Organized and hosted by graduate students from The University of Texas at Austin Department of Radio-Television-Film, this year’s Global Fusion Conference took place in Austin, Texas, from Friday, October 25th to Sunday, October 27th, in the Belo Center for New Media.
The Global Fusion Conference began in 2000 to promote academic excellence in Global Media and International Communication Studies. The conference is sponsored by a consortium of universities: The University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University, Ohio University, Southern Illinois University, University of Virginia, and Temple University. Roughly 100 panelists presented including a majority of graduate students as well as faculty members from around the world.
The UT Austin School of Journalism and TIPI Co-Director Joe Straubhaar organized a panel for the conference with Swapnil Rai (University of Michigan Ann Arbor), Stephany Noh (UT Austin), and Melissa Santillana (UT Austin) called “Netflix’s Transnational Strategy and the Future of Global Media Flows.” The group presented on topics regarding the ways in which Netflix has challenged the status quo for global media and global television. The topics presented by Noh and Santillana on this panel originated from papers they produced in Straubhaar’s course at UT Austin, Global Media.
Straubhaar also moderated a plenary panel under the topic of Climate Change and Media that included UT Austin alum Miyase Christensen and Patrick D. Murphy of Temple University. Other panels at the conference centered around topics of global television and journalism, cultural diplomacy, transnational conversation, and the impact that media coverage can have on shaping national and cultural identities.
sen and Patrick D. Murphy of Temple University. Other panels at the conference centered around topics of global television and journalism, cultural diplomacy, transnational conversation, and the impact that media coverage can have on shaping national and cultural identities.
For more information on the conference and its participants, click here to view the program.