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Professor Pietari Kaapa

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I am Professor in Media and Communications at the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies.

As a specialist in environmental screen media, I work on environmental media production policies and practices as well as on environmental messaging in audiovisual media (especially film and television).

I am an editor of Journal of Scandinavian Cinema and a docent (affiliate professor) in film and television studies at the University of Helsinki.

I am the Principal Investigator (with co-PI Hunter Vaughan) of the AHRC Network on Global Green Media Production (www.globalgreenmedianetwork.com), and welcome any information/communications on this theme.

Email: P.Kaapa@warwick.ac.uk

Phone: +44(0)7948192038

Office hours: Wednesdays 2-4pm

Research

I have published twelve books (including five monographs and seven edited collections) and edited seven journal special issues focusing on diverse concerns in transnational and ecocritical media studies. These focus on areas such as ecomedia, transnational production and distribution networks, audiences, genre production, cultural policy, and media regulation. Peer reviewed articles have appeared in journals such as Studies in Documentary Film and Film International and book chapters in a wide range of international collections. Topics range from film co-production policy between Hollywood and China to indigenous film practice, from digital fan communities to adaptations of television formats across cultures.

Recent publications include Film and Television Production in the Age of the Climate Crisis: Towards a Greener Screen (Palgrave, 2022) with Hunter Vaughan (University of Cambridge), Nordsploitation: History, Industry, Audiences (Bloomsbury, 2021) with Tommy Gustafsson (Linnaeus University); Environmental Management of the Media: Policy, Industry, Practice (Routledge, 2018) and a film and television production studies special issue of Journal of Scandinavian Cinema (with Mette Hjort)

Research projects have been funded by the AHRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, Academy of Finland, The Kone Foundation. I currently hold an Institute of Advanced Studies Global Research Priorities Fellowship and an Institutional Partnership Fund award on a project focusing on Brazilian media and environmental communications.

I am also interested and have published in the following fields: Chinese cinema, audience studies, documentary, indigenous film, Hollywood and emergent forms of digital media.

Teaching

At Warwick, I teach the following modules

Approaching Global Media

Media, Policy, and Markets

I also supervise Major Research Projects.

PhD Supervision

I currently supervise projects on environmental journalism in Brazil, fan audiences in China, nation branding through TV, environmental production practices in Finland, and co-production practices in East Asian cinemas.

Publications (selected)

Industry reports

Kääpä, Pietari and Hunter Vaughan (2023) Sustainable Digitalisation: Ensuring a Sustainable Future for UK Film and Television, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

Authored Books

Kääpä, Pietari, Dafydd Sills-Jones and Jouko Aaltonen (co-authored). 2022. Finnish Documentary
Film Culture, Oxford: Peter Lang.

Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson, Tommy (co-authored). 2021. The Politics of Nordsploitation: History, Industry, Audiences, New York: Bloomsbury. Bloomsbury Global Exploitation Cinemas Series.

Kääpä, Pietari. 2018. Environmental Management of the Media: Policy, Industry, Practice, London: Routledge.

Kääpä, Pietari. 2014. Ecology and Contemporary Nordic Cinemas: From Nation-building to Ecocosmopolitanism, New York: Bloomsbury.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2011. The Cinema of Mika Kaurismäki: Transvergent Cinescapes, Emergent Identities, Bristol: Intellect.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2010 The National and Beyond: the Globalisation of Finnish Cinema in the Films of Aki and Mika Kaurismäki, Oxford: Peter Lang.

Edited Collections (books)

Kääpä, Pietari and Vaughan, Hunter (ed.) 2022. Film and Television Production in the Age of the Climate Crisis: Towards a Greener Screen, Chem: Springer/Palgrave.

Kääpä, Pietari and Dafydd Sills-Jones (ed.) 2022. Documentary in the Age of COVID-19, Oxford: Peter Lang.

Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson, Tommy (ed.) 2015. Nordic Genre Film: Small Nation Film Culture in the Global Marketplace, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson Tommy (ed.) 2013. Transnational Ecocinemas: Film Culture in an Era of Ecological Transformation, Bristol: Intellect.
Kääpä, Pietari. (ed.) 2012. Directory of World Cinema: Finland, Bristol: Intellect.
Kääpä, Pietari and Laine, Silja (ed.) 2012. World Film Locations: Helsinki, Bristol: Intellect.

Edited Collections (Including Editorials) – Journal Issues

Kääpä, Pietari and Mette Hjort (eds.) Nordic Production Studies, special issue of Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 10: 2, 2020
Kääpä, Pietari and Sills-Jones, Dafydd (eds.) Industrial Considerations in Finnish Documentary Film, special issue of Studies in Documentary Film, 2015.
Kääpä, Pietari (ed.) Ecocinema Audiences, special issue of Interactions: Studies in Communications and Culture, vol. 3:4, 2014.
Kääpä, Pietari and Seppälä, Jaakko (ed.) 2013. Transnationaali suomalainen elokuva (Transnational Finnish Film Culture), special issue of Lähikuva, 3/2012
Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson Tommy (ed.) 2012. Ecocinemas of Transnational China, special issue of Interactions: Studies in Communications and Culture, vol. 2:2, 2012.
Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson Tommy (ed.) 2011. Adapting National Identity/Hollywood and the Norden, (co-edited with Tommy Gustafsson, Linnaeus University), Film International special issue, vol. 9:2, 2011.
Kääpä, Pietari (ed.) 2007. Wider Screen 2/2007 – The Cinema of Aki Kaurismäki: the Politics of Contradiction.

Articles in Refereed Books

Kääpä, Pietari and Hunter Vaughan (2023) "Environmental media management", in Lopez, Antonio, Adrian Ivakhiv, Stephen Rust, Miriam Tola, Alenda Y. Chang and Kiu-Wai Chu (eds.) The Routledge Handbook of Ecomedia Studies, New York: Routledge.

Kääpä, Pietari and Hunter Vaughan (2022) "From content to context (and back again): new industrial strategies for environmental sustainability in the media", in Hjort, Mette and Nannicelli, Ted Nannicelli (eds.) (2022) A Companion to Motion Pictures and Public Value. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 308-327.

Kääpä, Pietari (2020) The STEMing of cinematic China: An analysis of resource politics in Chinese and American co-productions, in Phaedra Pezzulo and Jingfang Liu (eds.) Green Communication and China, New York: Blackwell.

Kääpä, Pietari, 2019. "Ecocritical Perspectives on Nordic Cinema From Nature Appreciation to Social Conformism", in Canning, Laura and Lewis, Ingrid (ed.) European Cinema in the Twenty-First-Century: Discourses, Directions and Genres, Palgrave MacMillan.

Kääpä, Pietari, 2019. "Tracing Extraction in Contemporary Chinese Cinema: Tie Xi Qu and the Politics of the Resource Image", in Lu, Sheldon and Gong, Haomin (eds.) Chinese Ecocinema, New York and London: Routledge.

Kääpä, Pietari, 2018. “From Nordic Gloom to Nordic Cool: Genre as an Industrial Strategy”, in Barrett, Ciara and Dibeltulo, Silvia (eds.) Genres in Transition, London: Routledge.

Kääpä, Pietari, 2018. "Three Ecologies of Kaurismäki", in Austin, Thomas (ed.) The Films of Aki Kaurismäki: Ludic Engagements, New York: Bloomsbury.

