Join our guest lecture (webinar) on February 29 from 14:00 – 15:00 when Dr. Torgeir Uberg Nærland presents his findings in the project «Media Poverty: Media Use and Citizenship in Conditions of Deprivation».
Abstract
Media Poverty: Media Use and Citizenship in Conditions of Deprivation
The media is a binding force between citizens and the world beyond their private sphere. Therefore, people’s use of the media is a precondition for the enactment of informed and active citizenship. At the same time, evidence suggests that poverty is systematically linked to disconnection from the public and political world, and to low political participation. For citizens who live in conditions of poverty, the consequences are crippled possibilities for civic agency and the reinforcement of marginalization. For democracy, the civic withdrawal of this group challenges its legitimacy. Based on recent empirical work from the Media Poverty project, I will in this talk draw upon large-scale qualitative research into the media use and everyday lives of impoverished citizens in Norway. In this way I hope to shed light on some of ways in which poverty affects people’s possibilities to enact citizenship through their use of the media.
Project link:
Torgeir Uberg Nærland
Dr. Torgeir Uberg Nærland is a research professor at Norwegian Research Center (NORCE), and an associated professor at the Department of Information Science and Media Studies at the University of Bergen. He has authored number of articles, both empirical and theoretical, exploring the intersections between culture, politics and class, including in journals such as Journalism, European Journal of Communication, Popular Music, Television and New Media and Popular Communication.