Media and Politics Research Seminar

This event is on 26 March 2015 5:00pm

ICC Head of Research, Beatriz Garcia, will be presenting a paper at a research seminar at the University of Liverpool’s Department of Communications & Media on the subject of one-off international cultural events and their potential to transform narratives of place through more positive media representations.  The paper will look at the importance of the media narrative arc surrounding special events in solidifying ‘image change’ claims, regardless of the existence of detailed evidence about a change in perceptions by diverse communities at the time the event is taking place.

The core argument of the paper is that, despite our limited knowledge about people’s acceptance or rejection of the official rhetoric, if the media narrative about a city shows significant changes in focus and attitude over time, if it is voluminous enough and if it cuts across geographical (local, national, international) and stylistic (i.e. popular, broadsheet, specialist) journalistic variations, then it becomes evidence of change in itself.

The paper concludes that continued national and international media references to a city’s “success” at culture-led regeneration are key to the repositioning of cities within globally influential policy circles and that this, in turn, influences the way local communities feel and talk about their city.