FSD and Popular Communication Pre-Conference Information

Analysing Media Industries and Media Production: an Emerging Key Area for Communication Research

Organised by the Popular Communication and Feminist Scholarship Divisions

Date: 22 May 2008
Venue: tbc
Costs: $tba will include lunch and regular coffee/tea breaks

Description and Rationale:

This pre-conference brings together established and up and coming scholars who are examining the fundamental question of how popular communication artefacts come to take the form they do. This question involves re-examining questions of cultural production, the status of cultural industries, and their organization in light of new approaches drawn from cultural studies, feminist and critical race studies, and global studies. This is a vibrant and interdisciplinary area, drawing on sociology, cultural studies, organisational and management studies, political economy, economics, social history, cultural geography and social theory, to name just a few. Which theories and methods are most likely to consolidate the recent success of this field of analysis? What tensions exist between the various disciplines contributing to the field and how might they best be addressed?

The pre-conference addresses these questions in four panels, consisting of leading speakers that represent disciplinary and geographic diversity. Each group of presentations will be followed by open round-table discussion from all participants. The preconference is meant as an inclusive dialogue, a chance to search for points of agreement as well as clarify differences. Position papers will be posted to all participants before the conference and we will establish a blog for participants to post questions and challenges that we may address during the course of the day. Following the preconference, we expect to look to participants for next steps in considering production or industrial studies as part of the communication discipline.

Pre-conference convenors:
David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
Amanda Lotz, University of Michigan
Vicki Mayer, Tulane University

Panel 1: Traditions of Theory and Research, 8:30-10 a.m.
This panel brings together three traditions with their own theoretical orientations. John Caldwell (Professor and Chair of Critical Studies at UCLA) addresses the contribution of film and television studies to a long history of mass communication research. Graham Murdock (Reader in the Sociology of Culture at Loughborough University) has been a key theorist of the political economy of culture. Joseph Turow (Robert Lewis Shayon Professor of Communication at Penn's Annenberg School for Communication) has been a longtime proponent of organizational approaches in the study of media industries.
Moderator: Amanda Lotz, University of Michigan

John Caldwell, UCLA
Graham Murdock, University of Loughborough
Joseph Turow, University of Pennsylvania


Panel 2: Methods, 10:30-noon
This panel brings us to our diverse groundings, that is, the actual methods we use in building our theories about production and industries. Widely influenced by feminist theories and ethnographic approaches, these panels present complementary, yet distinct approaches to the study of challenging spaces and their human subjects. Georgina Born (Fellow and Director of Studies in Social and Political Sciences, at Emmanuel College, Cambridge) brings an anthropological perspective based in her esteemed work on musicians and BBC employees. Laura Grindstaff (Associate Professor of Sociology at University of California, Davis) adds the perspective of the participant-observer in a sociological tradition. Lisa McLaughlin (Associate Professor of Mass Communication and Women’s Studies) adds a third voice straight from the field, with a discussion of feminist methods in the context of global electronics industries.
Moderator: Vicki Mayer, Tulane University

Georgina Born, University of Cambridge
Laura Grindstaff, UC-Davis
Lisa McLaughlin, Miami University

Lunch 12:30 – 2 p.m.

Panel 3: Transnational Industries and Production, 2-3:30 pm
Theories surrounding the globalization of media industries and their ancillary products frequently overlook the local dimensions to production, distribution, and exhibition circuits. This panel seeks to overcome these dichotomies with a discussion of the global dimensions of their located research. Michael Curtin (Professor of Media and Cultural Studies and Director of Global Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison), Jyotsna Kapur (Associate Professor of Cinema at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale), and Serra Tinic (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alberta) are each working on geographies (respectively, China, India, and Canada) that are crucially important to our understanding of global production, from the roles of states and transnational industries, to the perspectives of workers and laborers in those fields.
Moderator: David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds

Michael Curtin, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Jyotsna Kapur, SIU-Carbondale
Serra Tinic, U. of Alberta

Panel 4: Directions, 4-5:30 p.m.
This final panel raises future directions for a study of cultural industries and production by capturing some issues that have frequently fall outside of the purviews of our respective disciplines. Jonathan Burston (Assistant Professor of Information Studies at the University of Western Ontario) investigates the role of the military in media production. David Hesmondalgh (Professor of Media and Music Industries at the University of Leeds) raises the role of affect in symbolic production sites. Vicki Mayer (Associate Professor and Chair of Communication at Tulane University) works with invisible labor communities in the new television economy. Timothy Havens (Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Iowa) pushes us to look at cultural negotiations in standard business practices.
Moderator: Amanda Lotz, University of Michigan

Jonathan Burston, University of Western Ontario
David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds
Vicki Mayer, Tulane University
Tim Havens, University of Iowa