Events
The Department of Media and Communications hosts a range of events, from large public lectures to smaller seminars, in person, online and hybrid, across a broad spectrum of topics relating to media and communications. Unless otherwise stated, our events are free and open to all.
Members of the Department are frequently invited to give talks and participate in events outside of LSE. These events often take place abroad. These events are also listed below.
The views expressed by LSE public event speakers are their personal views and do not represent the views of the Department or School.
Events overview
What's it going to take us to save the planet
Saturday 20 June 2026 6.30-7.30pm
Great Hall, Marshall Building
We live in polarised times, when global problems seem to be turning us against each other, not bringing us together. Over Festival week we will explore ways of tackling the enormous challenges we face, but there will be no solutions without cooperation. Is society as divided as it seems? How can we overcome our differences and work collaboratively towards a better future?
Speakers: Denise Baron, Professor Nick Couldry and Neil Lee.
Mindfulness and connection in a time of climate, migration and technology challenges
Thursday 18 June 2026 11.30am-1.30pm
Marshall Building
This workshop is open to anyone interested in looking for grounded ways to engage with these topics and navigate the overwhelming and strong emotions that come with the uncertainty, stress and tensions. Using practical and mindfulness-based approaches, guided reflections and exercises, participants will learn how to remain calm and present at a time when technology is reshaping how we think and connect.
Workshop facilitators: Greta Byrum, Innah Gaspar, Dr. Seeta Peña Gangadharan and Zara Rahman.
Media and technology trends in China
Thursday 21 May 2026 6.30-8pm
LSE Lecture Theatre, Centre Building
In-person event
Speakers: Yaling Jiang and Afra Wang.
Chair: Professor Bingchun Meng.
We are nature, not machines: practical philosophies for possible futures
Tuesday 19 May 2026 7.30pm to 9.00pm
Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, Bath
This talk proposes that we are nature, not machines. It opens out the ways that people generate innovation in everyday contexts, including primary school classrooms, community organisations, and antenatal health care services. These examples guide practical philosophies for a future where many kinds of innovation can fit.
Speaker: Dr Alison Powell.
Organised by BRLSI.
Does online regulation work for children? Accounting for child rights impacts in the new regulatory era
Thursday 14 May 2026 6.30pm to 8pm (drinks reception to follow)
In-person and online event
LSE Lecture Theatre
Digital Futures for Children centre (DFC) will bring together leading voices from regulation, legal scholarship and child rights. In presenting new DFC research examining whether regulation is actually working, the event will reflect on how regulation reshapes platform design, governance and accountability in practice.
Speakers: Steve Wood and Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE.
Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone.
New Mergers of Feminism and Finance
Friday 8 May 2026
SAL G.03, Sir Arthur Lewis Building
This one-day symposium aims to bring together an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars interested in the shifting interplay and developing entente between feminism and finance.
Mediate the Middle: Moving with and beyond dichotomies
Tuesday 31 March 2026 6.30pm to 8pm, drinks reception to follow
In-person and online event (book launch)
Old Theatre, Old Building
Join us in celebrating the launch of Bart Cammaerts’ latest textbook, Dichotomies in Media and Communication Theory — a bold and original exploration of the key theoretical tensions that shape our media landscape.
Speakers: Professor Bart Cammaerts and Professor Emerita Robin Mansell.
Chair: Professor Ellen Helsper.
Reclaiming Our Social Lives: A Call For Solidarity Vs Big Tech
Tuesday 17 March 2026 6.30pm to 8.30pm
University of Westminster, London
In this event chaired by Debbie Ball (University of Westminster), Rachel Coldicutt OBE (Society For Hopeful Technologists, Careful Industries), Professor Nick Couldry and Adele Walton (Logging Off) will create a sharp diagnosis of the fundamental problems, make bold proposals for policy change, and convey a strong sense of what more we, the people, stand to lose if we fail to urgently address these issues.
Organised by the Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) at University of Westminster, London.
Infinite justice: political cosmologies that protect our future
Monday 16 March 2026 6.30pm to 8pm, drinks reception to follow
In-person and online event
Old Theatre, Old Building
In her inaugural lecture, Shakuntala Banaji explores how our ethical and political imaginations of love, justice and rights—shaped by education systems, media and technologies under savage capitalism—differ between individuals, communities and geopolitical entities.
Speaker: Professor Shakuntala Banaji.
Chair: Professor Myria Georgiou.
Research insights day: children’s digital futures
Friday 13 March 2026 10.00am to 4.00pm
Old Building, LSE & Online
Join us in London for a free, one-day mini-conference (lunch included) hosted by the Digital Futures for Children centre. Bringing together researchers, policymakers and practitioners, we’ll dive into the latest evidence on children’s digital lives - from AI and education to online safety, rights and wellbeing. Expect sharp insights, lively discussion, and great networking with those shaping the future of children’s digital worlds.
Speakers: Beckett LeClair, Colette Collins-Walsh (5Rights), Damon De Ionno (Revealing Reality), Beeban Kidron (House of Lords), Eva Lievens (Ghent University), Jasmina Byrne (former Chief of Foresight and Policy, UNICEF), Kasia Kostyrka-Allchorne (Queen Mary University of London) and Steve Wood (PrivacyX Consulting).
DFC/LSE: Dr Sandra El Gemayel, Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr Alison Powell, Dr Kim R. Sylwander and Dr Mariya Stoilova.
China Goes Global: Media & Soft Power in Latin America
Tuesday 10 March 2026 5.00pm to 6.30pm
CBG.1.07, Centre Building
Drawing on his ongoing research and professional experience working in Chinese media, Dr Morales will explore how international media flows from China intersect with journalism practices in the Global South. The discussion will look at how collaborations between media organisations challenge dominant Western narratives, the role of soft power in shaping public discourse, and what this means for journalists, policymakers, and global audiences.
