International Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences (ICHSS2016)

In our time, the speed with which information is produced and consumed is unprecedented. Cutting across geographical boundaries, the ripple of globalization and the explosion of media applications have been pivotal in bringing about this wave of change. This has infinitely impacted our cultural, linguistic and historical definitions of humanity. Specifically, the creation, communication and negotiation of knowledge as well as the construction of the notions of Self and Other have transformed the way we understand human thought and behaviour. As a result, we ask how such changes will impact the way we understand and embrace new forms of learning. How do we go on to educate our children in schools and young people in higher education? How has the occurrence of new and hybrid cultures affected communities and nations? How do the demands of new media on the everyday lives of the ordinary folk function to alter national and international policies and agenda? Such new forms of epistemological and ontological questions require new research approaches and investigative lenses so that how we live, learn and communicate in the 21st century can be better understood. More important, we ask the question of how this wave of change serves to both challenge and extend the boundaries that govern the way civil societies the world over, conduct themselves. Thus, in answering the universal call to look within and understand the human person, we return to the study of the humanities. In approaching this domain, we must constantly remind ourselves that the human person is above all else, a complex co-mingling of world-views, values, beliefs and attitudes.