CSTonline

**The University of Amsterdam, the Free University of Amsterdam and
Utrecht University 
are happy to present**

## **The NECS 2018 Conference** {#the-necs-2018-conference align="center"}

## **Media Tactics and Engagement** {#media-tactics-and-engagement align="center"}

### **27-29 June 2018 Hosted by the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam** {#june-2018-hosted-by-the-university-of-amsterdam-and-the-free-university-of-amsterdam align="center"}

## [**Pre-Conference**]{.underline} **Media in Transition 26 June 2018** {#pre-conference-media-in-transition-26-june-2018 align="center"}

### **Hosted by Utrecht University** {#hosted-by-utrecht-university align="center"}

## [**Post-Conference**]{.underline} **Open Access in Media Studies 30 June 2018** {#post-conference-open-access-in-media-studies-30-june-2018 align="center"}

### **Hosted by the Netherlands Institute of Sound and Vision** {#hosted-by-the-netherlands-institute-of-sound-and-vision align="center"}

### **Deadline for submissions: 31**^**st**^** of January 2018** {#deadline-for-submissions-31st-of-january-2018 align="center"}

**Please note that **[**the membership fee must be paid before
submission**]{.underline}** **

**(see **[**www.necs.org/faq**](http://www.necs.org/faq)** for more
details, please check this info early enough to guarantee payment on
time).**

**Pay the fee in January to get access for the full calendar year.**

**Please submit all proposals using the submission form available at:**

- ** **[**http://necs.org/conference/proposal-submission-form/**](http://necs.org/conference/proposal-submission-form/)

 

The changing media landscape requires continuous (re)invention of the
ways in which photography, film, television, digital media, and the arts
are produced, distributed, accessed, and consumed. Back in the past like
today, the question of media tactics and engagement is crucial once
more. Today the question seems even more urgent, since large
corporations provide platforms and services that foster the desired
behaviour of the average media viewer/user/consumer and produ(c/s)er;
nevertheless, in previous decades, ways of planning long-term
strategies, tactical reactions to unforeseen circumstances and
engagement have determined media practices and discourses. The NECS 2018
conference will explore the various -- both intended and/or subversive −
ways in which media are currently developed, deployed and distorted.

The conference welcomes a wide range of approaches to thinking about the
notions of tactics and engagement across all forms of media.

Firstly, this could include thinking of *tactics* as the means to an
overarching strategic end. Thus the term can draw attention to larger
trends within the media industries and its practices. Why and to what
effect do film and media distributors order and/or produce original
content? What are the aesthetic consequences of this, both for artistic
content as well as for the audience experience? What roles do shifts in
modes of address, distribution, and exhibition venues play? And what
kind of opportunities and constraints for content producers arise from
this?

Secondly, following Michel de Certeau, the political consequences of the
relation between strategy and tactics can be investigated. Strategy as a
long-term modus operandi of the prevalent political, economic and
scientific rationality is opposed to tactics as the improvisational,
context-specific techniques developed by individuals or collectives to
better navigate strategically shaped spaces. *Tactics* in this sense
oftentimes insert themselves into strategic environments without
disrupting them -- for instance when novelists develop new writing
techniques in response to Amazon's arguably exploitative pay-per-page
model, or exiled filmmakers react to changed production constraints
through what Hamid Naficy termed "accented cinema". In fact, strategy
and tactics deeply affect media practices as much as their aesthetics,
and often result in consistent planning, or momentary options, which
seem viable. How do these two terms interact, when it comes to
aesthetics? Through this conceptual pair, one may thus ask to what
different strategic and tactical uses various media enter political
discourse, and again, what the consequences of this could be for
industrial and artistic media practices.

The notion of *engagement* opens up a third and more general dimension
of the conference theme, pointing towards the various ways in which
viewers and users engage with the media of their choice, both in the
past and today. How have individuals or collectives (tactically) engaged
cinema, television, photography, radio, the arts, the archive, the news,
the internet, and so on? And what kind of important changes can be
scrutinized in such practices? Furthermore, we invite submissions that
discuss forms of disengagement, such as "media fasting" or "going off
the grid".

