Last weekend, we hosted a truly special gathering of scholars and practitioners in the area of media, journalism, international relations, communications, psychology, law and dispute resolution.  I will be blogging a few more times about the conference, abstracts, and upcoming Marquette Law Review on the symposium but wanted, for now, to post a couple responses to the conference that I received from attendees. 

One of our alum who attended, Evelyn Ang, sent me this clip in light of what we had talked about in the media and the impact of changing media.  Truly an amazing video!  Another alum, Amy Koltz, noted, “I found the speakers engaging and the presentations thought provoking – I’m amazed at the group of presenters you were able to pull together and bring to Marquette” and linked this article from Haaretz here on media coverage of Israel and noted that it could have been a presentation in the conference.  Our own program manager and conference planner, Natalie Fleury, heard this story on NPR Monday morning about Al Qaida’s training manual on the internet, directly linking to Gabriel Weimann’s talk on Saturday.

 And, from 2L part-time law student (and full-time vetenarian) Marty Greer, came this summary of the conference for those who missed it:

The presenters were from all over the United States and the world; Israel, Belgium, Italy, California, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Their backgrounds ranged from journalism, academia, law, and conflict resolution. To say it was a rich and diverse experience sounds too trite for what happened there. These sad and overused terms cannot begin to describe the energy in the room. It was 1 part educational experience, 1 part idea exchange, and 1 part light bulbs going on over the attendees and presenters heads. Each of the presenters introduced new and exciting concepts; new even to the people heavily steeped in these areas. For the scholars, it was easy to see new ideas coming together and evolving into new research and a new paper. For the journalists, they developed a new appreciation of how their work can aid in reducing and resolving conflict. For the attorneys and others involved in the practice of conflict resolution, this was a great source of theoretical and hands-on experience that could be applied in the field. For those with short attention spans, each presentation was short, concise and to the point. This allowed the opportunity for many viewpoints to be presented and plenty of time for the attendees and fellow presenters to delve into the topics they were most intrigued by. All in all, this was a unique and valuable experience, where we were allowed to rub shoulders with the leaders in these fields. 

In future blogs, I will link to the webcasts and slideshow when it becomes available and our abstracts for articles as they arrive.  My thanks to all our speakers and our great planning team here for a terrific conference.