Academic Conferences

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Academic Conferences

• Writing Abstracts and Giving Presentations

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Reasons for this Academic Practice

• Plenary/Keynote Speakers
• Mutually Beneficial Feedback
• Meet Other Researchers - Networking
• New Research - Methodology, Theory, Case Study,
  Subject Knowledge
• Introduction to Interdisciplinary Perspectives
• Defence of Argument
• Publication

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Research Identity

• Nickianne Moody
• Sociology Methodology in the Sociology of
  Knowledge
• Head of Media and Cultural Studies
  Entertainment Media
• Popular Fiction
• Representation, Cultural Change, Genre, Media
  Production, Historical and New Media Forms
• Disability in Young Adult Media

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What is your research identity as an Internet and
Mass Communications Scholar?

• What is the subject of your dissertation?

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Case Study
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Twenty First Century Teenager Media
Representation, Theory and Policy

• A conference hosted by the Association for
  Research in Popular Fictions
• ?????
• 10th-12th July,2008 Trinity and All Saints
  College, Leeds
• TV drama, young adult fiction, music, art,
  citizenship agenda, documentary, photography,
  journalism, pedagogy, youth culture, social
  exclusion, child poverty, curriculum and
  literacy, sub-culture, new media, disability,
  teen audiences, magazines/comics, juvenile
  delinquency, beauty and lifestyle, pop and
  politics, internet cultures, texting and social
  ritual, teen nights and street culture, ASBOs and
  Hoodies, comparative studies.
• Please send an abstract of 200-300 words by
  December 15th 2007 to Nickianne Moody, Convenor
  ARPF, MCCA, Liverpool John Moores University,
  Dean Walters Building, St James Road, Liverpool
  L1 7BR E-mail N.A.Moody_at_ljmu.ac.uk Fax 0151
  6431980

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Where Does Your Research Fit Into This Call for
Papers?

• TV drama, young adult fiction, music, art,
  citizenship agenda, documentary, photography,
  journalism, pedagogy, youth culture, social
  exclusion, child poverty, curriculum and
  literacy, sub-culture, new media, disability,
  teen audiences, magazines/comics, juvenile
  delinquency, beauty and lifestyle, pop and
  politics, internet cultures, texting and social
  ritual, teen nights and street culture, ASBOs and
  Hoodies, comparative studies.

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Writing Abstracts?

• Making Your Paper Fit For Purpose

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Context

• A conference hosted by the Association for
  Research in Popular Fictions
• Interdisciplinary
• Contemporary Teenage Experience
• Relation of Your Paper to the Other Topics in the
  Call for Papers

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Writing Abstracts

• Word Count
• Name, Department, Institution, E-mail Address
• Inclusive and Expository Title
• Keywords in the first sentence
• Outline of research informing the study and focus
  of the paper
• Relevance to the conference
• Key Discussion
• Theory Used
• Examples/Case Study

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Examples of Abstracts

• How Will the Selection Be Made?

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What Happens At A Conference

• Panels Paper must relate to others to generate
  a valid discussion
• Papers usually 20-25 minutes followed by
  questions from the audience

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Generic Criteria for Selecting Papers

• Is the topic coherent and focussed?
• Does the Proposal Contribute to the Debate on the
  Twenty First Century Teenager?
• Is the Discussion Drawn from a Research Project?
• Does the Discussion Raise Issues for
  Interdisciplinary Debate?
• Does it address a specific Case Study, Medium,
  Methodology, Theoretical Perspective, Issue or
  Theme?
• Is the Work Innovative?

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Abstract The Big Picture - The Impact of Still
Images Exploring Adolescents Emotional
Responses to Still Images in media
representations a semiotic and lexical
analysis.

