City University of Hong Kong
CityUHK Announcement Portal (CAP)
City University of Hong Kong
CityUHK Announcement Portal (CAP)

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[All Are Welcome] Research Seminar by Professor Bingchun MENG on 28 September 2026
(POSTED: 2026-09-17 4:12 PM )

 

COM Research Seminar: Visibility in the Age of Platform Data Traffic by Professor Bingchun MENG, Professor in the Department for Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, England. Date & Time: 28 September 2026, 16:00 - 17:30. Venue: Multimedia Laboratory (M5055),5/F, Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre, please click https://www.cityu.edu.hk/com/Public/AppForms/StI_AppForm.aspx?id=1514 to register for the seminar by 23 September 2026. Language: English. Abstract Social scientists have long treated visibility as a resource tied to recognition and power. But on today's platforms, visibility is also computed: ranked, circulated, and monetized before any human audience ever sees it. Drawing on Andrea Brighenti's influential theory of visibility as a sociological category, this talk proposes three updates for the platform age. First, data traffic adds a layer of visibility that precedes perception itself. Second, valorisation makes visibility simultaneously an act of recognition and of economic extraction. Third, competing orders of worth mean the same visible act can be judged legitimate and illegitimate at once. Together, these updates ask what it would mean to measure visibility as multiple, rather than singular. About the speaker: Bingchun Meng is a Professor in the Department for Media and Communications at LSE and the Director of LSE PhD Academy and LSE-ESRC Doctoral Training Partnership. She is also the Co-Director of LSE-Fudan Global Public Policy Research Centre. Her research interests include gender and the media, political economy of media industries, communication governance, and comparative media studies. She has published widely in these topic areas on leading academic journals. From 2020 to 2021, she served as a Senior Fellow of Global Governance Futures 2035 organized by Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin under the sponsorship with Bosch Foundation. In December 2025, Professor Meng was appointed Senior Lingnan Fellow of Lingnan University Institute of Advanced Studies (LUIAS). For enquiries, please call 34428677.

Category:
Research Seminar
Department:
Department of Media and Communication (COM)
Venue:
Multimedia Laboratory (M5055), 5/F Run Run Shaw Creative Media Centre
Start Date:
2026-09-17 00:00
End Date:
2026-09-27 00:00
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