{"id":3307,"date":"2016-03-29T16:09:19","date_gmt":"2016-03-29T16:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openreflections.wordpress.com\/?p=3307"},"modified":"2016-03-29T16:09:19","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T16:09:19","slug":"new-media-gatekeepers-ecosystems-of-access-and-denial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openreflections.org\/?p=3307","title":{"rendered":"New Media Gatekeepers: Ecosystems of Access and Denial"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"flyerNM\"
\n 
\nCoventry University
\nSchool of Media and Performing Arts
\nEllen Terry Building – ETG101<\/p>\n

April 22nd <\/sup> – 12:30-16:00
\n17:00: Book Launch and Wine Reception<\/p>\n

Organised by the Centre for Disruptive Media:
\nhttp:\/\/disruptivemedia.org.uk\/<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nFree Symposium. Please Register at:
\nwww.newmediagatekeepers.
\ndisruptivemedia.org.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

 
\n 
\nSpeakers:<\/u><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Margie Borschke (Macquarie University) \u2013 Music (via Skype)<\/p>\n

James Newman (Bath Spa University) \u2013 Computer Games<\/p>\n

Federica Frabetti (Oxford Brookes University) – Software<\/p>\n

Janneke Adema (Coventry University) \u2013 Academic Publishing<\/p>\n

Jennifer Holt (UC, Santa Barbara) \u2013 Television (via Skype)<\/p>\n

Anthony Luvera (Coventry University) \u2013 Photography<\/p>\n

Alejandro Ball (University of Dundee) \u2013 New Media Art<\/p>\n

Virginia Crisp (Coventry University) \u2013 Film and Moving Image<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

New Media Gatekeepers: Ecosystems of Access and Denial<\/strong><\/p>\n

The shift from \u2018expert\u2019 to \u2018amateur\u2019 gatekeepers of cultural content in a web 2.0 context has been lamented by many an Internet skeptic as an \u2018undermining of our culture\u2019 (Keen 2007). However, gatekeeper studies have demonstrated that the process of \u2018expert\u2019 selection (or not) of media for publication or dissemination is subject to vagaries of personal subjectivity (David Manning White, 1950) or to bureaucratic routine (Walter Gieber, 1964). Negus points out that despite its \u2018liberal\u2019 image, the distribution of power within the cultural industries is quite regressive and that decision-making power is often situated within small enclaves of privilege\u2014where the music industry actually represents \u2018in condensed form, the preferences and judgements of a small, relatively elite educated, middle-class, white male faction\u2019 (Negus, 2002: 512).<\/p>\n

Such examinations of gatekeeping practices have made an important contribution to understandings of power and influence within the cultural industries. However, they have yet to fully examine the manner in which certain technological and social developments have increased the role of non-professional gatekeepers (e.g. fan fiction communities, YouTube vloggers, bloggers or piracy forum moderators (Crisp, 2015; Bod\u00f3, B. and Lakatos, 2012)) as well as the intermediation provided by non-human filtering devices such as recommendation algorithms and search. Even we as media users play an important role here, actively feeding the filtering devices and computational processes set up by major technology platforms to facilitate media dissemination and consumption (Striphas 2015, Gillespie 2014).<\/p>\n

Indeed, in opposition to the claims that web 2.0 has been accompanied by a process of disintermediation (whereby intermediaries no longer play a role in mediating between audiences and producers), this symposium will examine the role of the complex and diverse ecosystem of formal and informal, visible and invisible, human and computational media gatekeepers, that is currently rising to the fore.<\/p>\n

Keeping in mind the diversity and specificity of various media forms, this symposium seeks to examine how the varying networks of media dissemination come together on various platforms and as part of networks of interactions and relations. It is our contention that the practices of media gatekeeping must be examined in a way that acknowledges the current level of interrelation between media forms and their associated process of production, distribution and consumption. How does the distribution and dissemination ecology of one medium, e.g. film, intersect with the associated ecologies of production, distribution and consumption surrounding games, TV programmes, software, books, newspapers, new media art, music, and other media content?<\/p>\n

This symposium will consider interlocking ecosystem(s) of media distribution and publishing both holistically and culturally to develop a more nuanced understanding of the factors that influence the transnational flows of media texts, objects and events, and our own becoming as users and producers of technology in intra-action with these processes of mediation (Kember and Zylinska 2012). In doing so, this symposium aims to provide a detailed examination of the macro\/micro, social, cultural and formal\/informal contexts within which media acquisition, as well as publishing and dissemination decisions, are made, and how such decisions ultimately dictate the content made available to audiences worldwide, as well as our relationship to it. This symposium therefore considers how gatekeeping practices overlap across industries, platforms, texts and actors, and how we might potentially intervene. It\u00a0will consider the following questions:<\/p>\n