lecture series on journalism, digital media, and civic engagement. All of the speakers for the series will be Communication professors: David Domke, Hanson Hosein, Lance Bennett, and Ralina Joseph. The dates for the talks are October 13, January 7, March 4, and May 6. Each lecture will focus on a specific topic, beginning with David Domke’s talk on news and citizen engagement in the health care debate.

First lecture: Tuesday, October 13 at 7:30 pm
David Domke: Healthcare in the Media Revolution
It wasn’t so long ago that staying informed meant subscribing to your hometown newspaper and watching one of three broadcast networks. Today, the business models of “the news” are under siege, and with them the role and popular understanding of journalism itself: in its place, niche-marketed cable shows, and an amateur and professional “news-gathering” apparatus of blogs, news portals, and social networking. A media revolution is being waged all around us—how are we doing? As where and how we get our news changes, can we still interpret in the same way? And what are the consequences for our democracy? A new series, co-produced by the University of Washington’s Department of Communication and Town Hall Seattle and called "The Revolution is Here: How Digital Media and Awakened Citizens Are Changing the World," will explore the ways we are empowered and diminished in the new media environment. Each program in the four part series will zero in on a different “top story”; the series kicks off with Professor (and Department Chair) David Domke’s analysis of the ways public engagement around and news coverage of the healthcare debate inflects, and even supplants, public understanding. Presented with support from the Lawrence True and Linda Brown Foundation.