Cultural and Media Policy Studies » Cultural and Media Policy Studies News and Events (tag [Research news])

Creative Bridges Doctoral Training Programme - Now Open for Applications

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 17:45:14 GMT

Applications are now open for Creative Bridges, a major new AHRC-funded doctoral training programme from the University of Leeds and the University of Warwick designed to expand and diversify the next generation of researchers in the screen industries.

Universities of Warwick and Leeds secure prestigious national award for screen industries PhD programme

Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:53:00 GMT

The University of Warwick and the University of Leeds have together secured one of only 10 prestigious Doctoral Focal Awards from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). The Award will fund 20 PhD scholarships focused on the creative economy, with a specific emphasis on sustainability and diversity in the screen industries.

Led at Warwick by Dr David Wright, Director of Graduate Studies in the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies with Dr Sanjay Sharma (Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies) and overall by Professor Joanne Garde-Hansen, Head of the School of Media and Communication with Professor Anamik Saha (Professor of Race and Media) at Leeds, the Creative Bridges partnership will run from 2026 until 2033. It will train a new generation of interdisciplinary researcher-practitioners to work alongside – and within – the film, television, games and immersive media sectors.

CMPS Annual Lecture: Professor Helen Wood on Duties of Care in UK Reality TV

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 10:19:00 GMT

We're delighted to be welcoming Professor Helen Wood from Aston University to deliver this year's CMPS Annual Lecture: 'Between the duty of care and an ethics of care: compliance, work and experiences of care in UK reality television.'

The lecture will be from 4.30pm on Tuesday 24th June. Professor Helen Wheatley from Film and Television Studies will act as respondent, and the event will be followed by a reception. You're very welcome to join us. Please register here

Changing Channels-two days of talks and streams on people, work and technofutures

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 09:58:00 GMT

Warwick Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies is delighted to invite you to Changing Channels-two days of talks and streams on people, work and technofutures,organised in collaboration with The Centre for Digital Inquiry and the Centre for International Methodologies - produced by the Media Lab.

Please find poster and full details below.

Everyone is welcome but places are limited, please arrive early to avoid disappointment.

See(some of) you there!

Wednesday 5th March

13:15-14:15 Sustainable Creative Work - Guy Healy FAB 1.01

Livelihood precariousness – the topic with the most extensive scholarly literature in Creative Industries - remains the most urgent challenge for younger generation filmmakers attempting to find their distinctive voices, and breakout in the post-broadcast era of streaming. Based on his longitudinal interviews with innovative short series makers, this seminar presents a model of sustainable creative labour for filmmakers in the post-broadcast era dominated by YouTube and Netflix. Also foreshadowed are results of the mapping of low-budget, high-cultural impact short series of popular and critical acclaim in Europe, 1998-2025, as presented at U.Warwick’s Venice campus in October, 2024.

Ex-journalist, Dr Guy Healy, is a Marie Curie-Sklodowska Science & Innovation Fellow (Data & Intelligence; Welfare & Inclusion), co-funded by the European Commission and the EUTOPIA alliance of 10 universities under Horizon 2020. While here at Warwick on secondment from Vrije University Brussels Media innovation Unit, he is writing his second book for Routledge (Taylor & Francis), The YouTube Generation and the Diversification of Screenwriting (2026). https://eutopia-university.eu/english-version/sif-post-doctoral-fellowships/sif-3rd-cohort-fellows-guy-healy-vrije-universiteit-brussel

17:00-18:00 Digital Disconnection - Alessandro Gandini FAB 1.16 and online on CDI TV

In this CDI TV episode we will talk about digital disconnection in the post-pandemic setting. While digital technology provided essential connectivity during the pandemic, it also contributed to burnout, social fatigue, and a blurred distinction between personal and professional life. As a result, our relationship with technology has newly come under question and become a new terrain for commodification, with companies selling digital detox programs and mindfulness courses that promise to help individuals restore mental well-being, productivity, and authentic socia

l interactions. The current disconnection trend extends widely, from everyday and mundane practices such as setting time limits on one’s phone, quitting social media, or news avoidance, to broader attempts at disconnecting from work, exemplified by the phenomenon of “quiet quitting” – a workplace trend where employees disengage from excessive work demands, prioritizing well-being over hustle culture. This trend may suggest a broader process of reconfiguration of social structures and structuration in digital societies.

