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MeCCSA Postgraduate Network - Conference Report Birmingham Institute of Art and Design University of Central England Monday 20 September 2004 The first conference organised by the recently formed Meccsa Postgraduate Network was considered a great success, and one that should be repeated annually. Forty-nine postgraduates attended the conference at Birmingham's Institute of Art and Design (BIAD), with representations from Canterbury, Cardiff, Coventry, De Montfort, Nottingham, Sheffield Hallam, Stirling, Sussex, Ulster, Warwick and Westminster. The majority of those attending were at the early stages of their Doctorate programme, with some Masters students also present. The event therefore provided the opportunity (in some cases for the first time) for postgraduates to present papers and to engage with colleagues about past and present research in their field. The morning session included fourteen papers, in four strands that reflected the diversity, as well as the commonality of interests, ranging from film and television studies to more specific subjects in media and cultural studies. The first strand, 'Citizenship and media literacy', primarily focused on the pedagogical role of the media, by looking at the multiple ways it can enhance (or impede) our understanding of, and participation in, democracy and secondary education, especially as audiences change the way they interact and engage with new media. Stephen Cushion (Cardiff University), for example, examined news media coverage of the 2003 anti-war protests involving young people and found that, broadly speaking, they were discouraged from playing a role in the political public sphere, and were dismissed for being 'opportunistic truants'. Ching-Fen Pai (Cardiff University), more optimistically, looked at the emerging field of cyber democracy, and cautiously argued that there are signs, particularly among young people, that the Internet is beginning to politically enfranchise citizens in Taiwan. Seon-Jeong Ki (University of London), changing tack, discussed the value of GCSE Media Studies and media education more generally, questioning the assumptions that inform how we conventionally view this multidisciplinary field, and how we evaluate 'quality' media products, produced by students. James Bennett (University of Warwick) concluded the strand by re-examining, in light of increasing digitalization, television studies literature. He suggested that textual models, such as flows and segments (established concepts in this relatively new field) might already be in a state of flux because emerging technologies are changing the way audiences interact with their television sets. In the second strand, 'Constructing gender', speakers looked in diverse ways at discourses of femininity in Western media texts. Vicky Ball (Queen Margaret University College) looked at the contemporary British television ensemble drama and argued that this emerging sub genre had been the subject of critical neglect because it was aligned with both the popular and with the feminine. Conversely, Jen-Yi Chen (Cardiff University) argued that recent skin care advertising campaigns that were aimed at women not only naturalised but also essentialised dominant western versions of femininity. Jen-Yi Chen concluded, rather ironically, that such campaigns promised women the opportunity to acquire such 'natural' beauty through the consumption of their products. Presenters in the third strand, 'Representing the nation', grappled with the concept of national identity in various mediated contexts. They broadly agreed that when, consciously or not, this notion was invoked, the effect often led to the misunderstanding of marginalised social groups and public policy issues. Michael Skey (University of Southampton) looked at media coverage of the golden jubilee and the England world cup campaign, while Angela Smith (University of Sunderland) looked at, over the course of a century, recurrent images of war. Both found discourses of nationalism lurking within and behind our everyday culture and that these carried, in many ways, profound ideological consequences. Emma Hughes (Cardiff University) found such consequences in coverage of GM food because, she argued, crops were considered a threat to 'the purity of the nation', despite the UK already growing GM crops. Finally, Inga Scharf (Nottingham Trent University) outlined her PhD on representations of Germanness in films between 1962 and 1989, with a view to critically intervene in debates about the so-called New German Cinema. Speakers in the fourth strand, 'Repackaging the past', all, in some way, engaged with issues of authenticity. Andrew Boyce (University of Ulster) argued that a memorial which incorporated a sound element could best articulate the collective suffering of those affected by the Omagh bombing. Ciaran Chambers (University of Ulster) explored the differing news and newsreel images Irish audiences received compared to the rest of Britain during World War II. Benjamin Earl's (Cardiff University) presentation looked at the village of Tintagel and how it relies on Arthurian myth for its tourism. Finally Matt Brennan's (University of Stirling) paper returned the strand back to the subject of sound, and how in particular the popular music press have historically handled the tension between music as art and commerce. After lunch, three eminent speakers gave presentations. Darren Newbury (BIAD) gave details about the 'Research Training Initiative' project. Professor Peter Golding (University of Loughborough) advised postgraduates where (and where not) to publish articles and books. Professor Sue Thornham (University of Sussex), in a lively session, discussed approaches to teaching seminars and lectures. The final event of the day, an interactive feedback session, was extremely positive: delegates enjoyed the informal atmosphere and the opportunity to network and share experiences with other postgraduates. The session on teaching, for instance, highlighted the lack of training that is currently provided to postgraduates who are expected to teach as part of their postgraduate programmes. At the end of the conference it was suggested that the themes and issues emerging from this conference would feed into future events. This will, in some form, take shape at the 2005 MeCCSA conference in Lincoln. While the network's immediate concern is to launch its own unique web presence, we are already planning the next conference, provisionally booked at Cardiff's School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies in May/June 2005. Looking beyond these events, however, the hope is this network will grow beyond our own PhD experience into something that can reach out and make a difference to the wider postgraduate community. We have bright, valuable and innovate young scholars, who (too often) go unnoticed and need celebrating. This conference, we believe, began to harness such talent and produce a road map for future media, culture and communication students to build on and benefit from. Stephen Cushion, Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies Vicky Ball, Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh