Intersections of Film and Television in the Baltic Sea Region: Past and Present "Baltic Screen Media Review" (special issue) https://sciendo.com/journal/BSMR

Teet Teinemaa Announcement
Location
Estonia
Subject Fields
Cultural History / Studies, Digital Humanities, Eastern Europe History / Studies, Film and Film History, Humanities

               Until very recently, the scholarship concentrating on moving images has typically regarded cinema and television as two separate fields of study, each with its own evolutionary biographies, industrial mechanics, institutional spaces, aesthetics, and methodologies of inquiry. Even more – the relationship between cinema and television has often been imagined and defined as one of rivalry, running in parallel and engaging in battles over the attention of the audiences. Lately, however, several authors have begun to show the fallacy of such an artificial divide (Gray and Johnson 2021; Richards 2021) and others are calling for a broader understanding of television, seeing it as part of larger cultural systems (Ostrowska and Roberts 2007; Imre 2016; Mihelj and Huxtable 2018).

               The developments witnessed in particular during the era that followed the so-called digital turn, shaped by rapidly intensifying media convergence, are increasingly calling into question the legitimacy of such an academic specialism. Digital technologies, especially coupled with the unprecedented conditions of life brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, continue to transform the way moving images are produced, distributed and consumed, regardless of their ‘disciplinary’ designation (see Ibrus and Teinemaa 2020). These allegedly new encounters between the two screen territories compel us to revisit their historical trajectories and to perhaps rethink their divergence and disparity.

               As such, following the success of the 7th Baltic Sea Region Film History Conference, we call for papers and ‘think pieces’ investigating the long and ongoing relationship of film and television of the Baltic Sea countries (incl. Germany, Poland, Denmark, etc.) in the broadest of terms and in full spatio-temporal perspective. Analyses of similar issues elsewhere, especially in countries of similar sizes or circumstances are also welcome. We call for papers investigating the institutional, industrial, aesthetic, historic, political, and philosophical dimensions of film and televisions interactions. Potential areas of interest could be, but are not limited to, for example:

  • technological inventions and advancements and their cultural, economic, and political implications;
  • fiscal politics and cultural policy (e.g. various models of funding);
  • institutional frame- and networks;
  • flows of crew and talent;
  • materiality, medium specificity, and technical convergence;
  • cultural and aesthetic patterns, conventions and shifts;
  • changing landscapes of distribution, exhibition, and consumption;
  • representations of the two media as cultural technologies;
  • archival afterlives.

 

               In addition to academic inquiries, including full-length articles and the shorter and potentially more essayistic 'think pieces', we encourage submissions that explore and present experiences ‘from the field’, past and present – by policy-makers, institutional stakeholders, industrial and creative figures, as well as archivists safeguarding and re-activating the heritage.

               Abstracts of 200–300 words, title, and a short bio are to be received by 1 October 2022, and full manuscripts of either 4000–8000 words or the shorter ‘think piece’ format of 1500–2500 words, excluding refs, by 1 February 2023 in order to be sent out for review. The special section of Baltic Screen Media Review (BSMR) will appear in issue vol. 11:1 published both online and in print in the second half of 2023.

 

All submissions should be sent via email attachment to Teet Teinemaa (teinemaa@tlu.ee) and Eva Näripea (eva.naripea@ra.ee). Any questions regarding the special issue or the submission process should be directed to the same addresses.

 

Bibliography:

Gray, J., and Derek Johnson. 2021. Television Goes to the Movies. Routledge.

Ibrus, I., and Teet Teinemaa. 2020. “The Changes that COVID-19 Catalysed for Audiovisual Industries”. Baltic Screen Media Review 8:1, pp 1–7.

Imre, A. 2016. TV Socialism. Duke UP.

Mihelj, S., and Simon Huxtable. 2018. From Media Systems to Media Cultures: Understanding Socialist Television. Cambridge UP.

Ostrowska, D., and Graham Roberts. 2007. European Cinemas in the Television Age. Edinburgh UP.

Richards, R. W. 2021. Cinematic TV: Serial Drama Goes to the Movies. Oxford UP.

Contact Information

All submissions should be sent via email attachment to Teet Teinemaa (teinemaa@tlu.ee) and Eva Näripea (eva.naripea@ra.ee). Any questions regarding the special issue or the submission process should be directed to the same addresses.

Contact Email
teinemaa@tlu.ee