On 7 May, the Master’s Degree in New Forms of Journalism, Digital Communication and the Knowledge Society will hold its closing seminar with the participation of two distinguished researchers from Cardiff University: Professor Stuart Allan and Professor Cynthia Carter, international leading scholars in the fields of journalism, digital communication, gender and media studies.

The session will offer students a dual approach to some of the most significant debates in contemporary communication: on the one hand, the transformation of journalism in the context of the network society and, on the other, academic publishing opportunities for early-career researchers in the field of feminist media studies.

Professor Stuart Allan, Professor of Journalism and Communication at Cardiff University, will deliver the lecture “The Rise of Citizen Journalism”. His talk will take Manuel Castells’s notion of “mass self-communication” as a starting point to analyse the development of citizen journalism in the network society. Allan will address how the expansion of smartphones, almost instantaneous communication and citizens’ direct participation have transformed traditional forms of news production, particularly in contexts of national and international crisis.

The lecture will examine the impact of citizen journalism on professional journalistic practices and on the social responsibilities of information. In this regard, the session will reflect on the partial shift of communicative power from news organisations to citizens, as well as on the ethical, professional and democratic challenges posed by this phenomenon.

The seminar will also feature Professor Cynthia Carter, Reader in the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University and co-founder of the prestigious international journal Feminist Media Studies. Carter will present to students the main characteristics of this academic publication, its editorial lines, the requirements for manuscript submission and the types of research it welcomes.

Feminist Media Studies is an internationally recognised journal in the field of communication, media studies and feminist approaches. Its transdisciplinary and transnational orientation makes it a central forum for research on gender, journalism, media culture, digital technologies, representation, power and inequalities. During her talk, Carter will particularly encourage early-career researchers to prepare and submit their work to international academic journals, offering practical guidance on the scholarly publishing process.

With this seminar, the Master’s Degree in New Forms of Journalism, Digital Communication and the Knowledge Society reinforces its commitment to advanced training in journalism and communication research, as well as to the internationalisation of its academic activities. The presence of Stuart Allan and Cynthia Carter will enable students to engage in dialogue with two leading figures in contemporary studies on journalism, citizenship, gender and digital communication.