[ecrea] CFP: 1984: Freedom and Censorship in the Media – Where Are We Now?

1984: Freedom and Censorship in the Media – Where Are We Now?

A conference to be hosted at the Centre for Research in Media and 
Cultural Studies at the University of Sunderland on the 8th and 9th of 
April 2014.

Confirmed keynote speakers:

Professor Martin Barker, University of East Anglia

Professor Julian Petley, Brunel University



Worries over effects of media content and technologies are never far 
from the headlines. When anxieties centre on protecting children and the 
fortification of the social fabric, regulation often seems like the 
first resort. The year 2014 will see the thirtieth anniversary of the 
1984 Video Recordings Act (VRA): this event offers the opportunity to 
reflect on how and why concerns about individual media technologies and 
particular media genres become so important that campaigners and 
politicians can claim that ‘the very soul of the nation’ is at stake. 
Using the VRA as a starting point, this conference aims to critically 
examine the key issues in politics and campaigning which shape calls for 
censorship. If new technologies always spark old anxieties around 
‘effects’ and propensities to cause ‘harm’, what might we learn from 
extant legislation and their implementation? As we settle into the 
internet age and media on demand, policing national media borders seems 
ever more futile, yet the clamour for legislation to protect children 
and society shows no signs of abating.



We invite submissions that explore issues relating to censorship which 
may be specific to the history, implementation and legacies of the Video 
Recordings Act but we also welcome papers which examine media 
regulation/censorship in their broader cultural contexts, which are 
national and international in focus and which draw connections between 
contemporaneous issues and their historical antecedents.



Suggested topics:

·      Censorship

·      Evolving practices and technologies of media classification 
and/or censorship

·      ‘Problematic’ media cultures

·      Regulation of representations of sex, gender and sexualities

·      Digital and online censorship

·      Oppositional voices

·      Protecting and questioning national borders

·      Campaigns and campaigners

·      Activism/activists and the political arena

·      International narratives of censorship

·      British regulation in a global context

·      National and international regulation/censorship

·      Documentary and avant-garde

·      Controversies around computer games

·      History of contemporary film censorship/classification

·      Audiences and the social experiences of censorship

·      Censorship and the creation of communities of dissent

·      Regulations and government policy

Proposals for individual papers or pre-constituted panels are welcomed. 
The submission deadline is 1st December 2013 and notifications of 
acceptance will be made by 6th January 2014. Proposals should include 
title, abstract (350 words), 3-5 key bibliographical references, along 
with the name of the presenter, institutional affiliation and 
biographical information (100 words). Panel organizers are asked to 
submit panel proposals including a panel title, a short description of 
the panel and information on all the papers following the guidelines 
listed above. Panels may consist of three speakers with a maximum of 20 
minutes speaking time each.

All submissions, expressions of interest and enquiries should be sent 
to: (admin /at/ where-are-we-now.co.uk)



Kind Regards,

Mark McKenna, Alessandra Mondin and John Storey

Centre for Research in Media and Cultural Studies

University of Sunderland http://www.crmcs.sunderland.ac.uk/



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