CCI Helps Host 9th Annual South Asian Media and Cultural Studies Conference

Posted by Lauren Scala on

The 9th Annual South Asian Media and Cultural Studies (SAMCS) Conference was a success! Hosted on February 2-4, 2023, by the College of Communication and Information along with the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, the Center for Global Engagement, the Department of Media Studies, and CHRIST (Deemed to be) University in Bangalore, India, the conference featured many researchers and panelists from Florida State University, the United States, and beyond.

Students talking at the South Asian Media and Cultural Conference. The 2023 SAMCS focused on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals #16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions, which promotes sustainability by supporting social justice, improved infrastructure, and an end to conflicts in countries around the world.

Under the theme of “#OneSouthAsia: From Crisis to Resilience”, the conference hosted 16 speakers that discussed the challenges that the region grapples with, and explored how media landscape, communication culture, and digital technologies can help to recover regional resilience. 

Robert Smith kicked off SAMCS on Thursday evening with a keynote address, “Moving Beyond GDP: Telling the Real Story of National Progress” which focused on the alternatives to measuring national progress, instead of basing our progress off of gross domestic product and how the media showcases those numbers. 

Opening speaker Robert Smith.
Robert Smith opening the 9th Annual SAMCS.

SAMCS continued throughout Friday and Saturday with a variety of panels and presentations. Speakers and panelists included Sonali Srivastav, Akansha Sirohi, Prashanth Bhat, Sreya Mitra, Ayesha Ashfaq, Arjun Chatterjee, Satarupa Dasgupta, Kiran Hassan, Medha Bhattacharyya, Neha Ayub, Atif Ashraf, Aravind Sreeram, Anilesh Kumar, Cassie Marple, Ayesha Sadiqa, and Amber Noor Mustafa. 

Interim Dean of the College of Communication and Information Dr. Stephen McDowell said in regard to the theme of the SAMCS Conference, “People in the South Asian region have faced and addressed numerous environmental, social and political changes and challenges. Through viewing these changes and challenges as shared issues across the region, we can consider new perspectives to develop plans and strategies. Hopefully this helps build our research community around South Asian media and cultural studies.”

“We hope that the participants and panelists took away the idea of #OneSouthAsia to achieve sustainable and inclusive developmental goals,” says Dr. Vaibhav Diwanji, an FSU Alumnus, Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas, and chair of the Organizational Committee for SAMCS. “We hope that they found creative and research ideas that they can integrate into their respective future agenda to promote the knowledge on how best to achieve the United Nations sustainable development goal (SDG) 16 of establishing peaceful and inclusive societies by providing access to justice for all and building effective and accountable institutions at all levels in South Asia.”

To view the 9th Annual SAMCS Conference, please click the following links: Keynote Address, Day 1, Day 2, as well as the Conference Program. 

To learn more about past SAMCS Conferences, and upcoming news from SAMCS, click here.