• This research has explored the emotional
  responses of adolescents to still images in media
  representations, testing the hypothesis that the
  ubiquitous imagery available globally is diluting
  and desensitising media messages, meanings and
  their subsequent impact.
• The methodology was designed to allow adolescents
  to have free access to the images and to record
  their reactions without active researcher
  interaction, by way of exhibitions held in
  schools with emoticon questionnaires. The data
  gathered was analysed both quantitatively and
  qualitatively with empirical data and statistics,
  lexical analysis of narratives together with a
  semiotic analysis of the Images.
• The depth of feelings evoked and the quality of
  the teenagers narratives were both inspiring and
  humbling. The findings suggest that although
  adolescents are very affected by world events,
  graphic or sensational imagery designed for
  shock impact

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• such as depictions of dead bodies, body parts,
  injuries, blood and violence do not have much
  impact. Whilst the teenagers often registered the
  obvious responses of sadness or anger, it was
  just as likely the pictures provoked boredom and
  lack of interest. The expression in the eye had
  far more effect in evoking reactions and emotion,
  such as one picture of a smiling child holding a
  gun, which created the most significant impact,
  being described as scary, frightening and
  horrific. Interestingly, images of cruelty to
  animals had more effect than the torture and
  abuse of people.
• Variables such as age, gender, ability or
  ethnicity had little effect but the positive or
  negative language of the teacher accompanying the
  teenagers to the exhibition appeared to have a
  significant impact on the data.

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• This research considers how still images could be
  used effectively to promote positive interactions
  between institutions (media producers, educators
  and policy makers) and adolescents to develop
  strategies which foster enhanced media
  communication, education, social and cultural
  awareness.
• PhD Research (being completed early 2008)

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Selling Wealth to the Poor? Hindi film
adolescents and young audiences

• The romantic genre within Hindi cinema now
  frequently termed Bollywood has traditionally
  focused on young people within family settings,
  their choices, loves, trials and aspirations. The
  issue of class has historically been of key
  significance in understanding these
  representations. In the 1970s, young heroes and
  heroines tended to be poor, or from poor
  families. Those who were represented as hailing
  from upper-middle-class homes were usually
  depicted as lacking in parental love, neglected
  and angry or as spoilt brats who did not respect
  anyone and had to be taught harsh lessons. The
  1990s saw a sharp and superficially comical shift
  in these representations, with Maine Pyar Kiyas
  lovable but inimitably affluent teenage hero.
  Subsequent romantic and family films have
  embroidered further on this theme. Nowadays it is
  not unusual for a heroic teenager to be seen
  driving convertibles, wearing branded clothing
  and jetting off in private helicopters to a
  million-dollar apartment. Additional features
  thicken the plot. Although sporting similar
  wardrobes, contemporary heroines are far less
  likely to be depicted as controlling wealth in
  the same way. Similarly, super-rich heroes are
  often represented as being the children of
  billionaire diasporic migrants.

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• Directors boast about giving the audience what
  it wants, and some journalists write eulogies
  about Indias economic liberalisation and its
  growing techno-wealth. Others deplore all such
  films as being despicable, depoliticising,
  materialist fantasies. But rhetoric aside, are
  such remarkably lavish portrayals of adolescent
  life reflecting actual changes in Indian society?
  And what meanings do such representations hold
  for the children and adolescents who view these
  films? Via textual analysis and original audience
  research into identities and contexts, this paper
  offers a dual exploration of the 'new'
  conceptualisation of adolescence in Hindi films
  and the ways in which young urban Indian and
  diasporic South-Asian viewers react to and
  reflect on these representations.

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Im Not a Girl, Im Not a Woman Im a Chick.The
Chick Lit Novel as a Rite of Passage Life Story.

• The objective of this project is to analyse the
  ways in which the young, contemporary woman is
  portrayed in Marian Keyes novels. Keyes is one
  of the numerous authors that have been included
  within the genre of Chick Lit, or
  post-feminist fiction. This type of literature,
  which started in the mid-nineties, mainly deals
  with the process of coming into adulthood of the
  female protagonists, who not only suffer a
  pressure to grow up that is related to common
  social demands about marriage and motherhood, but
  who are also in the case of the protagonists of
  Marian Keyes novels put through a painful
  experience which serves them as a rite of passage
  and which triggers their change as fully
  developed individuals.

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• Marian Keyes works focus on the biographical
  account of the interpersonal relationships
  established by the characters and how the
  protagonists become aware of the need to be in
  control of their own lives and choices.
  Initially, the female thirty-year-old characters
  lead carefree, teenage-like existences and are
  apparently satisfied with the different aspects
  of their lives. However, in spite of this
  contentment they feel incomplete, and this notion
  will only be overcome after their lives are
  turned upside down and rearranged afterwards.
  This paper will analyse the ways in which the
  different life stages of the main characters are
  articulated in Marian Keyes novels, and how the
  rite of passage conditions the changes from
  teenager to adult in the female protagonist.

