Research Strengths
Research Strengths
The Department has a vibrant research training culture and has achieved notable success in HDR completions. Twenty-five HDR students have qualified for advanced degrees between 2000 and 2007. Twenty-five of these have been PhDs. Eight HDR students who have completed PhDs are now university lecturers. One was an ARC Fellow at Sydney University until recently. Staff collaborate actively with HDR students in arranging international conferences and workshops (Sydney 1999, 2001 and 2005) including joint workshops with overseas universities (Chulalongkorn, Tsinghua, Shandong Normal universities 2005) and industry (CU Radio and Kantana Edutainment 2006). Publications, including the work of international scholars and HDR candidates, have arisen from the three HDR conferences held in Sydney. Mapping Globalization ( Penang: Southbound 2003) followed a conference in 1999 and Alternative Media (N. Chitty and S. Rattikalchalakorn eds. Southbound) arose out of the 2005 Sydney conference. The areas in which HDR supervision takes place include community media, communication development, information and communication technology, international public relations, media audiences, media and identity, political economy of communication and public diplomacy . Professor Chitty has set up the Public Diplomacy Research Network and has provided leadership in the Division in the area of HDR management, serving as Chair of the HDR Committee and as HDR representative for most of the Division’s life and as Associate Dean for HDR since 2004.
Academic staff in the Department register high in terms of international peer esteem as evidenced by staff being elected to office in key research associations, invited as visiting scholars, editing important journals, and through their research gaining the attention of leading academic publishers.
Naren Chitty served as Secretary General of International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) from 1996 – 2000 and as Vice President of the International Communication Section of IAMCR from 1994 - 1996. Naren Chitty accepted appointments as a Visiting Professor at University of Paris III (Sorbonne- Nouvelle) and as a Visiting Fellow at American University and Michigan State University. Invitational or keynote addresses have been given by Naren Chitty ( Australia, China, France, India, Thailand and USA); Qin Guo ( Guangzhou, Varnasi); Sripan Rattikalchalakorn ( Canberra); Tony Wilson (prior to joining the Department in 2005 in Australia, England, Malaysia and Singapore).
The Journal of International Communication, the official journal of the International Communication Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) has been edited by Naren Chitty and published by the Department since 1994. It is one of the principal journals of the field.
The Department has strong research links with colleagues in China, ASEAN, South Asia and the region, as well as with colleagues in Africa, Europe and the Americas. A conference on Digital Media: Development and Impacts was held in collaboration with Chulalongkorn University Radio and Kantana Edutainment in Bangkok in November 2006. The Department also has strong links with the media industry in Australia and abroad. In Australia it has hosted the annual Bruce Allen Memorial Lecture since 2003, inviting leading broadcasters such as Stuart Littlemore, Kerry O’Brien, Peter Thompson, Robyn Williams and Geraldine Doogue to speak on matters related to public broadcasting. The Department has a relationship with 21 st Century Weekly , China Dailyand the Chinese International Public Relations Association in Beijing. It hosted a program director from CCTV ( Beijing), from mid 2006 – mid 2007, who was on a Chinese Scholarship Council fellowship. PhD candidates from Tsinghua University and Communication University of China are doing PhD’s in the Department simultaneously under co-tutelle arrangements.
Research strengths fall under ‘international communication and human security and development’, as these concepts relate to media and ICT as well as political, economic, cultural and physical security. Under this broad umbrella, staff conduct research in areas such as globalisation theory (Naren Chitty), educational communication (Guo Qin)), Thai media and politics (Sripan Rattikalchalakorn), and intercultural competence and health communication (Lily Arasaratnam).
Professor Naren Chitty’s research is in the areas of media, political economy and identity in relation to communication and development; globalization; public diplomacy and international public relations; and media and terrorism. His publications include Alternative Media: Idealism and Pragmatism (2007, with Dr Rattikalchalakorn) Framing South Asian Transformation: An Examination of Regional Views on South Asian Cooperation ( New Delhi: South Asia Publishers 2004), Mapping Globalization (edited) and 12 volumes of The Journal of International Communication. Naren Chitty’s invitation in 2005, along with editors of Global Media and Communication; European Journal of Communication; Nordicom Review; Communication Theory and Journalism; Theory, practice and Criticism; Javnost – The Public, Journalism Studies and Trends in Communication, to offer “International Communication: Continuing into the 21 st Century as an Academic ‘commons’” for the 50 th anniversary issue of Gazette: International Journal for Communication Studies, was an indication of the international reputation of the journal and Naren Chitty. His chapter on “Weapons of Mass Distraction: World Security and Personal Politics” appeared in War, Media, and Propaganda: A Global Perspective. ( Yahya R. Kamalipour and Nancy Snow eds., Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Inc. 2004). He co-edited Studies in Terrorism: Media & the Enigma of Terrorism in the 21st Century with Ramona Rush and Mehdi Semati ( Penang: Southbound, 2003). His work on communication and development has been published in Telematics and Informatics (Sage). He has two chapters viz. “A matrix model for framing newsmedia reality” and “South African Miracle Cure”, in The Global Dynamics of News (Abbas Malek & Anandam Kavoori eds. Stamford: Ablex 2000). In April 2007 he was invited as a witness for the Inquiry of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade on the nature and conduct of Australia’s public diplomacy.
Dr Qin Guo’s research is in the areas of educational communication and technology; development communication; diffusion of innovation; and East Asian studies. Her chapter on Information Technology and Education in China appeared in Faces of Globalisation (N. Chitty ed. Varnasi: Ganaga Kaveri, Publishers 2003). Articles on Educational Communication have appeared in Audio-visual Education Research (2005) and Educational Communication (2005). Her current research is on Education Communication Strategies for Sustainable Development in Poor Mountainous Area of Guangdong Province. She is Chief Investigation a project funded by the Chinese Ministry of Education in collaboration with researchers at South China Normal University and officials from local government in China.
Dr Sripan Rattikalchalakorn’s research is in the areas of development communication; public relations and advertising; Thai politics; political economy of mediated crises; and social-info transformation. Her publications include “Socio-info transformation in Thailand: Before and after the economic crisis" in The Journal of International Communication and " Thailand's economic crisis and its effects” in Mapping Globalisation (2002). Her chapter "Socio-info transformation in Thailand: Before and after the economic crisis" appeared in The Journal of International Communication . 8: 2, 2002. Her recent publications include “Thailand-Australian free trade agreement: Discourses in Australian media” in South-east Asia Review, (Chatchawan, Yukongsak, ed. Bangkok: South-east Asia University 2006) and “ The king and Thai democracy” in Asian Analysis, (Deborah Johnson,ed. Available at : www.aseanfocus.com/asiananalysis