Time: 17 November 11 am -19 November 3 pm, 2010

Place: University of Copenhagen, room 21.1.21. Map: http://www.humanities.ku.dk/contact/howtofindus/

Course organizers: Professor Anne Jerslev and Assistant Professor Mette Mortensen, Department of Media, Cognition and Communication, Section of Film and Media Studies, The University of Copenhagen.

Course Content: Today’s intensified blurring of boundaries between media, and between media and their audiences is challenging our understanding of genre. New genres emerge at the same rapid pace as old ones are contested or simply deemed out of date.  Even though terms such as genre hybridity and cross genres have pointed to generic instabilities and experiments for a couple decades, the altered modes of production and distribution raise a number of topical questions: How should we understand genre today? In which ways might genre be a productive term for conceptualizing and comprehending the new digital media landscape? And not least, do we need to change our notions of traditional generic expressions, e.g. in film and television?

The focus of this PhD seminar is the transformation of genres. We welcome participants and presentations covering all aspects of genre and all media; theoretical as well as analytical contributions; contributions focusing on production processes, the market, the institutional framings and understandings of genre; new digital genres; questions of cross media and genre; questions of audience participation and genre.

Program

Wednesday, November 17

12.30-13.30: Lunch

13.30-14: Welcome and introduction by Mette Mortensen & Anne Jerslev

14-16: Presentation of projects by all participants (including coffe break)

16-17.30: Keynote speak – Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Professor, Department of Media, Recognition and Communication, The University of Copenhagen.

Meta-Media and Meta-Communication – Revisiting the Concept of Genre in the Digital Environment

As analytical categories, genres have traditionally occupied a middle ground – between media as technologies and institutions, on the one hand, and discourses as material and modal forms of expression and interaction, on the other. With digital media, the very concept of genre is in doubt: is the World Wide Web, Facebook, or the writing on its walls the genre? This lecture outlines a matrix of genres as communicative practices. First, the computer and the Internet are described as meta-media, incorporating previous forms of media as well as genres. Second, genres are described as a variety of meta-communication, suggesting what kind of communication is being afforded. In conclusion, the lecture suggests that genre studies currently have the opportunity of coming back in style in the digital media environment: genres help to identify some of the distinctive features of digital media, not just as forms of representation, but also as resources of action.

Thursday, November 18

9-10.30: Keynote speak – Hanne Bruun, Associate Professor, Department of Information and Media Studies, The University of Aarhus.

Genre in Media Production

How do we explain changes in media output? Are changes to media output a result of economic, political or other kinds of structural forces; or are they a result of the change producing agency of the media producers? I will suggest that taking a theoretical approach in pragmatic genre theory combined with the understanding of ‘genre schemata’ in socio-cognitive reception theory would help circumvent two classic dichotomies in media production analysis. Based on findings from my production analysis of Danish television satire, genre schemata seem to structure practices and belief systems among media professionals creating specific production cultures. However, these schemata change through the interpretation processes of media output production in recursive interplay with structural forces.

10.30-11: Coffee Break

11-13: PhD presentations

11-12: Stine Lomborg: Social Media as Communicative Genres (respondent Klaus Bruhn Jensen)

12-13: Thomas Mosebo: Categorizing YouTube (respondent Mette Mortensen)

13-14: Lunch break

14-16: PhD presentations

            14-15: Esther Wellejus: Impact and Impression: The Biographical Portrait in Recent Danish Documentary

            15-16: Inge Ejby Sørensen: From Commissioners and Creators of Programs to Curators of Content (respondent Hanne Bruun)

16: Coffee

19: Dinner somewhere in the city

Friday, November 19

9-10.30: Keynote speak by Jostein Gripsrud, Professor, Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen and Centre franco-norvégien en sciences sociales et humaines, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris.

Television Series: Genre Aesthetics and Social History.

The basic idea in this paper is that the development of the TV series as an aesthetic form must be understood in relation to the history of television as a medium and a social institution on the one hand, and general socio-cultural history on the other. This is mainly argued referring to the history of US radio and television series, but examples will also be given from the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. The importance of differences between the US and European broadcasting systems are discussed, as well as the role of major technological developments such as the introduction of TV distribution via satellite and cable around 1980 and the digitisation processes around 20 years later. 

10.30-11: Coffee

11-13: PhD presentations

            11-12: Miia Rantala: Diversity in Advertising – Representing Ethnicity/Race in TV Commercials (respondent Jostein Gripsrud)

            12-13: Jonatan Leer: Challenging Media Food Genres – Challenging Masculinities (respondent Anne Jerslev)

13: Lunch and departure

Presentations by senior scholars

Genre in Media Production

Hanne Bruun, Associate Professor, Department of Information and Media Studies, The University of Aarhus.

