International conference

3 – 4 September 2009
University of Westminster
London, UK

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)

Full programme available here

The first Transforming Audiences conference, in September 2007, featured over 100 presentations by audience researchers from around the world. Transforming Audiences 2 was 50 per cent bigger and signalled its development as Europe's major recurring international conference for audience/user studies.

There has never been a more exciting time for researchers interested in the place of media in people's lives. The growth of diverse online offerings and easy-to-use creative tools, coupled with the global economic downturn, has made traditional media and conventional broadcasters increasingly uncomfortable. Some critics are concerned about the future of 'quality' media for audiences to enjoy, but others celebrate this flourishing of non-elite, grassroots media.

Transforming Audiences 2 – organised by the Audiences Group at the University of Westminster Communications and Media Research Institute, and run in association with ICA, IAMCR, and ECREA – presented a rich set of analyses of the current situation and raise important questions about the future. We strongly encouraged papers from interesting new scholars as well as more established researchers.

Invited speakers included Liz Bird, Nick Couldry, Natalie Fenton, Christine Hine, Peter Lunt, and Shaun Moores.

The conference was organised by David Gauntlett and Caroline Dover, with Fatimah Awan, Anastasia Kavada and Annette Hill.

Transforming Audiences 2 considered issues such as: 

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

2007 conference programme (PDF) The programme from the previous Transforming Audiences conference in 2007. Note that this is not the 2009 programme! (890k)