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                `SHIFTING CENTRES' - WHY CONFERENCES?

                           Dorothy Roome
                Centre for Cultural and Media Studies
                     University of Natal, Durban
                         South Africa
                      Roome@mtb.und.ac.za

`Shifting Centres' was the theme of the twentieth General
Assembly and Scientific Conference of the International
Association for Mass Communication Research held in Sydney,
Australia from 18 - 22 August, 1996. Travelling to Australia to
present a paper on my research at the Conference proved to be a
worthwhile investment of time and endeavour,  as many
internationally renowned scholars, whose work I had read and
cited, were there to present their own new research.  Fellow
students in the Centre for Cultural and Media Studies at the
University of Natal have asked what possible advantages there are

in presenting a paper at an international conference when, as a
graduate student, one can barely keep abreast of one s graduate
work.  In reply, I suggest there are a number of  positive
reasons for doing so.
      First, one is  exposed to ideas at the cutting edge of
one s
discipline with an opportunity to meet the experts face to face,
and ask questions about issues which occur in discussions. Again,

preparing a presentation for a conference spurs one to be
creative and, with judicious selection, one can present the
research currently embarked upon.  Time is never  wasted  at a
conference as the paper presented will be critiqued by all those
present;  the networking opportunity also sometimes offers
invitations to present further work.  Finally, conferences
provide a venue to meet scholars from different countries and to
discover emerging  paradigmatic  changes.

Happily, my paper, Humour as  Cultural Reconciliation : Suburban
Bliss and Female Multicultural Viewers was well received by
colleagues participating in the Network on Qualitative Audience
Research (NEQTAR), a working group in a session on  Media and
Audiences in World Cultures .  This session was chaired by Dr.
Klaus Bruhn Jensen from the Department of Film and Media Studies
at the University of Copenhagen,  a renowned scholar in the field
of semiotics.  The audience fielded me questions about my
methodology, (the videotaping of my focus groups) and were
intrigued by the responses of both Afrikaans and Zulu groups of
women in the light of the  new  South Africa.  The Norwegian,
Swedish and Danish delegates were particularly knowledgeable
about South Africa and especially interested in the research
occurring here.  I found all female scholars at the conference
particularly supportive and helpful, but  Dr. Birgitta Hoijer,
from the Department of Media and Communication at the University
of Oslo, who has completed extensive research on Audience and
Programmes for the Swedish Broadcasting Company was especially
encouraging and volunteered suggestions for further analysis.

One of the most dynamic  sessions at the conference  was the
 Roundtable on Consuming Audiences : Production and Reception in
Media Research  where a fiery discussion took place between
political economy  and cultural studies scholars on the relevance

of their respective research. The list of participants reads like
a Who s Who in the Academy  with Ingun Hagen, Norway,  and Janet
Wasko, USA, as co-chairs; Graham Murdock, U.K.;  Richard Maxwell,
U.S.A.;  Manjunath Pendakur, U.S.A.;  Anjali Monteiro & K.P.
Jayashankar, India;   Birgitta Hoijer, Norway;   James Lull,
U.S.A.;  Robert White, Italy;   Herbert Schiller, U.S.A.  and
Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Denmark,  as participants.   In essence, the
debate raged around the ultimate pertinence of political economy
in research and subsequent media policy development.  Eventually,
it was conceded that media research should incorporate both
cultural studies and political economy  to achieve a balanced
perspective of policy making in communication.

This session also made me aware of how important it was not to
restrict one s  research to purely gender issues as one can be
sidelined in mainstream debates.  The co-chairs were both women
actively involved in political economy (Janet Wasko) and cultural
studies qualitative research (Ingun Hagen).  Neither had
restricted themselves to feminism but were equally  active on the
gender panel for the conference;  and this alerted me to how,
because in error I had omitted the word  female  in my proposal
title, I had ended up presenting my research to a general
audience and not a  gendered  one.  Consequently, a general
audience heard how randomly constituted focus groups of Zulu
women in my reception studies research project viewed the
relationship between the sexes as a power struggle in the  new
South Africa but never discussed white/black relations.
Nevertheless,  when I attended the Gender business meeting at the
end of the conference, I volunteered to assist on the committee
wherever my services might be required.  This business meeting
proved to be an excellent opportunity to talk to experienced
academic women,  who advised it would be more effective to keep
one s research in the mainstream but to make sure feminist issues
were constantly represented.  The upshot was when we attended the
Political Economy business meeting, we were able to influence the
decision for the conference to hold  one session on - Political
Economy and Gender.  The struggle for recognition of gender
issues was  carried to a new dimension.

Finally,  I attended the formal dinner for delegates the night
before the end of the conference and this proved to be an
excellent opportunity for networking.   By that stage I had a
clear idea of who people were and I could attempt to say
something reasonably intelligent to those whom I had met,
instead of being mute.  In all,  the Conference  was a great
learning experience --  hard work to keep up with lectures for
eight straight hours, four days in row, travelling halfway across
the world through six time zones  -- but afterwards there is a
tremendous sense of personal growth.    Shifting Centres  is a
phenomenon that occurs at a personal as well as a global level.