The NECS 2018 conference will tackle the issue of media tactics and
engagement while including the many different research perspectives
pursued by the members of our community.

#### Submissions may include but are not limited to the following topics:

- New and old media industry practices
- Histories of media tactics and engagement
- Activist media and media activism (including politics and celebrity)
- Studies of subversive narratives in film and cross-media
- Political cinema, documentary, art and television
- Avant-garde and new wave tactics
- Ecocritical media and the Anthropocene
- Infrastructures of engagement (collective venues, networks,
 institutional policies etc.)
- Articulations of identity politics or power dynamics through media
- Self-performance: strategy, tactics, engagement
- Materialities of media engagement
- Culture jamming, remixing, mashing, and other transformative and fan
 practices (from cosplay to conventions)
- Strategic aesthetic practices (e.g. satire, horror, melodrama,
 tragicomedy)
- Bottom-up funding initiatives (collective production, political
 cinema, media activism, crow-funding practices)
- (New) Sound and music tactics and engagement
- Distribution models, between strategy and tactics, from early media to
 contemporaneity
- Strategy and tactics in a post-truth world
- Economies and ecologies of attention, including slacktivism, boredom
 and various forms of disengagement such as "media fasting" or "going
 off the grid"
- Viral or spreadable media, as well as hacking tactics
- Curatorial engagement and programming practices
- Transmedia practices
- Academic engagement
- Teaching and research as media tactics
- Media-archaeological media tactics engaging with analogue media

Scholars from all areas of cinema and media studies, whether previously
affiliated with NECS or new to the network, are invited to submit
proposals, but NECS membership is a requirement.

##### FORMATS

Please note that individuals may submit only one paper proposal, either
as individual presenters or as part of a pre-constituted panel or
workshop.

[Individual papers]{.underline}

Individual presenters wishing to submit a proposal for a paper
presentation of max. 20 minutes are required to provide their name,
email address, the title of the paper, an abstract, key biographical
references, and a short bio of the speaker.

[Pre-constituted panels]{.underline}

We support the submission of proposals for pre-constituted panels with 3
or 4 papers (3 papers only if there is a respondent) in order to
strengthen the thematic coherence of panels. Furthermore, several
thematically related panels may form larger clusters. We would like to
strongly encourage members of the NECS workgroups to put together
pre-constituted panels, but we also welcome submissions from academic
research project teams, museums, archives, and other institutions. We
highly recommend no more than two speakers from the same institution
with a maximum of 20 minutes speaking time each. Panel organizers are
asked to submit panel proposals that include a panel title, a short
description of the panel and information on all of the individual papers
of the panel, as described above.

[Workshops]{.underline}

Events such as workshops, roundtables or seminars -- both pre-conference
and conference -- concentrating on more practical aspects of our field,
e.g. teaching, research methods, publishing, or networking with the
media industry are also welcome. Speaking time should be limited to 10
minutes per participant. Organizers are asked to submit workshop
proposals that include a title and a short description.

[Workgroups]{.underline}

There will be opportunity for the NECS workgroups to meet during the
conference. Please notify the conference organizers if you wish to hold
a workgroup meeting: <necs2018amsterdam@gmail.com>.

Please submit all proposals before the **31st of January 2018** using
the submission form available
at: <http://necs.org/conference/proposal-submission-form/>

Participants will have to cover their own travel and accommodation
expenses. Travel information, a list of local hotels and information on
further events will be posted on the NECS conference website in Spring
2018.

See also: <http://necs.org/faq>.

Please email all inquiries that cannot be answered by the FAQ to:

[**necs2018amsterdam@gmail.com**](mailto:necs2018amsterdam@gmail.com)

 

##### ACCOMPANYING EVENTS

[The 16th NECS Graduate Workshop]{.underline}

The NECS Graduate Workshop has been designed to give scholars at the
beginning of their career a platform for networking with established
European film and media scholars. The 16th NECS Graduate Workshop in
Utrecht (25 June 2018, Utrecht University) is dedicated to the topic of
'To Prefer Not To: Media Inoperativities'.