Hosted by Carolina Bandinelli and Michael Dieter.

Alessandro Gandini (PhD, University of Milano) is an Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. His research focuses on the relationship between technology and society from a cultural perspective, looking at platformisation processes, digital labour, digital cultures and methods. He is the Principal Investigator of the CRAFTWORK project (2021-2025), funded by ERC Starting Grants, and the Scientific Coordinator of Algocount (www.algocount.org), which focuses on the critical study of algorithms.

Thursday 6th March

13:15-14:15 #Neocraft and meaningful work - Alessandro Gandini FAB 1.01

The issue of the meaning of work has become central to 21st century Western societies. It has been argued that a ‘post-employment’ society is affirming, whereby standard, permanent, full-time work loses centrality and increasingly coexists with ‘new forms of work’ that are characterised by original cultures, practices, and organisational forms (Gandini, 2020). Against this backdrop, the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated a growing sense of disaffection from work, as evidenced by phenomena such as the so-called Great Resignation (Gittleman, 2022), which has generated lively discussions, especially – albeit not exclusively – in the US. Within this same timeframe we have seen the revival of original forms of craft work and artisanal production, settled in the context of the postindustrial, digital economy. Epitomised by craft beer brewing (Wallace, 2019; Fox Miller 2019, 2017; Land et al., 2018; Thurnell-Read, 2014), so-called ‘neo-craft’ industries have become epitomous of a post-industrial imaginary that promises ‘a less alienated form of work’ (Land, 2018: np), principled on a primacy of authenticity as a cultural conception of value (Bell et al., 2019). This contribution originates from extensive qualitative research on the lived experiences of neo-craft work conducted in the context of the European Union, consisting in 77 semi-structured interviews with neo-craft workers coupled with ethnographic fieldwork at 17 neo-craft activities across different sectorsbetween 2022 and 2024. Building upon evidence collected within this setting, I argue that the process of resignification that repurposes some labour-intensive and relatively low-income-generating jobs into ‘cool’ work by way of craft (Gandini and Gerosa, 2023) may be eponymous of a larger shift in the cultures and meanings of work, which may be qualified through the term ‘gentrified labour’. Critically, this also creates new inequalities, as it radically transforms entire sectors and geographic areas by displacing other ‘inauthentic’, traditionally working-class occupations – which cannot be associated to authenticity, particularisation or craft – throughout the process (Zukin, 1987).

17:00 -18:00 Reality Engineering After the Techlash - Noortje Marres and Matias Valderrama Barragan FAB 1.16 and online on CDI TV

Join us for a conversation about proliferating efforts to create artificial societies. How artificial are the “societies” we live in today? To what extent is the state and tech industry to blame for the embrace of “social engineering”? What does the “techlash” have to do with it? And how is it that despite widespread criticism of Big Tech, we continue to see an increasing intervention of these companies in our everyday realities? Speakers include Noortje Marres and Matias Valderrama Barragan. Hosted by Carolina Bandinelli and Michael Dieter.

This livestream will be a warm-up to the Artificial Societies symposium to be held on Friday 7 March. If you would like to register for this symposium, co-organised by Warwick's Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies with the Edinburgh Futures Institute, please fill in this form , which is open until 28 February for both online and in-person attendees.

Noortje Marres is Professor in Science, Technology and Society in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies at the University of Warwick. She is a Visiting Professor at the University of Siegen (Germany) affiliated with the Media of Cooperation Research Programme. Her first book, Material Participation : Technology, the Environment and Everyday Publics (2012/2015) builds on field research in ecological demonstration homes, and develops an analysis of material forms of engagement. Noortje latest book, Digital Sociology (Polity, 2017) outlines a critical and creative approach to researching digital societies, and argues that the relations between social research and social life are changing in a digital age. She is close to finishing a research project on societal testing of intelligent technologies.