Speaker: Dr Pablo Morales.
Hosted by China Correspondents’ Club of London.pab
Promotional culture and society: Taking a global perspective
Tuesday 10 March 2026 5.00pm to 6.30pm
Online event
This webinar examines the nature of contemporary promotional cultures and societies, as they have evolved in different global contexts. The panel will feature contributors from the new Sage Handbook of Promotional Society and Culture, who explore how promotional ecologies, identities and practices shift across geographies, audiences and industries, to shape our environments in different ways.
Speakers: Dr Sibo Chen, Dr Nova Gordon-Bell, Professor Mehita Iqani and Professor Burçe Çelik.
Respondent: Dr Clea Bourne.
Chair: Professor Lee Edwards.
We Are Making A Film About Mark Fisher
Wednesday 4 March 2026 6.00pm to 7.40pm, drinks reception to follow
CLM.3.02, Clement House
Departmental in-person event - open to all students and staff at LSE. Limited seating available on a first come basis.
We Are Making a Film About Mark Fisher is a feature-length documentary about the cultural theorist Mark Fisher. The film acts as a meta-fictional exploration of Fisher's ideas and legacy in 21st-century Britain, using the character "Professor Parkins" to time-travel through the landscapes and concepts Fisher wrote about, such as "capitalist realism" and "hauntology". It is a collaborative, budget-less project developed through a public network, embodying Fisher's call for decapitalised creativity.
Speakers: Simon Poulter (Director) and Tony Sampson.
Chair: Rachel O'Neill.
BBC Charter Review: The Alternative Green Paper
Tuesday 3 March 2026 5.00pm to 6.30pm
Online event
The BBC Charter Review is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the British public to debate and decide the BBC’s future. Yet the government’s consultation has been rushed, based on a Green Paper that is overly-complex and features concerning ideas for changing how the BBC is funded, how it is governed, and how it secures its independence from government. The ‘Alternative Green Paper’ is a collaborative project to put the public back at the centre of BBC Charter review, by collecting a wider range of ideas about reforming the BBC. At this launch event, we introduce contributions from audience groups, campaign organisations and media experts, and discuss how the crucial debates on the future of the BBC can be expanded beyond the limited options presented by the Government.
Chair: Professor Lee Edwards.
Reporting Gaza: Coverage, Context and Consequences
Thursday 19 February 2026 6.30pm to 8.00pm
Wolfson Theatre, CKKDepartmental in-person event - open to all. Limited seating available on a first come basis.
This panel examines how mainstream media has covered the war on Gaza and the ongoing dispossession and suffering of Palestinians. It asks whether editorial guidelines on impartiality have been upheld and whether journalism has been able to speak truth to power. The discussion also explores the wider implications of this coverage for journalism standards in the UK, the future of public broadcasting, and the moral and political dimensions of ‘witnessing’ atrocity.Speakers: Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi, Professor Des Freedman and Liliane Landor.
Chair: Professor Myria Georgiou.
EdTech at the crossroads of pedagogy vs profit
Thursday 12 February 2026 6.30pm to 8.00pm
In-person and online event (Malaysia Auditorium, Centre Building)
Following its surge during the pandemic, schools now rely on EdTech for everything from admin tasks to student learning and safety. Yet this rapid growth raises urgent questions: Whose interests does EdTech serve? And what are the consequences when it infringes children’s rights to privacy, education, and protection from commercial exploitation, as our research shows? This lecture draws on research from the Digital Futures for Children centre and the 5Rights Foundation’s Better EdTech Futures for Children project.
Digital borders and queer migrations
Wednesday 4 February 2026 5.30pm to 7.00pm
In-person public event (MAR.1.04, Marshall Building)
This panel brings together a discussion on digital borders and queer migration, examining how technologies shape contemporary experiences of mobility, belonging, and exclusion.
Speakers: Dr Debanuj DasGupta and Professor Myria Georgiou.
Chair: Dr Leticia Sabsay.
Organised by LSE Gender.
World Children’s Day: digital futures for children – children’s rights under pressure in the digital environment
Thursday 20 November 2025 6.30pm to 8.00pm, drinks reception to follow
In-person and online event - open to all
Old Theatre, Old Building
Join us as our panel present findings from an in-depth research project by the Digital Futures for Children centre, the first global effort to track the recognition, uptake, and implementation of children’s rights in digital spaces. Drawing from UN treaty monitoring, national policies, regional frameworks, and civil society advocacy, the research maps how the general comment influences law, policy, and practice. It highlights areas of progress, obstacles, and the steps needed to fully realize children’s rights in an increasingly connected world. The panel discusses pathways for change in international law and digital rights, and explore what comes next.
Speakers: Professor Philip D Jaffe, Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE, Gerison Lansdown and Dr Kim R. Sylwander.
Chair: Professor Sonia Livingstone.
2018 2017 2013 2014
On 15-16 June 2023, we celebrate our 20th anniversary with a conference tackling questions about media's present and future, engaging in critique and considering imaginative pathways for the future. Find out more .
On 16 June 2013, the Department of Media and Communications at LSE celebrated its 10th Anniversary, bringing together LSE scholars with leading international figures in the field.
Over 100 alumni, students and colleagues attended the seminar in the Shaw Library and the festive dinner at the Senior Common Room. The event did not only celebrate the MSc with USC, but also the double programme with Fudan University in Shanghai founded in 2008 and the new programme with the University of Cape Town, founded 2017.
Thanks to our fantastic LA hosts, LSE alumni Michael and Haley Miller, who hosted the gala celebration for the 10th anniversary of our MSc Global Media & Communications, with USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.