Zaharom Nain
Professor, Faculty of Arts
Contact
- workRoom B1B14 Block Annex
Malaysia Campus
Jalan Broga
43500 Semenyih
Selangor Darul Ehsan
Malaysia - work+6 (03) 8924 8737
- fax+6 (03) 8924 8020
- Zaharom.Nain@nottingham.edu.my
Expertise Summary
Associate Professor Zaharom Nain teaches in both the BA in International Communication and the MA in Cultural Studies programmes. He joined UNMC in 2010, having taught Communication Studies for more than two decades in a Malaysian public university. He received his undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Communication Studies from Coventry University and the University of Leicester, England. He is co-editor of two books, Communication and Development: The Freirean Connection (Hampton: 2001) and Who Owns The Media: Global Trends and Local Resistances (Zed/Southbound: 2004) and has authored more than 80 book chapters, journal articles and conference papers. He has been a consultant to the Geneva-based United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Malaysian agencies such as the national petroleum company, PETRONAS, and the Malaysian Institute for Economic Research (MIER). He was awarded a Fulbright Professorship to lecture in the University of California, San Diego (1998-1999), a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship to conduct research at Sophia University, Tokyo (1995) and was a Visiting Fellow in 2004 at Simon Fraser University (Canada), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne (USA) and the University of Utah (USA). More recently (2009), he was awarded another Fulbright to conduct lectures in Johnson, Vermont. His background and research interests are in the sociology of communications and the political economy of the media. He is presently putting together a volume on media, education and politics in Malaysia and is co-editing a volume of critical studies on the political economy of the media. Apart from heading a six-nation study on the relationship between civil society, the new media and the state in Southeast Asia, he also writes a weekly column for the Borneo Post.
Teaching Summary
Rom teaches in both the BA in International Communications Studies programme and the MA in Cultural Studies. With a background in both Political Economy and Cultural Studies, he currently teaches… read more
Research Summary
Rom currently heads a 6-nation study titled Regimes, Civil Society and ICTs. The two-year study (2009-2011), funded by Canada's IDRC, examines how civil society organisations in six countries in the… read more
Recent Publications
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2009. “Private profits, state sanctions and public participation: The disservice of the media and development orthodoxy. International Journal of Institutions and Economies. 1(2), 283-298
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2007. “Curbing controversy: Islam Hadhari, religious rights and the Malaysian media.” Journal of Communication Arts. 25(4), 86-96
PRADIP THOMAS & ZAHAROM NAIN, ed., 2004. Who Owns The Media? Global Trends and Local Resistance WACC/Zed: London/Penang.
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2003. “Media role in a k-economy: transforming media education in Malaysia.” Asia Pacific Media Educator. 14, 156-165
Rom is currently the School's Head of Postgraduate Studies and Research and also Director of the Centre for the Study of Communications and Culture (CSCC).
In the Spring of 2011, with the support of UNMC and Air Asia, Rom successfully convened the inaugural series of CSCC seminars titled Public Intellectuals and Public Discourse in Southeast Asia, with speakers from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and India.
Rom teaches in both the BA in International Communications Studies programme and the MA in Cultural Studies. With a background in both Political Economy and Cultural Studies, he currently teaches courses that link the cultural industries, particularly media, with questions of social inequality and repression both within and between nation states. His main pedagogic concern is with providing the space for the development of counter-hegemonic discourses in a context where such space is indeed limited. Undergraduate modules:
- Introduction to Communications Theory
- Mass Media
- Global Media and Communications
- Communication Technologies
Postgraduate modules:
- Cultural Policy
- Mass Media
Current Research
Rom currently heads a 6-nation study titled Regimes, Civil Society and ICTs. The two-year study (2009-2011), funded by Canada's IDRC, examines how civil society organisations in six countries in the Southeast Asian region (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam) are using the new media to expand their activities, often under politically repressive circumstance. Rom will be discussing the results of the study at the IAMCR conference in Istanbul, Turkey in July 2011. As the country researcher for Malaysia, he is also presently completing the Malaysian chapter of a 60 countries Open Society Foundation study of the impact of digitization on journalism and freedom of expression. Together with colleagues in the Education and Business schools, Rom is also completing (2011) a study on Teenage Pregnancies and the Abandonment of Babies in Malaysia, funded by the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education.
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2009. “Private profits, state sanctions and public participation: The disservice of the media and development orthodoxy. International Journal of Institutions and Economies. 1(2), 283-298
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2007. “Curbing controversy: Islam Hadhari, religious rights and the Malaysian media.” Journal of Communication Arts. 25(4), 86-96
PRADIP THOMAS & ZAHAROM NAIN, ed., 2004. Who Owns The Media? Global Trends and Local Resistance WACC/Zed: London/Penang.
ZAHAROM NAIN, 2003. “Media role in a k-economy: transforming media education in Malaysia.” Asia Pacific Media Educator. 14, 156-165
M. RICHARDS, P. THOMAS & ZAHAROM NAIN, ed., 2001. Communication and Development: The Freirean Connection Hampton: New Jersey.
ZAHAROM NAIN & MUSTAFA K. ANUAR, 1998. "Ownership and control of the Malaysian media.” Media Development. (London). XLV(4), 9-17 (In Press.)
ZAHAROM NAIN, 1996. "Rhetoric and realities: Malaysian television policy in an era of globalisation." Asian Journal of Communication (Singapore). 6(1), 43-64
ZAHAROM NAIN, 1994. "Commercialisation and control in a 'caring society' - Malaysian media 'towards 2020'.” SOJOURN (Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia) (Singapore). 9(2), 178-199 (In Press.)
ZAHAROM NAIN & YAO SOUCHOU, ed., 1994. Mass Media: Local and Global Positions. SOJOURN (Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia) (Singapore).
ZAHAROM NAIN, 1993. "Promoting independent and pluralistic Asian media." Media Development. (London). XL(2), 64-65
ZAHAROM NAIN, 1993. "The development of communication education in Malaysia." Journal of the Commonwealth Association for Education in Journalism and Communication. (Canada). 4, 28-37 (In Press.)