Theme 2 Key Issues
In examining the role that media play as catalysts in the relations between cultural, economic and social change, the theme focuses principally on the following research issues:
1. Media technologies and change
Whether and how new technologies are involved in cultural, economic and social change. How media producers and consumers, entrepreneurs, advertisers and regulators perceive, drive and respond to technological change. How new technologies impact on private and public spheres. The relations between new forms of interactivity and geographical mobility. The cultural, economic and social effects of new media networks.
2. Media as cultural institutions and creative industries
Transformations in how the media are organised: size, ownership and internationalisation. How media industries (the British, USA and Indian film and television industries in particular) operate and how they are regulated. Business models and practices in both private and public media sectors, how they intersect and differ. Labour processes in the media industries, the nature of creative media work and pay, and the role played by different kinds of creative workers as drivers of change.
3. Media representations of change
How the media represent cultural, economic and social change. Media texts as a resource for negotiating change. The regulation of media content: new media and changing regulatory regimes. The transnationalization of media and its impact on media genres and the politics of representing change. Current media policy agendas on equality and diversity rights issues as a markers and discourses of socio-political change.
4. Media audiences, users and publics
The effects and uses of old and new media. What's new about new media? Researching audiences, users, consumers and citizens. The mediated public sphere, citizenship and democratization. Media, intimacies and private lives. The consequences of changing patterns of media consumption for knowledge, values and beliefs. Transnational national and local audiences. Disaspora media.
Interdisciplinary ambit
In pursuing these concerns, the theme will draw on the perspectives of sociology, anthropology, media and cultural, cultural geography, business studies, accounting, and economics.
Policy relevance
The main contributions to the interests of research users will be developed around the relevance of the research to media policies and planning.
Theme organisation
The work of the theme will be developed via three main projects, each of which will comprise a number of inquiries, an integrative project serving the role of examining common concerns across the two main projects. Follow the links on the left to see a summary of each project.