International conference

1– 2 September 2011
University of Westminster
London, UK

In collaboration with the COST project,
Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies.
COST is an intergovernmental framework for
European Cooperation in Science and Technology.

The previous Transforming Audiences conferences, in 2007 and 2009, have seen this event become Europe's major recurring international conference for audience/user studies, bringing together researchers from all over the world. Now we are pleased to announce that Transforming Audiences 3 will take place in central London in September 2011.

After decades preoccupied with what people do when sitting down, media studies is suddenly on its feet. The rise of computers in our pockets – still called 'phones', but used more for accessing a world of online communication, information and entertainment than for making telephone calls – coincides with the growth of DIY culture and people making their own media. Video games are now about actually running and jumping, rather than just doing it on screen, and 'augmented reality' enables a hands-on engagement with real things to be combined with digital technologies. Social media and YouTube indicate a real change in everyday media practices. But sit-down media is still an important dimension of people's lives, and its relationship with newer developments requires further exploration.

Transforming Audiences 3 – organised by the Audiences and Users Group at the University of Westminster Communications and Media Research Institute, and run in association with ICA, IAMCR, and ECREA – will present a rich set of analyses of the current situation and raise important questions about the future. We strongly encourage papers from new scholars as well as more established researchers.

Keynote speakers include:
— Nancy Baym, author of Personal Connections in the Digital Age;
— Jean Burgess, co-author of YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture;
— Adriana de Souza e Silva, co-author of Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces and Net Locality;
— Patricia G. Lange, co-author of Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out;
— David Gauntlett, author of Making is Connecting.

[Keynote speaker Nancy Baym is invited in association with the COST project].

Conference presented in association with the Audience and Reception Studies section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), the Popular Communication Division of the International Communication Association (ICA), and the Audience Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).

Transforming Audiences 3 will also cover general themes of interest to audience/user researchers, including:

• Audiences, identities and popular culture
• Citizen media and new political communication
• Transnational audiences and diasporas
• Audiences and users around the world
• DIY media, 'we media', 'user generated content', and dispersed creativity
• The economics and business of contemporary media audiences
• New methodologies in audience studies
• Changing audience/producer relations
• Philosophical and theoretical paradigms, and ethical concerns

Conference presented by:

	Communications and Media Research Institute CAMRI at the University of Westminster
	University of Westminster General university site

Also available:

	2009 conference pages The website from the previous conference, Transforming Audiences 2, held in 2009.
	2007 conference programme (PDF) The programme from the first Transforming Audiences conference, held in 2007.