Popular Media Cultures Symposium

From: "Lincoln Geraghty" <[email protected]>

The Centre for Cultural and Creative Research
at the
University of Portsmouth
presents

Popular Media Cultures: Writing in the Margins and Reading Between the  
Lines

A Symposium to be held at the
Odeon Cinema, Covent Garden, London
Saturday 19th May 2012

Keynote Address by:

Prof. Henry Jenkins
Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts,  
University of Southern California.

Author of Textual Poachers (Routledge, 1992), The WOW Climax (NYU  
Press, 2006), Fans, Bloggers and Gamers (NYU Press, 2006), and  
Convergence Culture (NYU Press, 2006).

Focus

The first steps toward a wider consideration of popular media cultures  
surrounding film, television and the Internet, and the relationship  
between fans and their object of fandom, is to acknowledge the  
prominent position of what Jonathan Gray calls media paratexts as  
opposed to the centrality of specific films or television series as  
the text. Indeed, we are now accustomed in fan studies to state that  
the productivity of fans and their related fan practices represent an  
appropriate and worthy text to study just as much as the media text to  
which they are related or inspired by. So, rather than studying Star  
Trek as cult text, we might study fan produced videos on YouTube as  
important texts of fan activity that carry inherent meaning and  
significance in and of themselves. Or, for example, Star Wars carries  
with it meaning within and outside the narrative – from an analysis of  
its mythic story structure using the work of Joseph Campbell to  
studies of its fans who actively engage in their own meaning making by  
dressing up, making videos and writing fan fiction. However, the  
peripheral texts – those associated with the commercialization of the  
franchise such as the lunchboxes, toys, video games, and websites –  
are as much part of the meaning making process that they become texts  
to study in their own right.
            Popular Media Cultures seeks to explore the relationship  
between audiences and media texts, their paratexts and interconnected  
ephemera, and the related cultural practices that add to and expand  
the narrative worlds with which fans engage. How audiences make  
meaning out of established media texts will be discussed in connection  
with the new texts produced by fans. The symposium will focus on the  
cultural work done by media audiences, how they engage with new  
technologies and how convergence culture impacts on the strategies and  
activities of popular media fans. If, Ken Gelder argues, “Subcultures  
are brought into being through narration and narrative: told by the  
participants themselves, as well as by those who document them,  
monitor them, ‘label’ them, outlaw them, and so on,” then this  
symposium will pay attention to what media audiences add to a text,  
what gets written in the margins of a text and what new meanings fans  
read between the lines. This symposium will bring together leading  
academics in the fields of film, television, fan and cultural studies  
to open up and take further the debates surrounding popular media, its  
producers, its audiences, and the cultures in which they are  
ultimately located.


Confirmed Speakers:

Dr Stacey Abbott, Reader in Film Studies, Roehampton University.
Author of Celluloid Vampires (University of Texas Press, 2007), editor  
of The Cult TV Book (IB Tauris, 2010), co-author of Falling in Love  
Again (IB Tauris, 2009), and series editor of Investigating Cult TV  
for IB Tauris.

Dr Will Brooker, Reader and Director of Research, Kingston University.
Author of Using the Force (Continuum, 2002), Hunting the Dark Knight  
(IB Tauris, 2012) and editor of The Blade Runner Experience  
(Wallflower, 2005).

Dr Joanne Garde-Hansen, Principal Lecturer in Media and Director of  
the Research Centre of Media, Memory and Community, University of  
Gloucestershire.
Author of Media and Memory (Edinburgh UP, 2011), co-editor of Save  
As... Digital Memories (Palgrave, 2009) and co-author of the  
forthcoming Emotion Online: Theorising Affect on the Internet  
(Palgrave).

Dr Kristyn Gorton, Senior Lecturer in Television Studies, University  
of York.
Author of Media Audiences (Edinburgh UP, 2009) and co-author of the  
forthcoming Emotion Online: Theorising Affect on the Internet  
(Palgrave).

Dr Matt Hills, Reader in Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University.
Author of Fan Cultures (Routledge, 2002), The Pleasures of Horror  
(Continuum, 2005) and Triumph of a Time Lord (IB Tauris, 2010).

Prof. Mark Jancovich, Professor of Film and Television, University of  
East Anglia.
Author of Rational Fears (MUP, 1996) and The Place of the Audience  
(BFI, 2003) and co-editor of Defining Cult Movies (MUP, 2003), Quality  
Popular Television (BFI, 2003), and Film and Comic Books (Mississippi  
UP, 2007).

Prof. Roberta E. Pearson, Professor of Film and Television, University  
of Nottingham.
Author of Eloquent Gestures (University of California Press, 1992), co- 
editor of Cult Television (University of Minnesota Press, 2004), The  
Many Lives of Batman (Routledge, 1991), and editor of Reading Lost (IB  
Tauris, 2009).


Further details of how to register and attend the event will be  
published in the New Year.

For information on the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research at  
the University of Portsmouth please visit our website at: http://www.port.ac.uk/research/cccr/

Symposium Coordinator:

Dr Lincoln Geraghty
Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research
School of Creative Arts, Film and Media
University of Portsmouth
St George’s Building
High Street
Portsmouth
PO1 2SY
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 023 9284 5754


Dr Lincoln Geraghty
Reader in Popular Media Cultures
Director of the Centre for Cultural and Creative Research
School of Creative Arts, Film and Media
University of Portsmouth

Editor, Directory of World Cinema: American Hollywood, Intellect Books
http://www.worldcinemadirectory.org/

Profile:
http://www.port.ac.uk/departments/academic/scafm/staff/title,22309,en.html

Mail:
3.30 St George's Building, 141 High Street, Old Portsmouth, PO1 2HY, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 239 284 5754
Fax: +44 (0) 239 284 5372
E-mail: [email protected]