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Devil You Know youth work, teenage sexuality,
God and media/culture.

• In contemporary media/culture young people and
  adults working with young people are frequently
  demonised. Some even claim that Christian youth
  work manuals function as how to manuals for
  potential paedophiles and cult leaders.
  Meanwhile Hazel Blears, despairing at gun culture
  promoted by rap stars, plans to encourage black
  youths to revere role models. Mariella Frostrup,
  following the Omaha shopping mall shooting in
  December 2007, calls for such a scheme for all
  young people. Blaming celebrity culture, as does
  Frostrup, is way too simplistic. Not every young
  person just wants to appear on Big Brother, or
  will kill for their fifteen minutes. Through an
  analysis of Internet discussion groups, and other
  material, this paper examines the problems
  encountered by

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• teenagers and youth workers today, particularly
  in a religious context. I shall explore the
  paradoxes of youth culture with an upsurge in
  fundamentalism existing simultaneously within a
  predominantly secular, and, frequently,
  nihilistic culture. I also analyse problems
  concerning youth sexuality in relation to adult
  sexuality, in an increasingly globalised world
  where ages of consent vary and pressures to
  explore sexually and resist exploration exist
  concurrently. I refer to a number of films where
  these issues are tackled, such as Kids (1995,
  Larry Clark), which I have already published on,
  and more recent examples.

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Bebo, MySpace and Facebook Analysing the
social in social networking sites

• This paper analyses the social construction of
  on-line social networking sites, how these sites
  mediate social networking processes for young
  people, and how young people negotiate various
  identity issues related to their use of these
  sites. Although such sites have many attractions
  and benefits for young people, there are also
  concerns about the various risks such sites, and
  the electronic footprints they leave, present
  to users. For example, recent reports suggest
  that the information young people post online is
  being data mined by marketing firms and by
  fraudsters, and is sometimes used when they apply
  for jobs, internships, clubs or schools, as well
  as by organisations such as

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• university police looking for misbehaviour
  (Davies, 2007). In this paper we discuss emerging
  data from a study in two schools exploring young
  peoples (aged 12-15) use and understandings of
  social networking sites. Although young people
  are aware of the risk of sharing personal
  information, they see social networking sites as
  private or peer-defined spaces (Acquisti and
  Gross, 2006 Barnes, 2006 and Stutzman, 2006).
  This suggests that online social networking can
  be seen as part of youth culture the point of
  having a page is to be part of a peer network, to
  define

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• ones identity for a wider social group, to
  negotiate and manage public identity and to build
  a community of friends. However, there are high
  profile risks associated with unwanted contact
  (bullying and paedophilia), and social networking
  sites are also challenging young people to
  negotiate issues such as privacy, trust and
  credibility on a daily basis. We explore these
  issues, considering how young people online are
  managing their identities and issues of
  self-representation within the formerly private
  time and space of the home. Continuities are
  identified, as well as ways young people are
  handling new and emerging intensifications
  surrounding familiar issues such as popularity,
  social and academic success and competition. We
  also consider possibilities for developing media
  literacy around these complex issues with young
  people and their teachers in schools.

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• References
• Acquisti, A., Gross, R. (2006). Imagined
  communities Awareness, information sharing, and
  privacy on the Facebook. In P. Golle G. Danezis
  (Eds.), Proceedings of 6th Workshop on Privacy
  Enhancing Technologies (pp. 36-58). Cambridge,
  UK Robinson College.
• Barnes, S. (2006). A privacy paradox Social
  networking in the United States. First Monday, 11
  (9). http//www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_9/b
  arnes/index.html
• Davies, G. (2007) Data Protection Topline Report.
  ICO.
• http//www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/dat
  a_protection/detailed_specialist_guides/research_r
  esults_topline_report.pdf
• Stutzman, F. (2006). An evaluation of
  identity-sharing behavior in social network
  communities. Journal of the International Digital
  Media and Arts Association, 3 (1), 10-18.