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• Emeritus Professor Peter Putnis (News & Media Research Centre, UC)
• Dr Kate Holland (News & Media Research Centre, UC)
• Professor Kerry McCallum (News & Media Research Centre, UC)

• Professor Stuart Cunningham (News & Media Research Centre, UC)
• Professor Sora Park (News & Media Research Centre, UC)
• Dr Yogi Vidyattama (National Centre for Social & Economic Modelling, Institute for Governance & Policy Analysis & UC)
• Dr Scott Brook (RMIT University & 2022 FAD Distinguished Fellow)

Truth has always been a casualty of politics, but the trend to outright lying has been on full display. In the context of the high stakes 2022 federal election campaign the temptation to use ‘strategic lies’ to sway undecided voters will be hard to control.  In this presentation, Professor Ivor Gaber and Assoc. Professor Caroline Fisher explain the concept of ‘strategic lying’ and its evolution as an effective spin tactic in the digital era. Drawing on examples from the US, UK election and Brexit campaigns, the seminar will highlight the potential risks and cynical benefits of using this tactic in the Australian election contest.

Associate Professor Caroline Fisher (News & Media Research Centre, UC)

Caroline Fisher is Associate Professor of Journalism, and Deputy Director of the News and Media Research Centre at the University of Canberra. She is a former journalist and media advisor.

Professor Ivor Gabor (University of Sussex, UK)

Ivor Gaber is Professor of Political Journalism at University of Sussex, and Adjunct Professor of Journalism and Political Communication at the University of Canberra. He is a former political journalist and media advisor.

Professor Barbara Bolt, University of Melbourne and Distinguished FAD Visitor

Professor Barbara Bolt is a Professorial Fellow at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. She is a practising artist and art theorist with special interests in new materialist theory, ethics and artistic research. Her research addresses the dialogue between theory and practice and between digital and analogue painting seen through the lens of New Materialisms. Her publications include two monographs Art Beyond Representation (2004) and Heidegger Reframed (2011) and five co-edited books, The Meeting of Aesthetics and Ethics in the Academy: Challenges for Creative Practice Researchers in Higher Education (2019), Material Inventions: Applying Creative Arts Research (2014), Carnal Knowledge: Towards a “New Materialism” through the Arts (2013), Practice as Research: Approaches to Creative Arts Enquiry (2007) and Sensorium: Aesthetics, Art, Life (2007). She has completed 29 graduate researchers engaged in Artist Research. Her artwork can be found on Instagram @barbara_bolt

This presentation explores the role of listening in deliberative democracy by drawing on our international, cross-disciplinary project on Institutional Listening . We argue that institutional listening can play an important role in public deliberation, if and when it links the public sphere with formal institutions, and enables the transmission of ideas from former to the latter. We will focus on two recent examples of institutional listening in two different democracies: Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse 2013-17 and the United States’ Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. These cases show that institutional listening can take different forms; it can be purposefully designed or incidental, and it can contribute to the realization of deliberative democracy in various ways. Specifically, institutional listening can help enhance the credibility and visibility of minority groups and perspectives while also empowering these groups to better hold formal political institutions accountable. The presentation elaborates on the democratic functions of institutional listening and reflects on the next steps our cross-disciplinary, collaborative project.

Professor Kerry McCallum (News & Media Research Centre, UC)

Kerry McCallum is Professor of Communication and Media Studies and Director of the News & Media Research Centre, University of Canberra. Kerry’s research specialises in the relationships between changing media and Australian social policy. She is co-author of The Dynamics of News and Indigenous Policy in Australia (Intellect, 2017), and lead investigator on the Australian Research Council funded project ‘Breaking Silences: Media and the Child Abuse Royal Commission’.

Dr Selen A Ercan (Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, UC)

Selen A. Ercan is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance,  University of Canberra. Her works sits at the intersection of normative theory and empirical research and explores the conditions which democracies can become more inclusive, more deliberative, and more responsive to citizens’ views and lived experiences. Selen’s recent projects and publications on these topics can be found .

Dr Molly Scudder (Purdue University, USA)

Mary F. (Molly) Scudder is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Purdue University. She is also an associate of the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. Her area of research is political theory. She is the author of Beyond Empathy and Inclusion: The Challenge of Listening in Democratic Deliberation (Oxford University Press, 2020). Molly is currently working on a book with Stephen White, entitled The Two Faces of Democracy: Decentering Agonism and Deliberation.