Matias Valderrama Barragan is a third-year ESRC-funded PhD researcher at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodology (University of Warwick). Matias holds an MA and BA in Sociology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Matias Master’s thesis, deploys digital methods to map a controversy around a hydroelectric project in the south of Chile. Matias worked on Fondecyt research projects and studies for NGOs on the social implications of multiple digital technologies in Chile, such as environmental sensors, drones, predictive models, and self-tracking devices

New publication - Greening European Film Policy: Towards a Sustainable European Film and TV Industry

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 10:34:00 GMT

GREENING EUROPEAN FILM POLICY: TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE EUROPEAN FILM and TELEVISION INDUSTRY

Lead authors: Pietari Kääpä (Warwick) and Hunter Vaughan (Emerson College/Cambridge)

Co-authors: Norma Cuadros (Warwick), Kate Moffat (Warwick) and Vanessa Zarm (UCL)

The Greening European Film Policy report is available for download from the Global Green Media Network website: https://www.globalgreenmedianetwork.org/reports

This report examines European film, television, and streaming industry sustainability policies, management, financing, and production at local, state, and EU levels. It explores policy support for institutionalizing these practices and offers solutions to fill policy gaps.

Produced in collaboration with Green Eyes (Hungary), Ecomuvi (Italy), Film London (UK), Screen Greening (Ireland), and Neptune Environmental (UK), the report aims to make green film production an active agent for positive transformation in the industry. Addressing funding, production, and reportage phases, the report provides three key recommendations.

1. Minimum Standards:

Establish standardised sustainability expectations and norms, from development-stage planning to on-set baselines, for both publicly-financed and commercial productions.

2. Finance

Adopt mandatory financial investment schemes for all productions, including incoming mobile productions and international co-productions, to link financial incentives with verifiable reductions in environmental impact.

3. Auditing

Introduce third-party auditing and certification focused on exceeding minimum standards, directly tied to financial incentivisation.

Please contact Pietari Kaapa (P.Kaapa@warwick.ac.uk) or Hunter Vaughan (hunter.vaughan@emerson.edu) with any questions.

See our latest CCMPS podcasts

Wed, 01 May 2024 04:08:00 GMT

Welcome to Media Whatever, the new podcast from the Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies at the University of Warwick

The podcast is about research from the Media and Creative Industries, and each episode will feature guests from CCMPS and the wider research community. Subscribe HERE on Spotify

Videos of our guests research seminars are available to view on our YouTube Channel — http://tinyurl.com/ccmpsresearchseminars

CCMPS researcher Heidi Ashton invited to be part of the global research fellows network at the creative industries Policy Evidence Centre (PEC)

Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:06:02 GMT

The creative industries Policy Evidence Centre (PEC) have created a global network of research fellows. The network consists of "leading experts from diverse backgrounds, areas of specialism and parts of the globe. They facilitate knowledge exchange at Creative PEC through seminars, blogs and discussion papers and smaller thematic research networks." Dr Heidi Ashton from the Centre for Culture and Media Policy Studies was invited to join this prestigious group and is looking forward to working and learning with and from them: bringing that learning back to the centre and integrating it into her work with colleagues and students.

Media and Creative Industries Seminar Series 2023/2024

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 15:39:00 GMT

The Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies launched this year's seminar programme in the autumn term. Speakers to date include Cecilia Ghidotti (University of Warwick) on 'quitting the creative industries', Rachel O'Neill (LSE) on wellness influencers and Ludmila Lupinacci (university of Leeds) on the platformisation of 'moods and vibes'. You can watch all three talks on our YouTube channel, or click the heading above for more details

CMPS Research in The Guardian: Heidi Ashton on social security and creative workers

Fri, 26 May 2023 09:09:28 GMT

Dr. Heidi Ashton's research for the performing arts union, Equity, into how freelance workers are impacted by the UK benefits system is featured in The Guardian, 26th May 2023.

CMPS Researcher on 'Thinking Allowed' BBC Radio 4: Carolina Bandinelli on 'Digital Intimacy'

Thu, 25 May 2023 08:40:05 GMT

New Research on Digital Intimacy, Dr Carolina Bandinelli talks to Laurie Thinking Allowed, BBC4 about her research on dating apps.