AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Centre/Pacific Media Watch): Professor David Robie, director of the Auckland University of Technology’s Pacific Media Centre, and seven academics from Indonesia’s Universitas Gadjah Mada will be on exchange next month in the first communication and publication research collaboration of its kind in New Zealand.
The academics from Yogyakarta, led by Gadjah Mada University’s Centre for Southeast Asian Social Studies (CESASS) director Dr Hermin Indah Wahyuni, arrive in Auckland in in two groups on Sunday and Tuesday for a two-week visit featuring workshops, seminars and joint research projects.
They will also be collaborating with their newly published research journal IKAT, the PMC’s 23-year-old Pacific Journalism Review and AUT Library’s Tuwhera open access research platform on a major project involving ecological communication and Asia-Pacific maritime disasters.
Dr Robie is one of six academics invited by CESASS as part of the Indonesian government’s World Class Professor (WCP) programme to strengthen international publication and research studies.
AUT's Head of Communication Studies, Professor Berrin Yanikkaya, said the invitation acknowledged Dr Robie's life work in being a voice for the voiceless and carrying their stories to the world.
"David has for many years run a vibrant and dynamic research centre out of the School of Communication Studies.
"The Pacific Media Centre has become a focus for research and political commentary and thanks to David's energy and commitment has attracted many overseas scholars whose research has further enriched the unique perspective that the centre offers on Asia-Pacific affairs," she said.
Global communication programme
The other WCP academics are: Professor Thomas Hanitzsch, chair and professor of Communication Studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen, Germany; Professor Judith Schlehe, professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Freiburg, Germany; Dr Magaly Koch from the Centre for Remote Sensing at Boston University; Professor Hermann M. Fritz from Georgia Institute of Technology; and Dr David Menier, associate professor HDR at Université de Bretagne-Sud, France.
The WCP programme, launched this year, was initiated by the Directorate General of Science and Technology Resource and Education, Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia.
The programme involves inviting professors from various top universities, both from Indonesia and abroad, as visiting professors to be placed in different universities in Indonesia for a maximum of six months.
Dr Robie will visit Gadjah Mada University for two weeks later in October.
Story on the AUT Communication Studies website
More details about the Gadjah Mada programme at AUT
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