[csaa-forum] CFP: “Streaming Diversity?" Journal of Convergence special issue

[Maura Edmond]

Call For Papers: “Streaming Diversity? On and off-screen diversity in an
era of automated media culture”

Abstracts due 22 Sept 2023

Special Issue of Convergence: The International Journal of Research Into
New Media Technologies

Guest editors: Dr Maura Edmond, Dr Olivia Khoo, Dr Claire Perkins and Dr
Verity Trott, from @Gender&MediaLab <https://twitter.com/gendermedialab> in
the School of Media, Film and Journalism at Monash University, Australia.

Deadline for abstracts: *22 September 2023* | Expected publication date:
August 2024

The unprecedented growth of video-on-demand streaming platforms has brought
both new optimism and new complications to concerns around screen
‘diversity’. Without the limitations of linear television, streaming
services have far greater capacity for producing and distributing more
diverse screen content. Many of the streaming platforms have made high
profile public commitments to diversity, such as Netflix’s ‘Inclusion
Report’, introducing new policies and commissioning processes intended to
support culturally diverse representation and content production. Large
global SVODs and smaller region-specific and genre-specific platforms have
also launched original series and commissioned content that has been widely
marketed as and celebrated for its diverse representations. Together, this
has created a popular impression that streaming platforms are improving
diversity in terms of both representation and practical opportunities for
screen creatives. This special issue of Convergence will critically explore
the impacts of video streaming platforms on different dimensions of
‘diversity’.

Existing studies on diversity in the screen sector have consistently
demonstrated long standing and entrenched inequality regimes affecting
women and non-dominant groups, but there remains limited research on how
this plays out at the streaming services specifically. Research on
SVOD-related impacts have focused instead on understanding how major global
companies like Netflix have interacted with existing local screen
industries and production ecosystems, affected global distribution and
content flows, and created overall regulatory imbalances. We are calling
for papers that will examine the impacts of video streaming platforms that
extend our understanding of diversity in an era of automated, on-demand
video.

In keeping with the themes of this issue, we welcome proposals looking at
streaming services and experiences outside US contexts.

Questions of interest include, but are not limited to:

- How is diversity represented and made discoverable via platform features
such as the image tiles and categories used in catalogues?

- How do recommendation systems understand and operationalise ‘diversity’?

- What values and messages about diversity are being communicated by the
content commissioned by streaming services?

- What are we to make of existing policies and practices intended to
support diversity, equity and inclusion at the streaming platforms?

- What policy options are there for regulating ‘diversity’?

- How do audiences, users and communities engage with streaming platforms
to discover, view or value ‘diverse’ content?

Please submit a 500-word abstract & 100 word bio by 22 September 2023 to:

streamingdiversity at gmail.com

Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by 20 October 2023. Full
articles will be due 01 March 2024

No payment from the authors will be required

Dr Maura Edmond

Senior Lecturer
School of Media, Film and Journalism

Building B, Room B4.31
Monash University
Caulfield East VIC 3145
Australia

t: +61 3 990 34119
e: maura.edmond at monash.edu
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