Media Studies Colloquium

Sponsored by the Global Media Industries Speaker Series.
Kevin Sanson is Professor of Media Studies and Head of the School of Communication at Queensland University of Technology. His research focuses on the implications of industrial change for film and television workers

"Disrupted Paydays: Rethinking Compensation Norms for Film & TV's Digital Era"

In this talk, Sanson will outline how a particular configuration of macroeconomic conditions in Australia have shaped the contours of change within its national television industry and have raised troubling questions about the effectiveness of its existing support mechanisms for the sustainability of local cultural production. Against this backdrop, Sanson will then move into a more specific conversation about creative compensation—a significant point of concern for producers and talent not only in Australia but also in the US and UK. From a local standpoint, there is confusion, conflation, anxiety, and even some excitement about the impact of “US-style” deals on the sector’s viability. But, even those “US-style” norms are struggling to accommodate fundamental shifts in the industry’s business model. Amidst all of the anxiety about who should be paid what and how, it’s clear that the historical origins of compensation norms are not well remembered or adequately understood. Accordingly, Sanson will reframe compensation as a complex and historically specific amalgamation of collective bargaining efforts, copyright and labor law, and employee contracting practices, arguing compensation packages have never been “natural” or “inevitable” but always evolving to accommodate the distinctive characteristics of particular film and television industries. Now, as some of those core characteristics evolve, dissipate, or converge on a global scale, it affords researchers an opportunity to recast and reconsider how well those core logics can appropriately reward and value labor in the digital era.

RTF Professor Charles Ramírez Berg.
University Distinguished Teaching Professor, Joe M. Dealey, Sr. Professor in Media Studies, Board of Regents' Outstanding Teacher, Distinguished University Lecturer
Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin

"Reflections on Teaching:

Abstract:
Good teaching is like a magic show—fun to watch, hard to do. In this talk I will discuss some ways I’ve tried to optimize my teaching effectiveness, ways that might help you improve your pedagogical magic. Looking back on my 40-plus years in the classroom as a high school teacher, college lecturer, doctoral student assistant instructor, assistant, associate, and full professor, I will share some of the key teaching principles I’ve discovered — and how I’ve combined them with some recently found insights.

I will:
• Discuss how to customize the 5 Keys to Good Teaching to you and your personality
• Remind you that the only reliable indicator of effective teaching is quality learning on the student end
• Help you find your sweet spot in the ongoing debate between the long lecture and active learning
• Help you confront and contend with the ultimate time management challenge of an academic career — balancing research, teaching, service, and living a life.

The Q&A invites participants to reflect on and share their teaching experiences, including what changes you made during your pandemic teaching.

That discussion will be continued at the Hole in the Wall after the colloquium.

Sponsored by the Global Media Industries Speaker Series.

Jaeho Kang
Professor, Department of Communication, Seoul National University
“Siegfried Kracauer and Critical Theory of Political Communication”

Abstract:
Siegfried Kracauer (1889-1966), a German Jewish social and cultural critic, is widely regarded as one of the most original and perceptive film theorists of the twentieth century. Overshadowed by his famous books such as The Mass Ornament and Theory of Film, his extensive and provocative writings on propaganda and political communication have received a good deal less attention among Anglophone readers. Recent publication, Siegfried Kracauer, Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda, and Political Communication (Columbia University Press, 2022), brings together a broad section of Kracauer’s writings, many of which were previously unavailable in English, spanning more than two decades, from studies of totalitarian propaganda written in the 1930s to wartime work on Nazi newsreels and anti-Semitism to early Cold War examinations of American and Soviet political messaging. In his talk, Prof. Jaeho Kang, a co-editor of the volume, discusses how presciently his analyses illuminate the interplay between politics, mass culture and the media, and how relevant his texts are for understanding the current crisis of democracy, a crisis which is increasingly tied to the advancement of communication technologies and the rise of right-wing populism in the U.S. and around the globe in the age of post-truth.

Bio:
Jaeho Kang is Professor in Department of Communication at Seoul National University. He was Senior Lecturer in Critical Media and Cultural Studies at SOAS, the University of London (2012-2018), Assistant Professor in Sociology of Media at The New School in New York City (2005-2012), and the Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Institut für Sozialforschung, the University of Frankfurt (2004-2005). He completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge in 2004. Kang is the author of Walter Benjamin and the Media: The Spectacle of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014) and a co-editor of Siegfried Kracauer: Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda and Political Communication (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). He has tried to bring the theoretical contributions of Critical Theory to the development of East Asian media and cultural studies. He is currently writing a book with the working title, The Phantasmagoria of Techno-City: Seoul, Space and Spectacle.

PhD Candidate Rusty Hatchell will present portions of his dissertation.