2006-12-20
Glocal Times is a webmagazine published by Malmö University’s Master course in Communication for Development. It is a digital reference and forum for the discussion and dissemination of issues concerning communication for development and social change. Meet Florencia Enghel, Glocal Times’ Editor.
Which is the effect of the Fear Industry in our daily lives? What happens when we refrain from interacting with others in a shared public space? In the latest issue of Glocal Times, Oscar Hemer, Glocal Times’ initiator and Executive Editor, discusses this matter in his editorial column, based on an artistic experience grounded in the streets of Durban, South Africa. He discusses the need for physical public spaces where people actually meet and confront each other as a prerequisite for the public sphere to foster democracy.
The first issue of Glocal Times – originally called Globala Tider - was published online in May 2005. The idea that led to its creation was to develop a web space for Communication for Development (ComDev) graduates to publish their Master theses.
Glocal Times’ Editor, Florencia Enghel, explains that the web magazine grew to include and disseminate knowledge presented by guest lecturers in the course’s seminars.
- By 2005 ComDev had opened its fourth international course and the body of graduates from different parts of the world was growing. We therefore felt the need to build on such network, she says.
The Communication for Development Master course is an interdisciplinary field of study and practice, combining theories of development, communication and globalization and integrating them with practical fieldwork. The one-year international course is taught through distance learning during four semesters, with six week-end seminars and a five to eight-week period of fieldwork. It is aimed at practitioners, journalists and information officers in the communication, media, information and development sectors.
Since its creation in 2005, Glocal Times has included articles by several well-recognized experts in the field of communication for development or other related disciplines – researchers, academics and practitioners. The webmagazine has attracted attention from two of the organizers of the recent World Congress in Communication for Development, which took place for the first time in Rome in October 2006: The Communication Initiative and The World Bank.
Glocal Times attracts different types of readers: academics, researchers, practitioners, and members of NGOs or other organizations active in the field. Librarians have also contacted the Editor.
- We have not yet developed the tools required to be able to follow up on readers in a consistent manner. Hopefully, that will be part of the webmag’s next stage of development, she says.
Florencia Enghel is herself a ComDev-graduate from Argentina. She believes that the Communication for Development Master course gave her a broader, sharper understanding of the globalization process and its cultural and communicational implications on the local, national and international scales.
- At the same time, it fostered my levels of information literacy in a unique way. Also, it allowed me to join a virtual (i.e., web based) international network of qualified professionals working in communication-oriented development projects, she explains.
When Florencia Enghel was accepted as a student at the course at Malmö University, she was already familiar with collaborative settings established via web through her work at the Latin American Council of Social Sciences. Nevertheless, she found that the course was breaking new ground regarding not only content but also form of study.
- I was a proud member of the ComDev’s third edition, started in September 2002 - the first step towards its internationalization. Open to international students and taught entirely in English, it reunited 45 students from Scandinavia, Latin America, Africa and Asia. The course was a unique postgraduate educational opportunity, facilitating information, expression and professional training via the web, she says.
How important is communication for development in different parts of the world and in different countries?- Worldwide, communication is being increasingly recognized as essential to address the most pressing challenges associated with development. Poverty, inequality and discrimination are better tackled through communicative interventions that facilitate dialogue, promote participation and allow the expression of voices, concerns and needs, says Florencia Enghel.
Link to Glocal Times
http://www.mah.se/templates/ExternalNews____48274.aspx
