Please join us for a discussion of John Hartley's 'cultural science' project and the launch of his new book. Refreshments will be served. This in-person event will also be streamed via Zoom.

Make / Believe – We and They on a Digital Planet argues that mediated popular culture and science-based knowledge systems, entangled and compromised as both have become, are still a robust crucible for system change for the future when they combine forces.

Planetary crises require responses from everyone. This means that collective action is not simply a scientific or political problem. It is a problem of culture and media. But modern politics, journalism, and science were not designed for global climate action. They've divided humans into competitive and often hostile 'we' and 'they' groups. Identity, news, and knowledge are all weaponized. Culture makes groups, groups make knowledge, and knowledge makes enemies.

What can be done to prevent global conflict and the drift to war? Make/Believe turns to popular culture and social media to argue for an alternative storyline. While the Great Powers are making new enemies, emergent 'classes' – led by children – are using planetary connectivity to make new worlds. Make/Believe shows how alternatives to the strategic 'Great Game' of global contestation are gathering strength in unlikely places, among women, children, lifestyle, and pop culture. Popular digital media literacy is now a prerequisite for the remediation of the planet.

Panel Discussion

The event will open with a panel featuring Mark Gibson (RMIT) in conversation with Catharine Lumby, Jo Gray, and John Hartley (MECO). Catharine Lumby will then launch the book.

Mark Gibson is Professor of Media in the School of Media and Communication. Mark has interests in cultural industries; fringe, independent and alternative cultural production; performance comedy; and histories of media and cultural studies. Mark is co-author of Fringe to Famous – Australian Cultural Production After the Creative Industries (Bloomsbury, 2024) and author of Culture and Power – A History of Cultural Studies (Berg, 2007). He is currently a chief investigator on the Australian Research Council Linkage project, 'Comedy Country: Australian Performance Comedy as an Agent of Change'.

Joanne Gray is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Cultures in the Discipline of Media and Communications, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. She is an interdisciplinary academic with expertise in digital platform policy and governance. Her research seeks to understand how digital platforms, such as Google/Alphabet and Facebook/Meta, exercise private power and explore relevant policy options.

Catharine Lumby is a Professor of Media at the University of Sydney where she was founding Chair of the Media and Communications Department. Prior to entering academia, she worked for two decades as a print and TV journalist for The Sydney Morning Herald, the ABC and The Bulletin magazine. She has written and co-authored ten books including Bad Girls and Gotcha, and numerous book chapters and journal articles.

John Hartley AM is research professor in digital media and culture at the University of Sydney. The author of over thirty books and many papers across four continents and five decades, he has served as Head of the School of Journalism, Media and Culture at Cardiff University (Wales), Dean of Creative Industries (QUT), and is John Curtin Distinguished Emeritus Professor at Curtin University. He has held visiting professorships in the US, China, Germany, and Denmark. Hartley was founding editor of the International Journal of Cultural Studies (Sage), and Cultural Science Journal (Sciendo). He was ARC Federation Fellow and Research Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. Awarded the Order of Australia in 2009, he is elected fellow of the ICA, the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), the Learned Society of Wales (FLSW); and formerly of the Australian Academy of the Humanities (FAHA) and Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (FQA).