[ecrea] Urban Media Studies Conference

ECREA TWG MEDIA & THE CITY 2015 CONFERENCE

Urban Media Studies: Concerns, intersections and challenges
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Political Science, 24–25 September 2015


Confirmed keynote speaker: Ole B. Jensen, Professor of Urban Theory, 
Dept. of Architecture, Design and Media Technology, Aalborg University.


Call for papers and panels

Media related practices are grounded in the city – where the majority of 
human population today lives – and media as both technologies and 
representations pervade nearly all aspects of urban living, cutting 
through diverse forms of public appearance, community, control, 
resistance and habitation.

As a result, none of the established perspectives in media studies, 
whether that of democracy and participation, production and technology, 
representation and use, or belonging and identity, can claim to have an 
exhaustive understanding of their problematics without appreciating the 
urban context. In the same way, no urban process can be fruitfully 
tackled without taking into account the involvement of media and media 
related practices.

Yet, despite being closely – though unevenly – entwined, from small 
towns to megalopolises, the two complexes, media and the city, have 
remained disjointed in the scholarly analyses. In fact, it can be argued 
that for media scholars in particular, the city has remained a terra 
incognita.

Wishing to revive the initial enthusiasm in media studies, which started 
as an interdisciplinary endeavour, Urban Media Studies conference 
aspires to provide a dialogic space for disciplines interested in 
mediated urbanism. We also hope to stimulate critical reflections on the 
challenges of collaborating across disciplinary boundaries. Thus, though 
speaking from the position of media studies, we invite submissions from 
scholars who work in all relevant fields that interface with the key 
issue of media and the city. These include, but are not limited to, such 
fields as urban geography, urban sociology, architecture, anthropology, 
science and technology studies, visual and sound/auditory culture 
studies, sociology of the senses, and other related subfields.

We specifically welcome submissions which deal with the following themes 
and approach them with an interdisciplinary curiosity – as potential 
intersections between two or more fields of research:

Historical connections between urban studies and media studies
Urban spaces and media practices
Urban sociality and media
Mediation of urban daily life
Media, architecture and urban design
‘Media cities’ as production clusters and complexes
Performing and audiencing (in) the mediated city
Media, urban power, resistance and conflict
Media, gender and the city
Media, ethnicity and the city
Urban spaces of media consumption
Urban law in the digitally sustained cities
Mediated urban sensescapes
Urban, outdoor and ambient advertising
Fashion as urban communication
Urban gaming
Journalism and the city
The city as a mediated ecosystem
Urban mediation and spatial negotiations
Methodologies of urban media studies
Teaching about media and the city

We welcome both individual and multi-authored abstracts, and full panel 
proposals (with four presentations; 15–20 minutes per presentation). In 
the case of panel proposals, the candidate chair should provide a title 
and a short general description of the proposed panel, together with the 
abstracts of all presenters.

In addition to conventional academic presentations of original 
theoretical, methodological and/or empirical research of any of the 
above or other related themes, we encourage practice-based 
presentations, like urban films and documentaries, sonic projects and 
other exploratory artwork that probe issues of media and the city.

Abstract proposals (300 words) for presentations and panels, together 
with short bios, should be submitted to (mediacity.twg /at/ gmail.com) by May 
1st, 2015. Authors will be informed of acceptance by June 1st, 2015.

The conference will also feature a special dialogic plenary where 
participants from different disciplines will be invited to share views 
on their work in the context of media and the city.

As part of our commitment to stimulate interaction between scholars from 
different disciplines, we shall also be organising a guided urban 
exploration of Zagreb’s industrial, modernist/utopian architectural 
heritage, and post-industrial urban developments.

A selection of papers will be published in an edited book and/or in a 
journal special issue.

Conference fee is 50 Euros for ECREA members, 70 Euros for non-members. 
The fee will cover conference materials, and coffee and lunch both days.

Any queries should be sent to conference organizers Seija Ridell 
(University of Tampere, Finland), Simone Tosoni (Catholic University of 
Milan, Italy) and Zlatan Krajina (University of Zagreb, Croatia). Please 
use the conference e-mail address: (mediacity.twg /at/ gmail.com).

OBS. For the conference updates, please follow the Media & the City 
websites on http://twg.ecrea.eu/MC/ and 
https://www.facebook.com/mediaandthecity

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