Media and Emotion

The Media and Emotion conference is hosted by The Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice, in the Faculty of Media, Science and Technology at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom.
This includes: 2 days with up to 100+ papers in 30+ panels, 4 keynote events, lunches and refreshment breaks for both days, optional self-funded conference meal, student rates and on campus accommodation available (subject to availability).

Registration fee: including refreshments and lunch for two days:

• Presenter: £140 (students, part time employment)
• Presenter: £170 (full time employment)
• Attendee only: £140 (students, part time employment)
• Attendee only: £170 (full time employment)
  
• Talbot campus accommodation (subject to availability- 30 rooms availability)
  £75 for three nights (6th, 7th and 8th September),
  additional night available for extra £25 (5th September)
  

NOTE:

• Houses to be prepared with single rooms only to be made up prior to arrival with shared facilities. NB: bedding is provided, but residents will need to bring own towels.
• Houses do not come with 'kitchenalalia' (although there is an oven, there are no utensils, pots, pans, crockery, cutlery etc).
• Parking needs to be arranged through conference organises, who will engage with Parking Services.

Conference Call for papers - https://sites.google.com/view/media-emotion-conference/

In the era of populism, political leaders deploy emotionally charged narratives, in offering simple answers to complex problems, often with minority groups as the targets of division and abjection. Also, techniques of production and representation deploy the language of emotion, in aesthetic and narrative-oriented contexts, and theoretical work is constantly evolving.
As neuroscientist Raymond J. Dolan observes, “emotion provides the principal currency in human relationships as well as the motivational force for what is best and worst in human behaviour” (2002). Within contemporary media production and consumption, emotion often binds us together, at times appearing as a language of intimacy, vulnerability and reflexivity, and conversely as a language of division, entitlement and exclusion. Therefore, emotions expressed and evoked through media have attracted sustained scholarly attention across a wide range of disciplines, spanning the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.
As Laura U. Marks discussed in her landmark text The Skin of Film (1999), contemporary media offers a creative space for issues of touch, memory and hegemonic challenge, invigorated through a media-based emotional landscape. Also, Sara Ahmed has theorised in The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014), that ‘affective economies’ and ‘sticky associations’ shape our phenomenological landscapes, defining boundaries for minority voices as much as offering spaces for resistance and reinvention.
This conference interrogates these ideas, including contributions from across film and media studies, psychology, sociology, cultural studies, communication and creative practice, engaging with topics such as:
• Affect, spectatorship, and emotional engagement
• Media, empathy, and social cognition
• Representation, identity, and stigma
• Emotion in digital and social media environments
• Political and cultural contexts (e.g. populism, conflict, inequality)
• Practice-based and industry perspectives

CONFIRMED KEYNOTES:
Lisa Blackman (Professor in Media and Communications – Goldsmiths University) - whose work includes:
● Grey Media: A Psychopolitics of Deception (Punctum Books 2026).
● Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science (Bloomsbury 2019).
DECEIT AND DECEPTION: Lisa will explore media and emotion through the concept of ‘grey media’, a term which brings into alignment the long histories of apparatuses of deceit and deception which have a distinct mediality, linking the gaslighting of emotional abuse, information warfare and AI Deception.
Kristyn Gorton (Professor of Film and Television – University of Leeds) -– whose work includes:
● Emotion Online: Theorising Affect on the Internet (Palgrave 2013).
● Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).
EMPATHY AND INTIMACY: This paper returns to Kristyn’s earlier work (as above) and engages with recent work on 'empathy' and 'intimacy' to reflect on the development of the field and the ways in which television constructs emotion. Kristyn will draw on examples from serial melodrama which use excess to mark out spaces for viewers to work through narratives of social justice and change. The paper will also consider how the production cultures impact and inform the affective landscape of these stories.
Kim Akass (Professor of Radio Television and Film) - whose work includes:
● Mothers on American Television: From Here to Maternity (Manchester University Press 2023).
RAGE AND MOTHERHOOD: Since the overturn of Roe vs Wade in June 2022 and the resulting ban on abortion in 13 states (so far), is it surprising that we are seeing so much female rage on our screens? From postpartum psychosis in Die My Love (Lynne Ramsay, 2025) to If I Had Legs, I Would Kick You (Mary Bronstein, 2025) maternal rage is, well, all the rage. In this paper Kim will explore how female rage has emerged as a theme in film and TV and asks whether this is due to an increase in women behind the scenes or a reaction to punitive legislation against women’s reproductive rights.
Christa van Raalte (Associate Professor of Film and Television – Bournemouth University) – whose work includes:
• The Good Manager in TV: Tales for the Twenty-first Century, in Creative Industries Journal (2024), (with Wallis, R.).
• More Than Just a Few ‘Bad Apples’: The Need for a Risk Management Approach to the Problem of Workplace Bullying in the UK’s Television Industry, in Creative Industries Journal (2023), (with Wallis, R. and Pekalski, D.).
TV INDUSTRY PANEL: THE ECONOMICS OF EMOTION: Christa will also bring together a range of industry practitioners, considering how emotion works as a commodity for creativity, in artistic and workplace contexts. What are the safeguarding standards when creators, collaborators and audiences engage with productions that frame emotional media? How might media producers negotiate the polarising emotional landscape and ethical broadcasting standards when creating content?

For further information on this event please contact [email protected].

How to get to BU:

Talbot campus is easily accessed via public transport and has bike storage points. Please see travel info

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