[ecrea] Contemporary Serial Culture: Quality TV Series in a New Media Environment

Call for Papers

Contemporary Serial Culture: Quality TV Series in a New Media Environment

International Conference, January 14 - 16, 2010, Potsdam-Babelsberg, Germany

The first decade of the 21st century saw an 
increasing popularity of serial forms in 
television. Series like Alias, CSI, Fringe, 
Grey?s Anatomy, Six Feet Under, Heroes, Lost, 
Private Practice, The Shield, The Sopranos, 
Dexter, True Blood, 24, Ugly Betty, The Wire and 
several others gain a certain success with 
audiences all over the world. They are very often 
characterised as ?Quality TV? because its 
narrative structure, representation of characters 
and aesthetic form shall be more complex and 
sophisticated than older series. Reasonable they 
are not only successful because they appear on TV 
screens, but also because they are available on 
DVD, they generate spin-offs for mobile advices, 
and they can rely on an active fan community in 
the internet and on the convergence of different media.



Unfortunately during the past ten years scholars 
in media studies, cultural studies and television 
studies have given more attention to TV forms 
like reality TV, docudramas and documentaries. TV 
fiction was not a hot spot, except some popular 
book series like ?Philosophy and .? and 
?Reading...? which focus on poopular TV series 
like CSI, Lost, Sopranos or 24. These books 
highlight accidentally several aspects of the 
series. They lack of a systematic approach, 
analyzing the series in the context of TV 
theories, narration theories, theories of media 
economics, theories of global media communication, and audience studies.



The aim of the conference is to take a closer 
look at the series in question from a variety of 
perspectives. Therefore we are looking for papers 
dealing with the following issues:


   * Series in the context of economy, the global media market and production
   * Narrative innovation and narrative complexity of quality series
   * Audience studies of series (series, 
identity, internet and everyday life)
   * Comparative studies of international series adaptations
   * Studies of convergence culture (TV, Internet, digital games)
   * Serial storytelling in new media 
environments (i.e. Web-Series, Series for mobile devices etc.)
   * Patterns of violence, pornography and new serial aesthetics
   * Series and the contemporary culture and society



Papers are welcome from a broad range of academic 
disciplines. Please send abstracts of nor more 
than 400 words and a short biographical note to 
one of the organisers of the conference:

Lothar Mikos (<mailto:(l.mikos /at/ hff-potsdam.de)>(l.mikos /at/ hff-potsdam.de))

Rainer Winter (<mailto:(rainer.winter /at/ uni-klu.ac.at)>(rainer.winter /at/ uni-klu.ac.at))

and a copy to Susanne Eichner 
(<mailto:(s.eichner /at/ hff-potsdam.de)>(s.eichner /at/ hff-potsdam.de))



Deadline for submissions: November 15, 2009



The conference will take place at the Hochschule 
für Film und Fernsehen (University of Film and 
Television) in Potsdam-Babelsberg, close to 
Berlin. It is organized in cooperation with the 
Institute of Media and Communications of 
Klagenfurt University (Austria), the Popular 
Communication Division of the ICA, the Popular 
Culture Working Group of the IAMCR, the Media and 
Communication Section and the Section of Cultural 
Sociology of the German Sociological Association.


Dr. Lothar Mikos
Professor of Television Studies
Medienwissenschaft
Hochschule für Film und Fernsehen "Konrad Wolf"
Marlene-Dietrich-Allee 11
D-14482 Potsdam
Phone: 0049(0)331 6202 210 (-211 Secr.)
Mail: (l.mikos /at/ hff-potsdam.de)


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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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