Inge Sorensen

Climate change is a concern for many nations, industries, and citizens. However, for some it will also be a moment of opportunity. As witnessed in relation to the pandemic, dynamics of power have a particular purchase at moments of crisis. This article proposes a greater concern with questions of policy and power in relation to green strategies within the screen sector and highlights the role that media scholars might play in developing this critical lens. There has been a recent rise in efforts to mitigate particular environmental harms and the article outlines some of the initiatives that are emerging from both commercial and public bodies. At this moment, there are no shared systems for auditing and reporting, and few formal policies are widely recognised or adopted. As different ideas and approaches garner greater traction, travelling from one national and industrial setting to others, the article scrutinises the industrial, structural and policy obstacles which hinder a meaningful shift for film and television-production to be environmentally sustainable. The article reflects on the agendas and forces at play in this space and attempts to stimulate debate about how those researching media production might productively engage in critiquing these policies and dynamics of power.

Since HBO made the employment of an Intimacy Coordinator mandatory on all productions with scenes of sex, nudity, and physical intimacy in 2018, intimacy coordination has become an industry standard and expectation. Through interviews and analysis of production practices, this article explores how Intimacy Coordinators change and challenge established production practices on and off set and interrogates the reasons behind the emergence of this role in the screen industry. It situates intimacy coordination in the context of recent industry policies and initiatives that promote equality and diversity, and counter harassment and abuse in the post-Weinstein era. It analyses this role on relation to changing production and distribution models and regimes in the era of VOD portals. The article argues that intimacy coordination is not only a catalyst for reforming practices on set, but a way for the screen industry to negotiate contemporary and historic concerns about sexual harassment and abuse, comply with recent policy and funding requirements, and a mechanism for mitigating economic and reputational risk to productions.

Recent years have seen a rise in automatic funding schemes in the screen industries. This article examines the intended and unintended consequences of automatic incentives in smaller screen economies in Northern Europe. It focuses on the Danish Film Institute’s decision to abolish automatic schemes including tax incentives, and compares this case to other screen industries where automatic funding is well established or has been recently introduced. Based on discussions with executives and funders at national screen agencies, the article investigates who benefits from specific funding schemes and which screen industry automatic incentives prioritise and facilitate. Through this, it examines the political considerations and value systems that underpin funding priorities, and the perception of automatic funding among policy makers, implementers and stakeholders in national screen industries. The analysis indicates that automatic funding is rarely a proactive measure, but rather a response to failing screen industries or competition from neighbouring funding incentives.

Editorial and introduction to a special issue of Media Education Journal with contributions from scholars at University of Glasgow. The issue explores a range of different screen media – from film and television to online streaming services such as YouTube and the expanding technologies of Virtual Reality – reflecting the variety of platforms and areas of interest that fall under the umbrella of contemporary media, film and television scholarship. The articles also indicate the many different but complementary methods, approaches, and interests of Glasgow’s film, television and media teachers and researchers today.

The increasing availability and affordability of virtual reality (VR) headsets and sensory tech for mobile phones and computers, e.g. Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Google Cardboard and Samsung Gear, have brought new forms of interactive documentary experiences into the mainstream. VR offers unprecedented immersive and affective ways of engaging with documentary subjects and stories and enables enhanced experiences of and insights into otherwise inaccessible worlds, lives and realities. This article explores the potential and possibilities for storytelling that VR brings, as well as the ways in which the funding, production and distribution of VR experiences impact how VR documentaries are perceived and regulated, today and in the future.

This article explores the ways in which smartphones, mobile technology and media and, with this, the growing practice of viewing and interacting with content on multiple screens and devices, are informing changes to the TV industry and the content it produces in the United Kingdom. The article reflects on how British TV companies, producers and executives understand their role and the types of content that is currently being commissioned and funded within this changing mediascape. Based on industry data from Ofcom and PACT, interviews with producers, commissioning editors and executives as well as participant observation at industry events, the article argues that mobile media is having a profound impact on the British production sector and ecology. In order to understand and describe the players and practices that make up the ‘TV industry’ today, it is now necessary to rethink how content is defined and where it appears. There is also a need to reconsider who the content producers, broadcasters and distributors are within this industry, and include a wider spectrum of producers as well as the telecoms, aggregators and social media networks as funders and distributors of audiovisual content within this ecology. These reconfigurations impact not only on constitution of the TV industry itself, its modus operandi and the content it produces but also on how arts bodies, policymakers and academics need to approach this ecology.

In this introductory essay, we explore definitions of the ‘sharing economy’, a concept indicating  both  social  (relational,  communitarian)  and  economic  (allocative,  profit-seeking) aspects which appear to be in tension. We suggest combining the social and economic logics of
the  sharing  economy  to  focus  on  the  central  features  of  network  enabled,  aggregated membership in a pool of offers and demands (for goods, services, creative expressions). This definition  of  the  sharing  economy  distinguishes  it  from  other  related  peer-to-peer  and collaborative forms of production. Understanding the social and economic motivations for and implications of participating in the sharing economy is important to its regulation. Each of the papers in this special issue contributes to knowledge by linking the social and economic aspects of sharing economy practices to regulatory norms and mechanisms. We conclude this essay by suggesting future research to further clarify and render intelligible the sharing economy, not as a contradiction in terms but as an empirically observable realm of socio-economic activity.

The proliferation of two screen or connected viewing on multiple devices (smartphones/iphones, laptops, tablets/ipads) simultaneously are reshaping the ways that TV broadcasters programme, schedule, and deliver programmes and content. This article examines how the notions of liveness and live TV are being reshaped within this context. Focusing on the BBC and Channel 4 the article explores how and why these two British PSBs are reinventing and promoting liveness and in particular live media events across platforms and devices. With the BBC’s ‘BBC Live’ content delivery system as case study, the article argues that rather than seeing liveness as a thing of the past, BBC regards live TV as core to its multi-platform strategy. Today, the BBC uses two of television’s traditional traits – liveness and reach – to crowd out and gain a competitive edge on streamed content and VoD providers like YouTube, Netflix and AmazonPrime across platforms and devices.

Today, VOD (video on demand) sites and portals specializing in long-form, high-quality documentary and factual content proliferate online. This article explores the multiplatform strategies of public service broadcasters in the UK in this context. It examines how the BBC and Channel 4 address the masses of user generated content that flood the documentary market and partake in the battle for audiences for documentary films and factual content in a multiplatform context. Both channels seek to reinvent themselves as public service media providers and curators of documentary content online, in order to fulfil public service remits and secure their positions as leading providers of documentary and factual content across platforms in a global multiplatform mediascape. However, by contrasting Channel 4’s online ‘verticals’ with the BBC’s themed and branded documentary portals, the article argues that although Channel 4 and BBC pursue similar strategies online they do so for different reasons and to different effect.

... media. Albert Figurt's video essay Notre Cam de Paris (2010) depicts digital representation and meta-mediation to explore how multiple screens and digital recordings and media impact on our lives and minds today. Another ...