Fortress Europe and Global Research

Recently, I've seen a couple of very attractive teaching and research job opportunities in something called "Global Media" or "Global Communication".  Also, my dear Alma Mater the University of Helsinki has just begun a new MA program on Media and Global Communication. 

Excellent. I'm sure no one can deny any longer that there's at least some transnational characteristics regarding most media -- not only in terms of production, content and consumption/participation, but in terms of ownership or even policy challenges and regulatory frameworks as well. Another curious phenomenon is that as I'm getting ready to teach a course on media and national identity there's really nothing very contemporary about written about it. The related books are dominated with titles that start with the G-word.

So it's great that scholars and universities are focusing on this. But.

I wonder how to put this diplomatically... A couple of years back, I was part of a team doing an overview study for the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation about communication research in the US. Having been used to the little clique that meets within the protective walls of the Fortress Europe I was amazed what a different research landscape emerged from our mapping of the situation the US.  No need for details here (well, the studies on media effects, you know... check out the report) but I also noted how US-centric the research is.

Wearing my European hat, easy for me say. Access to data (e.g., state-funded statistical bureaus, the European Audiovisual Observatory), to researchers/universities in other countries, cultural proximity, EU/European as a common topic... all make things easier on that side of the Atlantic. At the same time, the relative Anglo-American dominance in communication and media studies, at least for Northern Europe, had given me some glimpses of the US-based research. And thanks to America 'cultural imperialism' I felt I could analyse American talkshows and reality programmes fluidly, no problems.

But then today, here in Brooklyn, I realised what the European me had been missing... 

I just finished a part of a book review I'm coauthoring for a US-based academic journal. My task was to read a book by Danish scholars -- oh well: New Publics with/out Democracy.  A solid edited volume, interesting cases. But having become somewhat cross-Atlantic reading it I was suddenly transformed back to Finland, could even see in my mind's eye the seminar room where these texts and others would be presented and discussed. The point: I encountered something that I claim is the Nordic way of doing research and writing, and something in me recognised it immediately.  Can't deconstruct that in detail (yet), but will think about it more.

And I realised how culturally, well, narrow, my research competence is. It also dawned to me that we Europeans really lack analyses by North and South Americans colleagues, African, Asian and Oceanian researchers, about our contemporary media culture, structures, policy-making... The cultural competence is important, but oh how refreshing would it be to read analyses that looked at our fortress (and the national mini-fortresses within the big one) with a little bit of distance... We might learn tons! (Apologies to those scholars who are already working on this, but you are not many). 

So let's mix and match and get truly global -- Europeans (Westerners) have excelled in researching other cultures; it would be so important to learn more about ours through non-native ones, so much more possibilities for innovation. 

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Welcome to challenge and rethink 'old' and 'new', public and private, global and local, production and reception, the past and the future, and.... of the media.

Lay opinions and fancy academic theories about the media are plentiful. Funnily enough, they often take quite a uniform, and black-and-white, form when presented in public discussions. We know all these stories or slogans: infotainment contents mean dumbing down of citizens, the internet means a new virtual public sphere, but blogging means the demise of traditional journalism... More nuanced and empirically tested ideas -- whether ethnographies on migrant populations' media use, or small town community journalism projects -- are more complex and perhaps thus not sexy enough to catch people's attention.

And still: the media matter in our lives in so many ways. They are big global business and central local sources of information. They (re)create certain discourses and thus potentially influence our ideas and knowledge base. They are circular and viral. They are everywhere. They connect and disconnect us; they foster understanding and compassion as well as fear and hatred. Thus, it is important to learn from different people, facts and figures, projects, experiments, regions, voices all kinds of different things the media can be and mean to us. Only then we see alternatives and can go beyond the slogans -- to envision opportunities for more connection, diversity, and understanding via the media.

My goal as a media researcher and teacher is to collect new, fresh, surprising, engaging voices, ideas, research results, experimental projects on contents, industry innovations and regulatory approaches, and so on. I want to take conventional ideas, ranging from public media to participation, the press, entertainment, community, web2.0 -- and even, yes, the media and democracy! -- and collect and compile additions by wise sources to the mainstream discussions.

This approach seems to be an obsession of mine: In my (published) doctoral dissertation for the University of Helsinki, I addressed the close history of Finnish television landscape and challenged 3 (albeit international) slogans circulating around: convergence of programming (between channels), tabloidization of (television) journalism, and emotionalization/entertainization of factual content. My conclusion: there is some truth in every fiction, but changes are not overly drastic or one-directional. And especially: certain shifts in media culture do not necessarily result in immediate socio-cultural or political catastrophies. Rigid moralistic claims and positions in public debates just might be more harmful than some trends in the media, if the goal is to work towards better media systems, contents and societies. If that is the case, then we need to understand what we need to know more of, and how to use some tendencies constructively, rather than condem them. More about my PhD research in 2 short posts, one in Finnish and one in English.

Recently, I've been very, very fortunate to continue my work as a scholar in two continents, at the McGannon Communication Center, Fordham University, New York, and University of Helsinki, the Swedish School of Social Science. I'm also collaborating with the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance at the Jamilia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. It seems I'll be teaching in 2 if not all 3 of these places in the near future. And, as we all know, teaching means learning.

In addition, for the past 1+ years I worked for a project called the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere, at the Social Science Research Council (New York). Thanks to the SSRC, I got to know a little about collaborative reseach in the fields of media reform and media justice; I'll continue to work on that through a book project; and I hope to be able to assist in future efforts around a project on 'public media'.

But very concretely, thanks to the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation, I'm now able to dive into the world of slogans about and around the media, and:

• Develop this blog as a cumulative and collaborative resource site of posts, notes, ideas and comments;
• Based on this blog, develop research & teaching ideas / sites;
• Based on the blog, and simultaneously, develop a commentary book in Finnish to address some current national debates (also, to give them international perspectives); and, eventually and hopefully,
• Develop another publication in English.

Right now, this blog is what matters the most. May it be a forum of unlikely combinations of ideas, and a source of information and inspiration for others than the blogger herself, too. My goal is to create one proper post a week (and updates inbetween). Next week, it's all about researching public service media, globally. Stay tuned.

PS: Many thanks for this idea (a simultaneous blog&book project) to a wonderful documentary maker/theorist/anthropologist Amelia Bryne. See her blog/book project on rethinking documentaries.