In the Loop: Julia Sonnevend

Designing Global Iconic Events

Julia Sonnevend will talk to us about the institutional and cultural mechanisms that produce events perceived to be globally and historically significant and the mechanisms by which they are transported to different locations and contexts. Focusing on the initial and anniversary coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall in German and American media, she will highlight the narrative challenges enduring international news events pose. Julia will also discuss the obstacles for conducting comparative media research in fragmented legal-cultural landscapes and shifting technological environments.

About Julia

Julia Sonnevend is assistant professor of communication studies at the University of Michigan. She has been named a Lady Davis Fellow at the Smart Family Institute of Communications at the Hebrew University and an associate postdoctoral fellow at the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace (she will be in Jerusalem from December 2013 until September 2014).

Sonnevend's interdisciplinary research examines the cultural aspects of global media, with a special focus on media events, rituals, performances, symbols, and icons. Inspired by Daniel Dayan’s and Elihu Katz’s Media Events, her current book project explores how a complex local news event may become a universalized global social myth. Her research interests also include social theory, visual culture, narratives of political, social and cultural trauma, and the intellectual history of communication research.

Julia Sonnevend received her Ph.D. in communications from Columbia University, her master of law degree from Yale Law School, and her juris doctorate and master of arts degrees in German studies and aesthetics from Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. Find out more on her website at julia-sonnevend.com.