You will find the CfP online
at: <http://necs.org/conference/callforpapers2018/cfp_gw2018/>

Please send your submission with an abstract (max. 200 words) and a
short bio (max. 150 words) to: <graduates@necs.org>

Organizers: Christian Sancto (Utrecht University), Alba Gimenez
(University of South Wales) and Jiyu Zhang (Leiden University)

[Pre-conference "Media in Transition"]{.underline}

Utrecht University hosts an one-day event with round-table discussions
about "Media in Transition" that addresses the transformations of the
highly dynamic field of the media industry. For more information about
the programme and registration, please see <https://mit.sites.uu.nl/>

Organizers: Karin van Es, Judith Keilbach, Nina Köll, Hanna Surma, and
Nanna Verhoeff

[Post-conference workshop "Open Access in Media Studies"]{.underline}

A Post-conference Open Access workshop will be held at the Netherlands
Institute for Sound and Vision, in cooperation with *VIEW: Journal of
European Television History and Culture*, *NECSUS: European Journal of
Media Studies*, and Open Access in Media Studies website. For more
information about the workshop and registration, please
see [https://oamediastudies.com](https://oamediastudies.com/)

Organizers: Jaap Kooijman, Jeroen Sondervan, and Jefferson Pooley

 

##### NECS 2018 CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS

**[NECS Steering Committee]{.underline}:** Sophie Einwächter, Judith
Keilbach, Skadi Loist, Michał Pabiś-Orzeszyna, Francesco Pitassio,
Antonio Somaini, Alena Strohmaier.

**[NECS Conference Committee]{.underline}:** Marie Aude Baronian, Luca
Barra, Sudeep Dasgupta, James Harvey-Davitt, Rahma Khazam, Daniel Kulle,
Raphaëlle Moine, Michał Pabiś-Orzeszyna, Antonio Somaini, Jan Teurlings.

**[Local organizing team]{.underline}:** Marie Aude Baronian, Sudeep
Dasgupta, Jaap Kooijman, Halbe Kuipers, Toni Pape, Patricia Pisters, Jan
Teurlings, Maryn Wilkinson (UvA); Ivo Blom, Sebastian Scholz (VU), Laura
Copier, Judith Keilbach, Anne Kustritz, Clara Pafort-Overduin, Christian
Sancto, Hanna Surma, Marijke de Valck (UU).

 

**... and please watch the CONFERENCE TRAILER
at: [https://vimeo.com/222803817](https://vimeo.com/222803817){target="_blank"}**

::::::: {#arve-vimeo-222803817 .arve .aligncenter mode="normal" oembed="1" provider="vimeo" style="max-width:600px;"}
:::::: {.arve-inner}
::::: {.arve-embed .arve-embed--has-aspect-ratio style="aspect-ratio: 135 / 76"}
[]{.arve-ar style="padding-top:56.296296%"}

:::: {.iframe}
[](https://player.vimeo.com/video/222803817)

::: {#crawler_player}
Play

![Vimeo](https://f.vimeocdn.com/p/images/crawler_logo.png){.logo}
:::
::::
:::::
::::::
:::::::

**--**

## Files

[[![application/pdf-icon](https://necs.org/sites/all/themes/necs/_res/img/icons/mime/application-pdf.png){decoding="async"}]{.caption
.none .file-icon}
[necs2018_call_for_papers_final_version.pdf](https://necs.org/sites/default/files/news-files/necs2018_call_for_papers_final_version.pdf){type="application/pdf; length=93281"}]{.file}

The University of Amsterdam, the Free University of Amsterdam and Utrecht University are happy to present


 The NECS 2018 Conference


 Media Tactics and Engagement


 27-29 June 2018 Hosted by the University of Amsterdam and the Free University of Amsterdam


 Pre-Conference


 Media in Transition 26 June 2018


 Hosted by Utrecht

CfP: NECS 2018 Conference &#8220;Media Tactics and Engagement&#8221;. June 27-29, 2018 @ University of Amsterdam, Free University of Amsterdam &#038; Utrecht University (NED). Deadline: Jan 31, 2018.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

CfP: NECS 2018 Conference “Media Tactics and Engagement”. June 27-29, 2018 @ University of Amsterdam, Free University of Amsterdam & Utrecht University (NED). Deadline: Jan 31, 2018.