Call for papers

Media Mutations 13

Audiovisual Data: Data-Driven Perspectives for Media Studies

Bologna, Dipartimento delle Arti – DAMSLab, October 6th-7th, 2022

Organized by Giorgio Avezzù (Università degli Studi di Bergamo) and Marta Rocchi (Università di Bologna)

In collaboration with Mirko Degli Esposti (Università di Bologna) and Guglielmo Pescatore (Università di Bologna)

Confirmed keynote speakers:
Monika Bednarek, Professor in Linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia
Makarand Tapaswi, Senior Machine Learning Scientist at Wadhwani AI and Assistant Professor at the Computer Vision group at IIIT Hyderabad, India

Media Mutations is an international conference on contemporary audiovisual media hosted by the Department of the Arts of the Università di Bologna. The event has now reached its 13th edition. This year's focus is on datafication of audiovisual media content and audiences, and on data-driven methods and methodologies for the study of films and TV series.

Quantitative perspectives applied to narrative audiovisual texts and consumption have not been absent in the history of film and media studies, but they have often been received with some resistance from proponents of more traditional approaches. However, in recent years, influential researchers’ initiatives have highlighted both an opportunity to explore the potential of these studies and a gap between the possibilities of digital data and computational tools and their application in media studies. Nowadays, as data analytics and artificial intelligence strategies have gained importance in many areas of the media industries, the number of data-driven studies has also increased and gained traction in the academic debate and in the wider field of film, media, and sound studies. Indeed, several methodological lines of inquiry have been developed to discover patterns, trends, or characteristics of audiovisual products, such as processing textual objects through multimodal approaches, social discursivity through automated software, or evaluating production and consumption processes through social network analysis and modeling techniques. All these research projects are based on specific tools for the collection and analysis of audiovisual media data through statistical and modeling tools.

Drawing on these considerations, the conference aims to bring attention to and promote discussion on systematic methods to conduct data-driven research in film and media studies. The conference intends to be an opportunity both to investigate what we can do with data, and the analytical and interpretative possibilities at stake, and to reflect on what data can be (and what kind of data we must deal with), to problematize the possible limits of such approaches to the study of audiovisual narrative media.

We welcome any contributions that employ the use of data-driven tools for collecting, sampling, analyzing, and modeling audiovisual content and data. In line with its founding purposes, the conference wishes to serve as a basis for discussing methods and methodologies, sharing research results, and promoting a multi-disciplinary approach.

Media Mutations 13 encourages submissions that apply data-driven methods for the study of films and TV series. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: 

• Quantitative content analysis
• Text analysis and machine learning (e.g., topic modeling, natural language processing) for:
  - character recognition
  - dialogue analysis
  - screenplay summarization
  - semantic video analysis
  - scene segmentation
  - emotional arc classification

• Network analysis and visualization of audiovisual data
• Qualitative and quantitative modeling in film and media studies
• Media data for creativity: automatic generation of narrative audiovisual content
• Audiovisual data for production and distribution purposes:
  - product development and decision-making in media industries
  - VOD platforms
  - personalization and recommender systems

• Audiovisual data for consumption and reception analysis:
  - media audiences and metrics
  - data about theatrical audience
  - social media engagement
• Audiovisual databases: digital filmographic databases and web scraping (e.g., IMDb)
• Audiovisual data and archival research
• Media data, society, and culture: impact of audiovisual media on cultural trends, attitudes, and behaviors on both local and global scales.

The official language of the conference is English. Abstracts (300-500 words for 20-minute talks) should be sent to mediamutations.org@gmail.com by July 8th, 2022. Please attach a brief biography (maximum 150 words) and an optional selected bibliography (up to five titles) relevant to the conference theme. The conference will be held in a hybrid form. Please indicate in your proposal whether you prefer to participate in person or online. Notification of acceptance will be sent by 16th July 2022. A registration fee will be requested after notification of paper acceptance (€80 for speakers and professional attendants).

This Conference is promoted by Media Mutations Association and financially supported by DAMSLab and Dipartimento delle Arti, Università di Bologna, in collaboration with Centro Dipartimentale La Soffitta.