This conference explored many of the contemporary challenges to understanding the nature of media and cultural production, focusing on the research process rather than research findings. It looked at how sectoral shifts in the media and cultural industries has introduced new actors – such as platform industries – and new practices – such as new types of content investment and licensing, and new forms of monetization for user-generated content. This one-day conference explored the methods we use and approaches we take for understanding media and cultural production in the contemporary moment.

In the conference, several members of the PSM-AP team presented some of the methodological designs we have been working with in the project, as well as some of the challenges we have encountered.

🎙️ Julie Mejse Münter Lassen discussed ‘Experiences of carrying out a scheduling study across platforms and companies’ and Dan Martin and Catherine Johnson presented on ‘Negotiating the methodological challenges of comparative media industries research’.

The keynote presentations were:

• Epistemic crossroads – towards digital communication system analysis?
  Signe Sophus Lai & Sofie Flensburg, University of Copenhagen
• Analyzing Cultural Platforms: Interfaces, Infrastructures, Recommender Systems
  David Hesmondhalgh, University of Leeds

The conference was held online by the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) section Media Industries and Cultural Production on October 12, 2023. Our team member Catalina-Mihaela Iordache co-organised this conference. For more details on the programme, see the ECREA website: https://ecrea.eu/event-5219347.