The Centre for Catalan Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London, is organizing the International Conference ‘Catalan Culture and Identity in the Digital Era’. The event will take place in London on 5-7 July 2007.

The aim of this conference is to analyse, from an interdisciplinary perspective, the presence of the Catalan community on the Internet, to discuss the characteristics of Catalan cultural production on the Web, and to explore how new media affect the cohesion of the Catalan community and its identity. We wish to address some of the following questions:

  • What is the presence of the Catalan language on the Internet and how far does it affect the social use of Catalan?
  • How strong is Catalan cultural production on the Internet, and what (new) forms of expression does it adopt?
  • How influential are new information sources, such as blogs, in the creation of public opinion?
  • How far does citizens’ usage of the Internet affect the construction of a collective Catalan identity?
  • Considering the influence of new media in the process of globalisation, to what extent is the idea of an identity linked to nation-states under threat? What are the prospects for identity discourses of stateless nations?
  • The Internet enhances the generation of new communities and the adoption of multiple identities; does this undermine the idea of a Catalan community with shared codes?
  • What challenges does the process of technological convergence present to the traditional national media? Will they keep their role as an important factor of social cohesion?

The members of the Conference Committee are Dr Joan-Elies Adell (UOC), Dr Josep-Anton Fernàndez (UOC) and Prof. Montserrat Guibernau (Queen Mary, University of London). Roser Pujadas (Queen Mary, University of London) is the conference organizer.

The Centre for Catalan Studies thanks the Institut Ramon Llull for its generous support.