Tobias Escher at the OII

Last Wednesday we had another one of our joint PhD seminars, this time with our colleagues from the Department of Media and Communication from the University of Leicester. Three PhD students came over together with their supervisor Gillian Youngs to present their very interesting and timely research on issues surrounding digital technology in China and Taiwan.

Hao Zhang researches into blogs as platforms for political debate in China, Chih-Jung Fan analyses the policy regarding the switch-over to digital terrestrial television in Taiwan and Jin Shang analyses the development strategy of China’s and in particular Beijing’s digital economy. Very much as we had hoped, the seminar sparked discussions that were not only useful to guide our colleagues in their future research but that also helped the whole group to reflect on how we approach our subject in terms of methods, discipline and framework.

We have organised a few PhD seminars in the past and hope to do so more often in the next academic year. The idea is to invite students from other universities in order to hear about their work, learn about different disciplinary approaches and to further links with our peers. This particular research seminar came out of my ties to Leicester, having done my MA in Globalization & Communications there in 2003/04. The Department of Media and Communication (which used to be called Centre for Mass Communication Research) has been doing a lot of pioneering work in the area of New Media and given that Media and Communication Studies are not represented in Oxford we are naturally keen to further our exchange.