Online event, 12 October 2023
Organized by the ECREA Section Media Industries and Cultural Production
Keynote speakers
- Epistemic crossroads – towards digital communication system analysis? Signe Sophus Lai & Sofie Flensburg, University of Copenhagen
- Analyzing Cultural Platforms: Interfaces, Infrastructures, Recommender Systems David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
How do we form our understandings of the institutions that shape the media landscapes we live in? This one-day conference seeks to explore the methods we use and approaches we take for understanding media and cultural production in the contemporary moment. The field of media production research has been growing rapidly over the last decades, as more and more researchers see the gains from studying the “backends” of the media and cultural industries. At the same time, new challenges arise due to rapid shifts in the media and cultural industries, as well as forms and practices of media and cultural production and distribution. A sectoral shift in the media and cultural industries has introduced new actors – such as platform industries – and new practices – such as new types of content investment and licensing, and new forms of monetization for user-generated content. New questions, theoretical impulses, and empirical objects have gained attention – focused not only on new infrastructures, but also on their effects on the sustainability of creative industries in European markets, diversity, or transnational content flows. At the same time, new research tools and practices have been developed in the broad field of media and cultural studies, mostly notably digital methods.
This conference explores many of the contemporary challenges to understanding the nature of media and cultural production by focusing on the research process, rather than research findings. In doing so, we hope to encourage researchers to push the boundaries of production research, share useful research designs, as well as challenging moments and failed experiments, that we can still learn from.
We invite scholars to present short papers or provocations on methods and methodology in the field of media and cultural production research. The presentations can reflect on one’s own research designs and methodologies, as well as on broader issues such as developing novel methods and approaches in the field, or conceptual and theoretical discussions on the practice of studying media and cultural production in recent years.
Themes
We invite submissions on topics that may include, but are not limited to:
- Developments: new methods and approaches and new fields of study in developing cultural and media industries
- Challenges: reflections of methodological challenges in accessing, analyzing and/or presenting data
- Traditions: analytical discussions of methodological traditions, including how methodological practices can be adjusted to current trends in society, culture, and technology
- Processes: step-by-step approaches to accessing, collecting, and managing data, including extensive datasets and the use of digital methods
- Designs: challenges and best practices of building a useful research design; key constitutive elements; mixed methods approaches
- Failures: explorations or discussions on methodological failures, examples of studies that did not go as planned and what they tell us about the methodology and/or the object of study
To apply
To apply, submit a 150-300-word abstract (excluding references) and a 100-word bio for each speaker (including email address and affiliation). In your submission, please indicate whether you are applying for a 15-minute presentation or a 7-minute provocation.
Please send your proposal to Vilde Schanke Sundet at v.s.sundet@media.uio.no .
Costs
This online conference will be free of charge.
Deadline for submission
Deadline for submission: 2 June 2023. Decisions will be communicated no later than mid-August.