August 10, 2020 by drdanielashton

Congratulations and farewell GMM class 2019-20

This year our congratulations and farewell event, as with all our contact since mid-March, took place on Teams. The teaching team narrated a slide show with pictures from the year, including our study visit and symposium. There were lots of emojis, GIFs and words of support in the chat. We also held the awards ceremony for students receiving certificates for their extra contributions to the programme as course reps, contributors to the blog, and contributors to the symposium. It has been the most remarkable few months and the way the teaching team and students have come together has been inspiring.

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June 18, 2020June 23, 2020 by drdanielashton

VC Awards Nomination

The GMM team nomination for the Vice Chancellor’s Awards under “student experience”:

In 2019-20 the MA Global Media Management teaching team excelled in collegiately creating a caring and supportive community enabling students to explore their academic, civic and professional potential. The team welcomed 2014-15 alumna to share their successes and help build a global network with current students. Enhancement opportunities included talks from international scholars and connecting with Winchester International Film Festival. Equally importantly, students led the way in presenting their creative practice and taking on roles across the university. This year’s cohort have especially benefited from the team’s swift response to Covid-19, as they offered vital PAT support in reaching out individually and ensuring students’ safety and wellbeing was prioritised. The team rapidly deployed dynamic online teaching strategies in open communication with students and shared these reflections with CHEP. Students participated in this year’s GMM symposium, aptly themed ‘Mobilities’, and a showcase of creative group projects is planned to share and value students’ hard work during Semester 2. As students graduate into a world of increasing uncertainty, the GMM team have been pedagogically imaginative and pastorally attentive to help students fulfil their potential and go on to make a change.

June 18, 2020June 18, 2020 by drdanielashton

Mobilities symposium – Wed 24th June

We are very excited that our annual symposium, “Mobilities”, is next week on Wednesday 24th June. Please see the dedicated page here for more information.

May 27, 2020May 27, 2020 by drdanielashton

GMM Online: Tutor’s Voices – Dan

For GMM, the move online in March impacted most immediately on our semester 2 modules: Professional and Academic Skills 2 which Oz wrote about here and Global Media 2: Industries and Technologies (GM2) which was featured in this earlier post on research-informed teaching.

“For GM2 I was leading a strand on “promotional cultures” in which we focused on social media influencers and vloggers. As part of this we gathered in our seminar group on campus and explored how the bedroom operated as the stage for acts of “strategic intimacy” by influencers (see Crystal Abidin’s work here):

GM2 seminar at WSA in February 2020

Around the same time my co-authored (with Dr Karen Patel) entry on vloggers and “Girls’ Bedroom Cultures” for the The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communicationwas released (available open access here). Given this recent research and teaching on bedrooms, it’s particularly noteworthy for me that bedrooms and other private spaces of staff and students have become visible and familiar on screen.

Online teaching, as with other forms of online interaction, is posing all kinds of questions and new encounters around on/off screen and public/private relationships. The two photographs below show the online presentation for a video to students and the immediate, surrounding domestic space:

Online presentation

Surrounding bedroom space

In an age of selfies with many attuned to capturing the perfect photo, there will no doubt be continued emphasis and pressure on presenting and curating our on/off screen spaces. Especially when background bookcases are a measure of credibility!

Thankfully though, as we approach our Final Project module and two months of online supervision, staff and students will have the time and opportunity to share their online experiences and discuss the possibilities together. In this way, hopefully I’ll be forgiven for my messy bookcase!”

Dan Ashton is Associate Professor of Cultural and Creative Industries and the Programme Leader for GMM. His teaching and research focus on media and cultural production, industries and work. His most recent publications relevant to the above are with Dr Karen Patel in The International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication (2020) and ‘Vlogging Careers: Everyday Expertise, Collaboration and Authenticity’ (2018) in The New Normal of Working Lives. Read more about Dan on the Teaching Team page.

March 26, 2020May 4, 2020 by drdanielashton

Congrats to Kate-Briggs Price – UoS Film Festival winner

BIG CONGRATULATIONS to GMM student Kate Briggs-Price for her successes at the University of Southampton Film Festival 2020. Kate entered her second short film, Social Cues, and was awarded in three categories: “best film”, “best screenplay”, and “best best actress”:

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Social Cues can be watched on YouTube here.

March 23, 2020May 13, 2020 by drdanielashton

Dr Sophie Bishop talk to GMM “Promotional Cultures” students on social media influencers

On Thursday 27th February, MA Global Media Management and the Transforming Creativity Research Group hosted a talk by Dr Sophie Bishop. Dr Bishop works as a Lecturer in the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London where she researches and teaches on cultures of content creation, digital marketing industries, and intersectional inequalities and experiences therein.

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Dr Bishop’s talk was delivered for the “Agencies, Intermediaries and Algorithms” topic on the GM2 “Promotional Cultures” strand. The talk, titled “A Tale of Two Cultural Intermediaries in Influencer Industries”, explored how creative workers (influencers) negotiated platforms and algorithms. The talk brought together two related projects on algorithmic optimisation intermediaries (published in Social Media + Society) and algorithmic influencer management tools.

Dan introducing Sophie (picture by Oz Demirkol)

The talk was open to staff and colleagues from across WSA and the included GMM students, postgraduate researchers and staff from undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

February 7, 2020May 4, 2020 by drdanielashton

GMM student Kate Briggs-Price – University Arts Ambassador

The Arts at University of Southampton blog has published an article introducing GMM student Kate Briggs-Price as one of the University’s Arts Ambassadors for 2020-21.

Blog post from Arts at University of Southampton

In the blog, Kate shares her interest in filmmaking and reflects on her studies and creative approach:

“I am very lucky that my Master’s degree involves practical film making, but also gives me the freedom to shoot and direct in my spare time. The arts have given me the chance to not only to push myself creatively but given me the discipline, scope and the technical skills to create both professionally and for pleasure.”

The Arts Ambassador scheme is outline on the Arts at University of Southampton website.

“Arts Ambassadors, funded by the Excel Internship scheme, is an opportunity aimed at students who are enthusiastic and curious about the arts and want to gain professional, paid experience.

We offer the chance to work with arts professionals across the University and the cities of Southampton and Winchester, get involved with a variety of exciting events and activities and develop a set of valuable skills whilst engaging with leading arts venues and promoting the incredible arts offer to other students.”

January 23, 2020 by drdanielashton

Research-informed teaching on GMM

As our semester 2 module Global Media 2: Industries and Technologies gets underway, we have taken a moment to highlight how the research of the module teaching team directly connects with the topics, approaches and methods that we explore with students.

The module is organised into four strands with one or two members of the teaching team contributing:

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Festivals and Events

Dr Estrella Sendra
The ‘Festivals and Events’ strand is informed by my doctoral research, which traced, for the first time, the history of festivalisation in Senegal. It further draws on my practice as a documentary filmmaker whose work has been exhibited in film festivals, as well as my work as a curator, organiser, director and jury member of a range of film festivals, and more specifically, African film festivals.