[Commlist] CFP: Media and Emotion Conference

The Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice, in the 
Faculty of Media, Science and Technology at Bournemouth University 
invites scholarly and practice-based proposals for an in-person 
conference on media and emotion.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION 3 May 2026

Including 2 days with up to 100+ papers in 30+ panels, 4 keynote events, 
lunches and refreshment breaks for both days, optional self-funded 
conference meal, student rates (and lottery free spaces) and campus 
accommodation available – Talbot Campus – Bournemouth University

As neuroscientist Raymond J. Dolan observes, “emotion provides the 
principal currency in human relationships as well as the motivational 
force for what is best and worst in human behaviour” (2002). Within 
contemporary media production and consumption, emotion often binds us 
together, at times appearing as a language of intimacy, vulnerability 
and reflexivity, and at times appearing as a language of division, 
entitlement and exclusion. Therefore, emotions expressed and evoked 
through media have attracted sustained scholarly attention across a wide 
range of disciplines, spanning the humanities, the social sciences, and 
the natural sciences.
  Notably, in the era of populism, political leaders deploy emotionally 
charged narratives, in offering simple answers to complex problems, 
often with minority groups as the targets of division and abjection. 
Also, techniques of production and representation deploy the language of 
emotion, in aesthetic and narrative-oriented contexts, and theoretical 
work is constantly evolving.
As Laura U. Marks discussed in her landmark text The Skin of Film 
(1999), contemporary media offers a creative space for issues of touch, 
memory and hegemonic challenge, invigorated through a media-based 
emotional landscape. At the same time Sara Ahmed has theorised in The 
Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014), that ‘affective economies’ and 
‘sticky associations’ shape our phenomenological landscapes, defining 
boundaries for minority voices as much as offering spaces for resistance 
and reinvention.
We invite scholars from any related disciplines and industry 
practitioners to participate in this conference and share critical 
perspectives on media and emotion, drawing on their theoretical models, 
research trajectories or practice-based environments. Our keynote 
speakers, Kristyn Gorton, Kim Akass and Lisa Blackman, and our Industry 
keynote panel led by Christa van Raalte (see below), will offer insights 
into media affects and their intersection with scholarly and 
practice-based approaches.
AREAS OF INQUIRY (not exhaustive)

●	Emotional states, such as anger, anomie, confusion, compulsion, 
contempt, disgust, dissociation, fear, happiness, indifference, joy, 
longing, nihilism, rage, regret, shame, surprise.
●	Practice oriented contexts, such as broadcasting, cinematography, 
directing, distribution, drama, documentary, editing, journalism, 
liveness, marketing, streaming, social media, touchscreen technology, 
workplace. ●	Political and social worlds, such as Brexit, Covid-19, 
citizenship, community, Gaza, disability, ethnicity, inclusivity, 
nationality, neoliberalism, race, religion, Sudan, Thatcherism, Trump, 
Ukraine.
●	Theoretical models, relating to concepts, such as affect, alienation, 
behaviour, cognition, community, colonialism, consumption, embodiment, 
gender, genre, identity, inclusivity, memory, minority, nostalgia, 
orientalism, otherness, pastiche, post-colonialism, phenomenology, 
reasoning, regulation, representation, sexuality, surrealism, social 
realism, trauma.

SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSALS:
Please submit abstract proposals of 250 words (max) by the 3 May 2026, 
using the appropriate links below (as single paper or pre-formed panel):
Media and Emotion Conference September 2026: SINGLE PAPER PROPOSAL   – 
Fill out online link form below

( 
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=VZbi7ZfQ5EK7tfONQn-_uKTV25ijuANLi5dE2tVQ245UQTlTMVo3WjIxOU44MzVRQldYV0hYNUdXTS4u 
)

Media and Emotion Conference September 2026: PRE-FORMED PANEL PROPOSAL – 
Fill out online link form below

