[Commlist] CFP Media Work in Asia (Joint NTU-KCL Symposium)

Call for Papers

International Symposium on Media Work in Asia

Jointly organised by King’s College London (CMCI) & Nanyang
Technological University (WKWSCI)

CFP deadline: 1 February 2026
Notification of acceptance: End of February 2026
Symposium dates: 16 and 17 July 2026
Symposium venue: In-person at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication
and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Research on media work and labour has largely focused on Euro-American
centres of the creative industries, where the prototypical media
worker is often imagined as “white, middle-class, male, urban, and
able-bodied” (Alacovska & Gill, 2019). While this scholarship has
provided foundational insights into creative labour, precarity, and
affective economies (Banks, 2017; Gill & Pratt, 2008; Hesmondhalgh &
Baker, 2011), it has left the diverse and dynamic media landscapes of
Asia comparatively underexplored (de Kloet et al., 2020).

In recent years, however, an emerging body of literature has begun to
chart creative labour across Asia (Promkhuntong, 2025; Fong, 2024;
Kim, 2014; Lai 2023; Lin, 2023; Tse, 2022). Yet, this scholarship
remains fragmented across linguistic, national, and disciplinary
boundaries, with some regions and smaller media economies particularly
underrepresented. There is a pressing need to develop sustained
inter-Asian dialogues and comparative frameworks that connect these
studies and build a more integrated understanding of media work across
the region.

The symposium welcomes proposals addressing key questions that include
but are not limited to:

- Conditions of work: How do regulatory regimes, platformisation,
financing structures, and informality shape labour precarity,
mobility, and professionalisation in Asian contexts?
- Practices and organisations: What forms of skill, care, or
collective organisation—formal or informal—emerge among media workers
across different locales and sectors?
- Methods and comparison: Which comparative and inter-Asian methods
best capture convergences and divergences across sites (e.g.,
ethnography, policy analysis, production studies)?
- Beyond Western frames: How do Asian experiences challenge or revise
dominant Euro-American theories of creative labour?

The symposium also marks the launch of the Asian Media Industries
Network, a new initiative jointly based at the Culture, Media and
Creative Industries (CMCI) at King’s College London and the Wee Kim
Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) at Nanyang
Technological University. The network seeks to foster sustained
dialogue and collaboration among researchers working on Asian media
industries, creating an intellectual platform for comparative,
interdisciplinary, and cross-regional approaches. Through this
gathering, the symposium aims to set the stage for future
collaborative projects, publications, and exchanges that will
consolidate Asia’s centrality to debates on media work and labour in
the global creative economy.

The symposium aims to:

- Redress geographic and epistemic imbalance by showcasing diverse
scholarship on Asian media work that remains underrepresented in
Euro-American–centric literatures.
- Develop inter-Asian frameworks to conceptualise media labour beyond
Western paradigms through comparative, interdisciplinary, and
cross-regional approaches.
- Launch and operationalise the Asian Media Industries Network, a new
collaborative platform jointly based at CMCI (King’s College London)
and WKWSCI (Nanyang Technological University).
- Catalyse future collaboration and outputs, including co-authored
publications, special journal issues, and research grants on Asian
media labour.
- Engage policy and industry by fostering dialogue between researchers
and practitioners (e.g., guilds, platforms, regulators) to inform
creative-economy policies and labour standards.

*Keynote Speakers*

Professor Hye-Kyung Lee (King’s College London)
Additional industry professionals will join as keynote and roundtable
participants.

*Submission Details*

SUBMISSION LINK: https://forms.cloud.microsoft/r/C7MX6ecRm8
Formats accepted: Individual papers, pre-formed panels, and roundtables
Submission deadline: 1 February 2026
Notification of acceptance: End of February 2026
Registration fees: SGD $50 (full-time academics) | SGD $20 (students
and non-full time employed participants)
Travel subsidies: Available for selected participants based on
employment status and country of origin

*About the Network*

The Asian Media Industries Network is a new initiative jointly hosted
by Dr. Siao Yuong FONG at King’s College London (CMCI) and Dr. Pei-Sze
CHOW at Nanyang Technological University (WKWSCI). The network seeks
to foster sustained dialogue and collaboration among researchers of
Asian media industries, creating an intellectual platform for
comparative, interdisciplinary, and cross-regional engagement.

*Symposium Organisers*

Dr. Pei-Sze CHOW (Nanyang Technological University, WKWSCI)
Email: (peisze.chow /at/ ntu.edu.sg)

Dr. Siao Yuong FONG (King’s College London, CMCI)
Email: (siao_yuong.fong /at/ kcl.ac.uk)

Please direct any queries to both symposium organisers via email.

*References*

Alacovska, A., & Gill, R. (2019). De-westernizing creative labour
studies: The informality of creative work from an ex-centric
perspective. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 22(2),
195-212.
Banks, M. (2017). Creative justice: Cultural industries, work and
inequality. Rowman & Littlefield.
de Kloet J, Lin J, Chow YF (2020) Introduction: Creative labour in
East Asia. Global Media and China 5(4): 347–353.
Fong, S. Y. (2024). ‘They don’t need us’: Affective precarity and
critique in transnational media work from the margins of ‘Cultural
China’. Media, Culture & Society, 46(7), 1327-1343.
Gill, R., & Pratt, A. (2008). In the Social Factory?: Immaterial
Labour, Precariousness and Cultural Work: Immaterial Labour,
Precariousness and Cultural Work. Theory, Culture & Society, 25(7-8),
1-30.
Hesmondhalgh, D., & Baker, S. (2011). Creative labour: Media work in
three cultural industries. Routledge.
Keane, M. (2019). Creative industries in China: Art, design and media.
Polity Press.
Kim C (2014) Labor and the limits of seduction in Korea’s creative
economy. Television & New Media 15(6): 562–576.
Lai, J. Y. H. (2023). Dire-Straits: Taiwanese TV screenwriters in the
neoliberal and authoritarian 2010s. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies,
24(5), 761–775.
Lin, J. (2023). Chinese Creator Economies: Labour, Subjectivity and
the Bilateral Creatives. New York University Press.
Promkhuntong, W. (2025). The Pluralism of Thai Boys Love Industry:
Auteur Migration, Fan Showrunners, Labor Vulnerability, and Queer
Potentiality. Television & New Media, 0(0).
Tse, T. (2022) Work faster, harder, cheaper? Global, local and
sectoral co-configurations of job insecurities among Hong Kong
creative workers. Critical Sociology 48: 1141–1167.
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