{"title":"Platforming inclusion at U.S. media industry events: confronting Hollywood’s lack of representational diversity","authors":"Brad Limov","doi":"10.1080/15295036.2023.2245440","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Incremental structural adjustments define attempts to advance representational diversity in Hollywood. This essay considers U.S. media industry events as catalysts for change. Using the 2020 Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference as a case study, I examine how attendees platformed the topic of inclusion after summer protests reignited calls for equity throughout media industries. Participant observation across the festival's virtual spaces locates my critical deconstruction of four panels wherein representation of historically underrepresented groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), was a focal point. Although the festival did not overtly engage with the political moment, it platformed people who did. Conversations on craft fed into a ubiquitous conference concern with “truth” in storytelling, foregrounding sociohistorical contexts and individual specificities when representing diverse experiences, and highlighting positionality when empowering writers to tell their stories. Despite the constraints of dominant production norms, events enable underrepresented groups and their allies to shape industry discourses.","PeriodicalId":47123,"journal":{"name":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2023-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Critical Studies in Media Communication","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2023.2245440","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT Incremental structural adjustments define attempts to advance representational diversity in Hollywood. This essay considers U.S. media industry events as catalysts for change. Using the 2020 Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference as a case study, I examine how attendees platformed the topic of inclusion after summer protests reignited calls for equity throughout media industries. Participant observation across the festival's virtual spaces locates my critical deconstruction of four panels wherein representation of historically underrepresented groups, including Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), was a focal point. Although the festival did not overtly engage with the political moment, it platformed people who did. Conversations on craft fed into a ubiquitous conference concern with “truth” in storytelling, foregrounding sociohistorical contexts and individual specificities when representing diverse experiences, and highlighting positionality when empowering writers to tell their stories. Despite the constraints of dominant production norms, events enable underrepresented groups and their allies to shape industry discourses.
期刊介绍:
Critical Studies in Media Communication (CSMC) is a peer-reviewed publication of the National Communication Association. CSMC publishes original scholarship in mediated and mass communication from a cultural studies and/or critical perspective. It particularly welcomes submissions that enrich debates among various critical traditions, methodological and analytical approaches, and theoretical standpoints. CSMC takes an inclusive view of media and welcomes scholarship on topics such as • media audiences • representations • institutions • digital technologies • social media • gaming • professional practices and ethics • production studies • media history • political economy. CSMC publishes scholarship about media audiences, representations, institutions, technologies, and professional practices. It includes work in history, political economy, critical philosophy, race and feminist theorizing, rhetorical and media criticism, and literary theory. It takes an inclusive view of media, including newspapers, magazines and other forms of print, cable, radio, television, film, and new media technologies such as the Internet.