( 
https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=VZbi7ZfQ5EK7tfONQn-_uKTV25ijuANLi5dE2tVQ245UQjBBMzcxWFVDUDRJMzhaU1dLTVFRWDRXSy4u 
)


Decisions will be announced after 15th May 2026
NB: This conference is an in-person event only, with no facility for 
hybrid presentations.
STUDENTS:
We will also offer postgraduate researchers the opportunity to enter a 
lottery to win a registration fee waiver (with five spaces available).
REGISTRATION & ACCOMMODATION
Registration fee: including refreshments and lunch for two days:
£140 (students, part time employment)
£170 (full time employment)
Conference evening meal will be available under a separate invitation, 
at own cost. On site campus accommodation will be available at £75 for 
three nights (fixed price), plus £25 for each additional night (over the 
preceding weekend)
Local hotels available at reduced conference rates.
CONFIRMED KEYNOTES:
Lisa Blackman (Professor in Media and Communications – Goldsmiths 
University) - whose work includes:
●	Grey Media: A Psychopolitics of Deception (Punctum Books 2026).
●	Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science (Bloomsbury 2019).

DECEIT AND DECEPTION: Lisa will explore media and emotion through the 
concept of ‘grey media’, a term which brings into alignment the long 
histories of apparatuses of deceit and deception which have a distinct 
mediality, linking the gaslighting of emotional abuse, information 
warfare and AI Deception.
Kristyn Gorton (Professor of Film and Television – University of Leeds) 
-– whose work includes:  ●	Emotion Online: Theorising Affect on the 
Internet (Palgrave 2013). ●	Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and 
Emotion (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).

EMPATHY AND INTIMACY:  This paper returns to Kristyn’s earlier work (as 
above) and engages with recent work on 'empathy' and 'intimacy' to 
reflect on the development of the field and the ways in which television 
constructs emotion. Kristyn will draw on examples from serial melodrama 
which use excess to mark out spaces for viewers to work through 
narratives of social justice and change. The paper will also consider 
how the production cultures impact and inform the affective landscape of 
these stories.

Kim Akass (Professor of Radio Television and Film) - whose work includes:
●	Mothers on American Television: From Here to Maternity (Manchester 
University Press 2023).

RAGE AND MOTHERHOOD: Since the overturn of Roe vs Wade in June 2022 and 
the resulting ban on abortion in 13 states (so far), is it surprising 
that we are seeing so much female rage on our screens? From postpartum 
psychosis in Die My Love (Lynne Ramsay, 2025) to If I Had Legs, I Would 
Kick You (Mary Bronstein, 2025) maternal rage is, well, all the rage. In 
this paper Kim will explore how female rage has emerged as a theme in 
film and TV and asks whether this is due to an increase in women behind 
the scenes or a reaction to punitive legislation against women’s 
reproductive rights.

Christa van Raalte (Associate Professor of Film and Television – 
Bournemouth University) – whose work includes:

•	The Good Manager in TV: Tales for the Twenty-first Century, in 
Creative Industries Journal (2024), (with Wallis, R.).
•	More Than Just a Few ‘Bad Apples’: The Need for a Risk Management 
Approach to the Problem of Workplace Bullying in the UK’s Television 
Industry, in Creative Industries Journal (2023), (with Wallis, R. and 
Pekalski, D.).

TV INDUSTRY PANEL: THE ECONOMICS OF EMOTION:  Christa will also bring 
together a range of industry practitioners, considering how emotion 
works as a commodity for creativity, in artistic and workplace contexts. 
What are the safeguarding standards when creators, collaborators and 
audiences engage with productions that frame emotional media? How might 
media producers negotiate the polarising emotional landscape and ethical 
broadcasting standards when creating content?
We are looking forward to your submissions!!

Conference organisers: Christopher Pullen, Catalin Brylla & Savvas 
Voutyras of The Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice
Bournemouth University, Faculty of Media, Science and Technology, Talbot 
Campus, Fern Barrow Poole, BH12 5BB.

Conference email contact: (cpullen /at/ bournemouth.ac.uk)


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