Research Seminar – Professor Kevin Hannam (Dec 11th)

The Cultural Politics of Mobilities: Towards a research agenda
Venue: Room 233, Media Centre
Date: 11th December, 6pm

Abstract
Contemporary Mobilities encompass both the large-scale movements of people, objects, capital, and information across the world, as well as more local processes of daily transportation, movement through public space, and the travel of material things within everyday life. Recent developments in transportation and communications infrastructures, along with new social and cultural practices of mobility have elicited a number of new research initiatives for understanding the connections between these diverse mobilities. This paper will review these new initiatives.

Rethinking Television Histories: Digitising Europe’s Televisual Heritage

Call for papers
19-21 April 2007
Television historians are currently facing new opportunities and challenges with the development of online access to digitised television archive content from around Europe and beyond.
This conference will explore, compare and critique different historical approaches to television within Europe, and it will also bring together researchers, educators, broadcasters and archivists to discuss the use of, access to and presentation of digitised material. Papers do not necessarily have to be international or comparative in scope, but they should seek to raise issues to be considered within a comparative context.
Key themes for the conference are:
* Issues in selecting historical texts: This includes issues of canons, genres, value (historical, aesthetic, quality), periodisation and archiving.
* Issues in comparative European television history and historiography: This includes cultural identity, ‘European-ness’, contexts, internationalism, neo-colonialism and diasporas, and
methodologies for and examples of comparison.
* Contemporary and forthcoming issues in television history: What is the state of television studies in different countries within Europe and across Europe? What are the main issues and concerns that television historians in Europe are currently addressing or are likely to address
in the near future?
* Web and online resources in education: What are the current activities taking place in this field in Europe? What are the models of best practice? How can educators, researchers and archivists work better to create and sustain effective virtual and online learning
environments?
* Television archives and digitisation: What are the current trends,
policies and practises in archiving, digitisation and online activity?
* The history of international trade in shows and formats: Papers on distribution networks, transatlantic trade, transnational texts, co- production and technologies.
The conference is being organised by the Department of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, University of London, as part of the Video Active project, a major EU funded initiative to provide online access to digitised television content from 11 European archives. The conference,
to be held at the Strand campus of King’s College, University of London, will play a crucial role in informing and influencing the development of the project’s content selection and editorial strategies.
Proposals of 200 words maximum, together with name and institution/organisation should be submitted to
videoactiveprop@rhul.ac.uk by 17 January 2007.

Political Communications Comes North

Leading academics in political communications gathered in Sunderland on 17th and 18th November for the annual conference of the media and politics group of the Political Studies Association, one of the world’s leading organisations in the study of politics. The conference, hosted by the University’s Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies and themed around “international perspectives”, was the largest held by the group so far, with 50 delegates from Europe and America listening to 22 papers and 3 keynote speakers, as well as an address by Sunderland South MP Chris Mullin. The event was also a first for the North, with previous group conferences having been held at the Universities of East Anglia, Loughborough and Oxford. Conference organiser and co-convenor of the media and politics group, Sunderland’s Dr Michael Higgins, said “the success of the event in attracting such an impressive array of speakers and fostering such high quality debate is a reflection of the long-standing reputation of Sunderland in the academic study of the media”.

Photo, Left to Right: Professor Justin Lewis (Cardiff), Professor John Street (East Anglia), Dr Michael Higgins (Sunderland), Professor John Storey (Sunderland).

Research Seminar – Dr Daniela Wawra (University of Passau)

“What are your strengths and weaknesses?” – Women and men in the job interview.
Date: Monday 27th November, 6pm
Venue: Room 233, Media Centre
Mainly two questions are addressed in this paper:
1. Do women and men differ in their language use in the context of job interviews and if yes, in what respects?
2. What are the consequences?
The empirical part of the study is based on a corpus containing 18 job interviews (9 with male, 9 with female applicants) that was compiled at Passau University. The data was analysed with a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods along the following five dimensions:
1. Competence/incompetence
2. Personal/impersonal language use
3. Secure/insecure language use
4. Dominant language use
5. Quantity of the sexes’ utterances
Significant differences between the sexes were found with regard to these dimensions. The main result of the study is that women tend to hide their light under a bushel.

Research Seminar – Dr Niall Richardson (Nov 20th)

‘Effeminophobia meets Misogyny: Channel 4′s ‘Playing it Straight”
Venue: Media Centre, room 233.
Time: 6pm, November 20th
This paper analyses the cultural themes of the Channel 4 show ‘Playing It Straight’ a variation on the ‘dating show’ genre in which a female contestant must select the man of her dreams from ten suitors. However, the twist in the show’s format is that not all of the men are heterosexually identified. The paper contends that the show’s narrative is not homophobic but effeminophobic (fear of effeminacy). Secondly, the paper analyses how the show positions all the male contestants, both gay and straight, within the matrix of New Lad style, highly misogynist, homosocial bonding. Finally, the paper considers how the show mobilises one of the dominate cultural themes in contemporary popular culture: the ‘safe eroticism’ or ‘queer’ friendship that can develop between a straight woman and a gay identified man.
Follow the link below for the Playing It Straight website:
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/P/play_straight/index.html