Kääpä, Pietari, 2016. “Transnational Challenges in Ecocinema”, in Alex, Rayson, Deborah, Susan (ed.) Ecodocumentaries – Critical Essays, Palgrave MacMillan.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2016. “Nordic Ecodocumentaries and Practitioner Agency”, in Hjort, Mette and Lindqvist, Ursula (eds.) A Companion to Nordic Cinema, London: Blackwell.
Kääpä, Pietari, 2016. “Cyclical Conceptualisations of Time: The Cinema of the Sami from an Ecocritical Perspective”, in Monani, Salma and Adamson, Joni (eds.) Indigenous Cinema and Ecocriticism, London: Routledge
Kääpä, Pietari, 2016. ”From Industry to Art: The New Wave as a Transnational Phenomenon” and “The Generation of Producers: Finnish Cinema as a Commercial Enterprise”, in Bacon, Henry et al. (ed.) Finnish Cinema: A Transnational Enterprise. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Kääpä, Pietari, 2015. “A Culture of Reciprocity – Producing Genre Film in the Nordic Region”, in Kääpä, P. and Gustafsson, T. Nordic Genre Film, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2014. “Northern Exposures and Marginal Critiques: the Cinema of the Sami in a Postcolonial Framework”, in MacKenzie, Scott and Stenport, Anna W. (eds.) Films on Ice: Arctic Imaginations, Landscapes, and Populations in Moving Images, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.
Kääpä, Pietari, Karkulehto, Sanna and Laine, Kimmo. 2013. ”Adapting National Literature to Cinema”, in Leppihalme, Ilmari et al. (ed.) Nykykirjallisuutemme historia, Helsinki: SKS, pp. 134-145.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2012. “Transnational Ecocinema: Charting an Expansive Field”, in Kääpä, Pietari and Gustafsson, Tommy (eds.) Transnational Ecocinemas: Film Culture in an Era of Ecological Transformation, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 35-59.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2007. “From Helsinki to Rio de Janeiro: Negotiating National Identity in the Films of Mika Kaurismäki”, in Bacon, Henry et al. (ed.) Suomalaisuus Valkokankaalla, Helsinki: LIKE, 2007, pp. 70-88.

Articles in Refereed Journals

Kääpä, Pietari and Moffat, Kate (2022) 'Taking the green pill? Keanu Reeves as ‘reluctant eco-celebrity’. Celebrity Studies, 13 (2). pp. 200-213.

Kääpä, Pietari and Wicks, Sanna (2022) 'Post-Nordic Noir landscapes: Competition through localisation in Finnish streaming media', Critical Studies in Television, 18 (4).

Kääpä, Pietari, Holanda, J.S.P. and Costa, L.M. (2022) Jornalismo ambiental: características e interfaces de um campo em construção. Intercom: Revista Brasileira de Ciências da Comunicação, São Paulo, v. 45

Kääpä, Pietari and Moffat, Kate, 2018. "Unthinking ethnocentrism: Ecocritical Approaches to Ethnic Diversity in Nordic Screen Media", Journal of Scandinavian Cinema, 8:2.
Kääpä, Pietari and Sills-Jones, Dafydd, 2016. “Emerging Patterns in Finnish Documentary Production: Negotiations Between Art and Commerce”, Studies in Documentary Film.
Kääpä, Pietari and Seppälä, Jaakko. 2012. ”Transnational Approaches to Finnish Film Culture", Lähikuva 3/2012, pp. 8–33.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2012. “The Politics of Viewing Ecocinema in China”, Interactions, 2:2, 2012, pp. 159-175.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2011. “Born American?” – Renny Harlin Meets the Dream Factory”, Film International, issue 2, 2011, pp. 55-70.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2010. “Imaginaries of a Global Finland: Patterns of Globalisation in Finnish Cinema of the 21st Century”, Scandinavian-Canadian Studies, vol. 19 (2), 2010, pp. 262-283.
Kääpä, Pietari. “The Politics of National Identity in Aki Kaurismäki’s The Leningrad Cowboys, Wider Screen, 2:2.
Kääpä, Pietari. 2004. “The Working Class has no Fatherland: Aki Kaurismäki’s Films and the Transcendence of National Untranslatability”, in Nestingen, A. (ed.) In Search of Aki Kaurismäki: Aesthetics and Contexts, Beaverton, Aspasia Books, 2004 / International Journal of Finnish Studies, pp. 77-95.



Film and Television Production in the Age of Climate Crisis: Towards a Greener Screen

Book

The Politics of Nordsploitation: History, Industry, Audiences ...

Nordic Genre Film - Small Nation Film Cultures

Directory of World Cinema: Finland, Kääpä