Really Live News: Journalism as Public Event

Higher Seminar in Media and Communication Studies and Journalism with Glenda Cooper from University of London

Welcome to the next higher seminar organised by the Media and Communication Studies department and the Journalism department! In this higher seminar, Glenda Cooper will present on the topic: ‘Really Live News: Journalism as Public Event.’

Live journalism – where journalists perform their work in a public space face to face with their audience – has emerged as a rapidly growing trend in the past fifteen years, since Pop-Up magazine began in the US (Martin-Kessler, 2017). Since then, there have been numerous other successful live journalism companies founded in Europe, the UK and Canada, selling out theatres of up to 1,000 people per show while live journalism festivals bringing together scholars and practitioners have been held in Helsinki, Toronto and Tilburg.

Live journalism events mirror the exclusivity of traditional media in that they are usually not streamed and can only be seen/experienced by those who go to them. But, relevant to both the audience and affective turns in journalism studies, the integral part is that they also allow the audience to have some interaction with the journalists whether through a Q&A on stage, or through meeting them in a common space afterwards.

In this talk, Dr Glenda Cooper will present her research into live journalism. Drawing on seven projects she’s carried out including News on Stage, News Cabaret, It’s Criminal, and News on the Street, the seminar explores how live events can rebuild trust, humanise journalists, and transform audiences from passive consumers into active civic participants, tackling difficult issues such as crime reporting, migration, gender and inequality. In particular she will discuss why ‘being there’ matters, how to reach news-avoiding and under-represented audiences, and the ethical challenges and creative possibilities of blending theatre and reporting.

Dr Glenda Cooper is a Reader/Associate Professor in Journalism Studies at City St George's, University of London and director of the European Journalism Observatory UK, a network of 13 independent non-profit media research institutes in 11 countries, which aims to bridge journalism research and practice in Europe, and to foster professionalism and press freedom. She is an international expert in the study of: crisis and humanitarian reporting; journalism and ethics, particularly AI; live journalism; the journalism of Alistair Cooke 1946-2004; media reporting of crime (including deathknocks). To read more about Glenda Cooper, visit: https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/about/people/academics/glenda-cooper