This episode, part of the Mediapolis Now Events series, includes excerpts from four interviews from the 9th European Communication Conference, held in Aarhus, Denmark, 19–22 October 2022. The ECC is the biennial conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association, and in 2022, the conference theme was ‘Rethink Impact’, exploring how communication studies (broadly defined) interacts with, impacts on, and reflects society. The four interviews here are with scholars who presented at the conference, in one of the sessions organised through ECREA’s Section on Media, Cities and Space.
Each of the interviews were recorded in a compact, mobile podcast van — a collaboration between the Aarhus public library Dokk1 and the newspaper Jyllandsposten. During the conference, the van was parked outside one of the main conference buildings on the Aarhus University campus.
All four interviews were facilitated by Christoph Raetzsch, executive produced by Jay-vee Marasigan Pangan, with Chance Dorland as audio engineer and trainer. The interviews themselves were hosted by the Erasmus Mundus Journalism students from Aarhus University. The hosts are credited below, alongside the guests, producer and support staff.
Lisa Schulze
The first interview is with Lisa Shulze, who spoke with Martina Hrgović. The producer was Saskia Reimann, with Nariman Moustafa on staff. Lisa is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg, in Austria. We jump in here with Martina briefly asking Lisa about her background, before turning to the research she presented at the conference, exploring how wheelchair users in five German cities navigate their movements with the help of digital and other media.
Karin Larsson
In the second interview, Karin Larsson speaks with Marcela Sánchez. The producer was Abhishek Kumar, with Ramisha Ali on staff. Karin is a doctoral candidate in Media and Communication Studies at Södertörn University, in Stockholm, Sweden. We join Marcela asking Karin about her background, before turning to the research she presented at the conference, around VDNKh, a Stalinist exhibition area in Moscow. They discuss how Karin came to study this site, and what it reveals about urban mediations of authoritarian and national-conservative tendencies in Russia today.
Mortiz Schweiger
In our third interview, you will hear Moritz Schweiger speaking with Malene Solheim. The producer was Andy Peñafuerte III, with Abhishek Kumar on staff. Moritz is a doctoral candidate in the Department for Media, Knowledge and Communication at Augsburg University in Germany. We come in with Malene asking Moritz about his main object of research, augmented reality. They go on to discuss the many possibilities and problems of these technologies for urban life, and even societies in general.
Derya Özkan
Finally, we join Derya Özkan being interviewed by Radha Puranik, with Saskia Reimann producing and Nariman Moustafa on staff. Derya is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Communication at Izmir University of Economics in Turkey. We pick up here with Radha turning to the feedback Derya received at the conference, before they move on to exploring her research project, which created an ambitious, publicly accessible digital map of former movie theaters, presenting them as cultural heritage sites in İzmir, Turkey.
Scott Rodgers is Audio Editor for Mediapolis. He also holds the post of Reader in Media and Geography in the Department of Film, Media and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. His research specialises in the relationships of media and cities and the geographies of communication. Scott also has broad interests in media production practices, digital and networked technologies, urban politics and ethnographic methodologies. His publications have appeared in journals such as Media, Culture and Society, Society and Space, City and Community, International Journal of Cultural Studies, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Space and Culture and Journalism: Theory Practice and Criticism. With Tim Markham, he is co-editor of Conditions of Mediation: Phenomenological Perspectives on Media (Peter Lang, 2017).