How do we explain changes in media output? Are changes to media output a result of economic, political or other kinds of structural forces; or are they a result of the change producing agency of the media producers? I will suggest that taking a theoretical approach in pragmatic genre theory combined with the understanding of ‘genre schemata’ in socio-cognitive reception theory would help circumvent two classic dichotomies in media production analysis. Based on findings from my production analysis of Danish television satire, genre schemata seem to structure practices and belief systems among media professionals creating specific production cultures. However, these schemata change through the interpretation processes of media output production in recursive interplay with structural forces.

Television series: Genre aesthetics and social history.

Jostein Gripsrud, Professor, Department of  Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen
and Centre franco-norvégien en sciences sociales et humaines, Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris.

The basic idea in this paper is that the development of the TV series as an aesthetic form must be understood in relation to the history of television as a medium and a social institution on the one hand, and general socio-cultural history on the other. This is mainly argued referring to the history of US radio and television series, but examples will also be given from the UK, Germany and Scandinavia. The importance of differences between the US and European broadcasting systems are discussed, as well as the role of major technological developments such as the introduction of TV distribution via satellite and cable around 1980 and the digitisation processes around 20 years later. 

A Media Aesthetic Reflection on Genre.

Liv Hausken, Associate Professor, Department of Media and Communication, University of Oslo.

Genre is widely used as classifying statement, especially in the field of arts and entertainment. However, there has been some concern that the rapid

advance in new technologies would have a detrimental and destabilizing effect on genre. The idea of a post medium condition where all kinds of cultural expressions can be available at the same platform, modified, altered and adjusted to a whole range of different displays, seems to have threatened not only the concept of medium but also that of genre. However, genre is a concept, and not a solid object. It represents a perspective. In this presentation I will argue that also medium should be considered a perspective, not a solid object, and that this affects the conception of genre. I will argue that moving from the idea of media as objects to mediations as processes and functions allows us to look into new cultural expressions without being restrained to see them as combinations of older, more or less stable or fixed entities. Contrary to this, an emphasis on mediation involves flexible distinctions between what is considered a genre rather than a style or a medium, so that a particular aspect of a complex apparatus not always and in all contexts must be considered as fixed.

Meta-Media and Meta-Communication – Revisiting the Concept of Genre in the Digital Environment

Klaus Bruun Jensen, Professor, Department of Media, Recognition and Communication, The University of Copenhagen.  

As analytical categories, genres have traditionally occupied a middle ground – between media as technologies and institutions, on the one hand, and discourses as material and modal forms of expression and interaction, on the other. With digital media, the very concept of genre is in doubt: is the world wide web, Facebook, or the writing on its walls the genre? This lecture outlines a matrix of genres as communicative practices. First, the computer and the internet are described as meta-media, incorporating previous forms of media as well as genres. Second, genres are described as a variety of meta-communication, suggesting what kind of communication is being afforded. In conclusion, the lecture suggests that genre studies currently have the opportunity of coming back in style in the digital media environment: genres help to identify some of the distinctive features of digital media, not just as forms of representation, but also as resources of action.

ECTS points: Participation with paper: 3 ECTS. Participation without paper: 1½ ECTS 

Costs and practical matters

The Danish Research School FMKJ covers all participation expenses (travel, meals, accommodation) for doctoral students who are enrolled members of FMKJ. Tickets and receipts must be sent to FMKJ for reimbursement.

Doctoral students from other national or international institutions are encouraged to participate. While the course itself is offered free of charge, they will have to pay their own travel and accommodation costs, and a fee of app. DKK 750 to cover lunches, coffee during intervals, etc. during the course. Prior to the course FMKJ will send an invoice for this amount to those who have enrolled.

Participants are expected to find accommodation for themselves, although the FMKJ secretary can suggest suitable hotels.

Course enrollment and application deadline

The course application, including a 1-page project outline, should be sent by email no later than October 1, 2010 to the FMKJ Secretary at fmkj@ruc.dk.

Participants who want to present a paper (10-12 pages) for feedback must submit the paper by October 29, 2010 to metmort@hum.ku.dk.

Course readings

Course literature will be made available 3 weeks before the course with required reading and suggested literature for the Ph.D. course. Students are expected to have read the literature before the beginning of the course.

For further information: www.fmkj.dk

Papers (PDF)

Inge Ejby Sørensen: From Commissioners and Creators of Programmes to Curators of Content

Stine Lomborg: Social media as communicative genres

Thomas Mosebo: Categorizing YouTube

Course texts (PDF)

Klaus Bruhn Jensen and Rasmus Helles: Chapter 4 ‘Who do you think we are?’

Hanne Bruun: Genre and interpretation in production: a theoretical approach

Jostein Gipsrud: Modernizing Hierarchical Modernism