In a recent interview with Bill Kirkpatrick for the Aca-Media Podcast, Angelo Restivo, program chair of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, notes the increased diversity of topics, objects, and approaches at the upcoming 2014 meeting—the growing presence of the M in SCMS, in other words. In light of this, I thought it might be interesting to do a quick keyword search of the conference program to see the distribution of certain media and approaches. t is my hope to continue this sort of analysis every year to chart the transformations of the organization in the coming years.
Obviously, there are some flaws with this method. For instance, a word might appear in both a panel and paper title, thus registering in the search twice when in fact it may appear only once in that particular instance. Likewise, some titles might reference, say, a TV show but not mention the medium as such in the title, thereby falling outside my search terms. Moreover, I’ve selected a few dozen terms or phrases that are hardly exhaustive of the approaches on offer at the conference. And finally, I’ve searched for race and ethnicity, but I have not sought specific races and ethnicities by name, for that might take me further down the rabbit hole of research than I can afford—I’ve got a conference paper to write, after all. In short, my method here is by no means scientific; rather, I think it is merely suggestive of the variety one might find in Seattle next week. I’m more than certain I’ve neglected a number of important trends within the field, so, if you’re so inclined, feel free to do some keyword searches of your own and add them in the comments section below.
Here are a few terms or phrases I searched for, along with the number of times they appear. Again, these figures are meant to be suggestive of the complexion of SCMS14 more than a thorough scouring of the program.
Medium Specificity
FILM – 343
MOVIE – 29
TV/TELEVISION – 161
DOCUMENTARY – 48
VIDEOGAME(S)/VIDEO GAME(S)/DIGITAL GAME(S) – 26
MUSIC – 15
RADIO – 22
COMIC(S) – 12
WEB/INTERNET – 11
VIDEO (not related to “game”) – 25
IMAGE(S) – 50
DIGITAL – 57
NEW MEDIA – 2
SPACE/SPATIAL – 28
Methodologies
AUDIENCE – 21
FAN – 63
SPECTATOR(S) – 25
STAR(S)(DOM) – 48
INDUSTRY(INDUSTRIES) – 45
AUTEUR – 14
QUEER(ING) – 44
RACE/ETHNICITY – 9
GENDER – 21
CULTURE(S)/CULTURAL – 56
POLITIC(S)/POLITICAL – 69
IDEOLOGY/IDEOLOGIES/IDEOLOGICAL – 7
TRANSNATIONAL – 32
SOUND – 70
THEORY/THEORETICAL – 29
PARATEXT(UAL) – 5
HISTORY/HISTORIES – 63
AFFECT/AFFECTIVE – 15
BODY/BODIES – 33
EMBODIED/EMBODIMENT – 8
FEMINIST/FEMINISM – 25
PHILOSOPHY – 6
AESTHETIC(S) – 74
COGNITION/COGNITIVE – 2
TRANSMEDIA – 8
INTERACTIVE – 5
and finally,
COLONS – 2716
Again, this is in no way an exhaustive (or even methodologically sound). Instead, I think it reflects the some trends at the conference that might not immediately suggest themselves while thumbing through the program. Be my guest to add others in the comments below. I bid you happy writing, safe travels, and look forward to seeing many of you in Seattle.