August 12, 2025
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Deadline: April 11, 2025
ECREA Media Industries and Cultural Production Workshop
This one-day conference tackles a central and persistent challenge in media industries research: How scholars gain entry into media companies and navigate the personal and professional relationships that shape researcher-industry interactions.
Issues of trust, access, and working beyond polished corporate narratives have long been debated in studies of media production, distribution, and industrial organization. These questions have been approached from both pragmatic and strategic perspectives, which focus on the practical challenges of forming relationships and gaining access, as well as from ethical perspectives, that address normative concerns about how these relationships should be structured.
The urgency of these questions has only grown in recent years. As international tech giants reshape the media landscape, their corporate cultures and structures pose new barriers to access. Traditional media companies, too, have evolved—fragmentation, competition, and shifting security protocols have made research entry more complex than ever. These changes not only reinforce enduring methodological challenges but also demand fresh approaches to researcher-industry relations.
We invite papers that critically examine the dynamics of access, relational work, and researcher-industry engagement—whether through empirical case studies, methodological discussions, or theoretical inquiry. Our goal is to share experiences, refine our research strategies, and deepen our understanding of the evolving conditions of media industries research.
Presentations at the conference may address, but are not limited to:
● The ethical dimensions of relational work in media industries research—and the insights gained from openly reflecting on access strategies and the challenges of managing academia-industry relationships.
● How strategies for gaining access may differ depending on the specific media industries or organizations, their sizes, and political contexts.
● Longitudinal accounts of how mutual trust is maintained or challenged in relationships between individual researchers and industry actors over time.
● Professional “breakups” between researchers and industrial actors, and what can be learned from ending or exiting collaborations.
● The issues of sharing or accessing historical data or archival material.
● The issues of accessing media organizations’ digital platforms, internal systems, or internal communication channels.
● How taking part in committees and policy work can challenge researchers’ autonomous role and how they have mitigated this.
● Creative workarounds to gain access to organizations once initial attempts are denied.
We invite scholars to submit abstracts for papers addressing these themes.
Abstracts of 300 words should be submitted no later than the 11 April 2025. Send abstracts to: fredrik.stiernstedt@sh.se. Authors will be informed regarding acceptance/rejection for the conference no later than 16 May 2025. Early career scholars and graduate students are highly encouraged to submit their work (please indicate if the research submitted is part of your thesis or dissertation project).
Fees and accommodation. The conference registration fee is 50 Euros, and participants are asked to cover their travel expenses. This fee includes coffee breaks, lunch and drinks at the get-together. For participants that will continue to the NordMedia 2025 Conference in Odense (13-15 August), trains from Copenhagen to Odense depart frequently and take about 90 minutes. Participants are asked to cover their accommodation.
Organizing committee
Local organizers: Mads Møller Tommerup Andersen (University of Copenhagen)
For the section management team: Fredrik Stiernstedt (Södertörn University), Vilde Schanke Sundet (Oslo Metropolitan University), Catalina Iordache (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Torbjörn Rolandsson (Roskilde University).
