UPDATED CFP- EXTENDED DEADLINE (April 21, 2017)!!!

Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS) 5th International Conference
Bridging Gaps: Where is the Critic in Television Journalism?
CUNY Graduate School of Journalism
New York City, USA
August 31-September 1, 2017

Conference Keynote Speakers:

Andrew Mendelson
Associate Dean & Professor, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

P. David Marshall
Professor & Personal Chair in New Media, Communication & Cultural Studies, Deakin University

Conference Key Media Speaker:

Tim Harper
Journalist & Visiting Professor, CUNY Graduate School of Journalism

Call for Papers

In broadcast journalism, the notion of the ‘TV academic’ is rare but important with the origins related to the Fourth Estate’s veritable position as critical government watchdogs. Similar in nature to questions on conflating the journalist with celebrity in popular discourse are those surrounding the academic and celebrity. In his case, Birmingham City University professor and broadcaster David Wilson discovered, “The greatest tension is the growing perception by some members of the public that I am a celebrity, rather than an academic.” At the same time, he notes that the benefits of being a public scholar greatly outweigh the downsides.

Mainstream TV uses social media to augment its reach, facilitating dialogues between actors and viewers. These dominant tactics further engage by mitigating the role of perceived mediators between celebrities and their on-screen personas. In an analogous way, more conversations that include academics are crucial in mainstream TV. Without them, redefining or redesigning efforts that stimulate critical faculties in the collective mind and make for good citizenry become lost amidst the noise of what postmodern French philosopher Jean Baudrillard once characterized as an era of “more and more information, and less and less meaning”.

So how can an academic produce a TV show or offer television appearances while disregarding stereotypical trappings associated with the ‘celebrity academic’? How can these efforts be accomplished in ways that preserve the integrity of the academe yet also cater to mass audience within one’s area of scholarship? What are some ethical tactics and key platforms in which these voices are best and most widely heard?

The Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS) Bridging Gaps conference, in association with CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Centre for Ecological, Social, and Informatics Cognitive Research (ESI.CORE) and WaterHill Publishing, invites academics, journalists, publicists, producers and guests to attend, speak and collaborate at the international conference Bridging Gaps: Where is the Critic in Television Journalism? Join us in NYC where the conference will uniquely combine vibrant roundtable and workshop panels with a CMCS TV proposal in a collaborative network.

The format of the conference aims at being open and inclusive ranging from interdisciplinary academic scholars to practitioners involved in all areas of television journalism, including tactics related to engagement capitalizing on existing public and private television channels and evolving forms of social media—from YouTube to Vimeo, Zoom to Jing, Periscope to Google Hangout. Working papers and media productions will be considered for the conference.

Extended versions of selected best papers will be published in an edited book.

Registration includes: Your printed package for the complete conference, professional development workshops, access to evening receptions, complimentary evening drinks, consideration for publication, and the CMCS $100 best paper and $100 best screen awards.

Submission guidelines:

o 250-word abstract or workshop / roundtable proposal
o Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable
o Submit to conference Chairs William Huddy, Josh Nathan and Andrea Marshall at email address: celeb.studies2017@gmail.com
o Deadline for abstract submission: April 21, 2017
o Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2017
o Early bird registration deadline: June 15, 2017
o Full text due: July 30, 2017
o Conference reception and presentations: August 31 – September 1, 2017

Celebrity Chat Video Submissions:

• Video length should be 10-20 minutes
• Include a title, your name, e-mail address, and affiliation if applicable
• Submit to Celebrity Chat producer Dr. Jackie Raphael at email address: celeb.studies2017@gmail.com
• Deadline for abstract submission: April 21, 2017
• Notification of acceptance: May 15, 2017
• Early bird registration deadline: June 15, 2017
• Full text due: July 30, 2017
• Conference reception and presentations: August 31 – September 1, 2017

Topics include but are not limited to:

• Television Studies
• TV Celebrity
• Celebrity Academic
• Onscreen Persona
• Fandom
• Audience
• Publicity
• News
• Interviews
• Social Media
• Online Video
• Fiction
• Genre
• Biography
• Literature
• Fashion
• Photography
• Performance
• Life Writings
• Theory and Methods
• Research Agenda
• Business Models
• Ethics and Morality
• Media Literacy
• Education and Advocacy
• International Relations
• Community Building
• Business and Community Partnerships

Conference Keynote: Andrew Mendelson
Conference Key Media Speaker: Tim Harper
Conference Chairs: Andrea Marshall, Josh Nathan, and William Huddy

William Huddy earned his Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of Denver (2012). Prior to academia, Huddy worked as a journalist and anchored television newscasts in Colorado Springs, Colorado, El Paso, Texas, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Fort Myers, Florida. He’s a Past-President (2007) of the Rocky Mountain Communication Association, and an active member of the National Communication Association since 2001. He teaches Political and Campaign Communication, Communication Research and Theory Building, Interpersonal Communication and Public Speaking at Metropolitan State University of Denver (since 2013), with a research focus on student engagement and communication activism. His most recent publication came from the Sept. 2-3, 2015 Center for Media and Celebrity Studies Conference presentation of his paper, “Corporate Colonization and the Myth of Authentic Journalism.”

Josh Nathan graduated from Northwestern University, Magna cum Laude, in Journalism before spending 10 years working on-air as a television reporter and a National Weather Association certified meteorologist. His final position in TV was with the NBC affiliate in Hawaii, where he was also finishing his graduate degree. A professor with The Art Institutes in Critical Thinking and Communication, he began teaching for the University of Colorado Denver last year. He serves as an Academic Critic for the Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies (CMCS) and is co-chair of its NYC 2017 conference. Quoted on a variety of subjects in international forums with several journal publications to his credit, Nathan wrote his first book about the ways in which news changes the collective memory of events, altering historical narratives. His second book, Too Mad to Trust (2015), was a departure aimed at curbing rising communicative disorders in children, and he is currently completing his PhD in Education and Human Resource Studies at Colorado State University.

Andrea Marshall’s interdisciplinary work seeks to understand how informal learning environments support the construction of gendered expertise in sociotechnical contexts. She aims at creating value sensitive educational practices that synthesize new approaches to skill building and nonlinear learning processes, in order to better comprehend how we can create innovative pedagogical approaches that support diversity in terms of both varied gender expressions and multivalent learning styles. Andrea Marshall is completing her Doctoral research in Computing & Informatics at Drexel University.

Conference URL: www.cmc-centre.com/nyc2017 Twitter @celeb_studies #BGCS17