Cultural and Media Policy Studies News and Events

David Wright will this week be visiting Chile at the invitation of the Observatorio de Politicales Culturales (OPC) and Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. He will be presenting a paper at the 'Congess of Cultural Politics: What do we measure? How do we evaluate?' on conceptual and methodological developments in the cultural omnivore debate (12th-13th May).

His trip, partly funded by the British Council in Chile, will include a presentation at Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso and a research seminar with staff and research students at Universidad Diego Portales on problems with the comparative study of taste.

Respected music industry magazine, Music Week, reports on project work undertaken by a team of current students on the MA in Creative and Media Enterprises for the Association of Independent Festivals as part of their Creative Business Project module. The team have just embarked on the project to analyse the economic impacts of music festivals and will be reporting their findings to AIF and its members in June.

Edited by Jeremy Ahearne and Oliver Bennett, a special issue of the International Journal of Cultural Policy, on the subject of religion and cultural policy, has now been published. Building on their earlier work on 'implicit' cultural policies, this issue follows three broad approaches. First, it looks at the cultural polices of religious bodies themselves; secondly, it examines the interplay and conflicts between the polices of modern states and those of religious bodies; and thirdly, it considers the relations between certain arts, heritage and media organisations and questions of religion. The issue brings together contributors from Turkey, Egypt, Australia, the US and the UK. As well as including articles by Jeremy and Oliver, the issue also publishes a contribution from Jane Woddis, one of the Centre's Associate Fellows. Oliver's article is the second publication arising from his ongoing enquiry into the institutional promotion of optimism.