We cannot let the momentum of international research collaboration and contacts be lost. We need a plan.
European collaboration in the field of media communications and cultural studies has grown hugely over the past two to three decades. But the global pandemic has confined us at home; even when the pandemic is controlled, intensified awareness of our travel’s environmental implications seems likely to reduce both the funding and desire for regular academic travel.
No one knows exactly what normality, when restored, will look like in terms of the rhythms of face-to-face meetings. But we cannot let the momentum of international research collaboration and contacts be lost. We need a plan.
In response, we have a simple idea: to create online a EUROPEAN MEDIA SALON where, in small gatherings, groups of scholars at all levels and from across Europe can meet for short talks and dialogues (up to 30 minutes) leading to extended discussion (up to an hour) at times which fit well for a range of home situations, especially for those with young children. Timings will vary, but all events will be recorded, either as video or podcasts, and the recordings archived on this website.
This site is in English, but parallel websites to archive events in other languages are welcomed, with the aim of building a network of European Media Salon sites.
The goal is to host not formal talks, but relaxed discussion about the ideas that matter to us: a salon, in short, but hopefully free of the demographic exclusions that marked the original European salons of the 18th and 19th centuries.
This site is the initiative of us as its founders, not of our institutions, but we are grateful for the encouragement and support of Academia Europaea.
The Founders
© by Beate C. Koehler
ANDREAS HEPP
Andreas Hepp is Professor of Media and Communications and Head of ZeMKI, Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research, University of Bremen, Germany. He was Visiting Researcher and Professor at leading institutions such as the London School of Economics and Political Science, Goldsmiths University of London, Université Paris II Panthéon ASSAS, Stanford University and others. He is the author of 12 monographs including The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Nick Couldry, 2017), Transcultural Communication (2015) and Cultures of Mediatization (2013). His latest book is Deep Mediatization (2020).
GIOVANNA MASCHERONI
Giovanna Mascheroni is a sociologist of media and communication. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication and Performing Arts, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore and was visiting researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Studies. Her work focuses on the social shaping and the social consequences of digital media, Internet of Things and datafication for children and young people. She is author of several journal articles and books. Her latest book, Datafied childhoods: Data practices and imaginaries in children’s lives, co-authored with Andra Siibak, will be published in Autumn 2021 in the Digital Formations series (Peter Lang).
GORAN BOLIN
Göran Bolin is Professor of Media & Communication Studies at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden. His research focuses on datafication, commodification and cultural production and consumption in digital markets. He is the author of Value and the Media: Cultural Production and Consumption in Digital Markets (Ashgate 2011), and Media Generations: Experience, Identity and Mediatised Social Change (Routledge 2016), and the forthcoming The Management of Meaning in Turbulent Times: Information Policy, Agency and Media in Ukraine (MIT Press, with Per Ståhlberg). He is Chair of the Film, Media and Visual Studies section of Academia Europaea, Vice Chair of the Mediatization Section of ECREA as well as Sections representative on ECREA’s executive board.
JOHANNA SUMIALA
Johanna Sumiala is Associate Professor at Media and Communication Studies in the University of Helsinki. In recent years, her work has focused on theoretical and empirical analysis of mediations of death in the contemporary hybrid media environment. Her research on media and communications is inspired by social theory, anthropology, and study of ritual. She is also interested in learning more about digital methods. Sumiala is author of several journal articles and books. Her most recent books include Hybrid Media Events: The Charlie Hebdo Attacks and Global Circulation of Terrorist Violence (2018, Emerald, co-authored with K. Valaskivi, M. Tikka & J. Huhtamäki), and Media and Ritual. Death, Community and Everyday Life (2013, Routledge). Her latest book Mediated Death (Polity) will be published in Autumn 2021.
NICK COULDRY
Nick Couldry is a sociologist of media and culture. He is Professor of Media Communications and Social Theory at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and from 2017 has been a Faculty Associate at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. He jointly led, with Clemencia Rodriguez, the chapter on media and communications in the 22-chapter 2018 report of the International Panel on social Progress: www.ipsp.org. He is the author or editor of fifteen books including The Mediated Construction of Reality (with Andreas Hepp, Polity 2016), Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice (Polity 2012) and Why Voice Matters (Sage 2010). His latest books are The Costs of Connection: How Data is Colonizing Human Life and Appropriating it for Capitalism (with Ulises Mejias, Stanford University Press 2019), Media: Why It Matters (Polity 2019), and Media, Voice, Space and Power: Essays of Refraction (Routledge 2020).
VERONIKA KALMUS
Veronika Kalmus is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. She focuses on generations, socialization, mediatization, (new) media use, social changes, values, and discourses. Her most recent publications include the collective monograph Researching Estonian Transformation: Morphogenetic Reflections (University of Tartu Press, 2020). She is a member of the section Film, Media and Visual Studies in Academia Europaea.