Entertainment media play a vital role in the media lives of teenagers and youth, as do social, digital and global platforms such as YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat and Netflix. Today’s youth entertainment culture thus includes not only entertainment produced by legacy mass media producers, but also content creators, influencers and ‘new media’ players. Many of these content creators make entertainment to be spread across platforms to strengthen brands and income and create fictional and non-fictional cross-media storylines. The prominent position of global entertainment platforms among teenagers also impacts viewing communities by reconstructing place and locality and by extending the production and modes of cultural reproduction that inform and shape how people perceive themselves and others. All this raises the stakes for national media industries to retain younger segments and for media policymakers, who traditionally have fulfilled policy goals by regulating national media institutions.

This pre-conference invites contributions that further theories about industry notions, practices and strategies of conducive production and distribution practices related to young people as audiences. Contributions can deal with questions concerning all aspects of genre and all aspects of entertainment made for or consumed by youth—from policy and production perspectives to textual analysis and reception studies. Addressing such questions, we are especially interested in papers that shed new light on one or more of the following themes:

Case studies of youth productions and/or youth content.
Studies investigating how youth consume or use entertainment media.
Studies investigating how screenwriters, producers and commissioners conceive and produce content aimed for and consumed by youth.
Studies investigating how emerging producers, content creators or influencers conceive and produce content aimed for and consumed by youth and teenagers.
Studies investigating the role of public service media and other national institutions in serving and engaging young people.
Studies investigating why young people seek out non-domestic/global entertainment.
Studies investigating the role that language plays in the consumption of global entertainment.
Studies investigating the role of policymakers, policies and funding schemes in facilitating high ‘quality’ content needed by young people.
Research and theoretical reflections on the ways in which transnational cultural encounters via screen impact opinions and behaviour towards the Other.
Studies of different genres, aesthetics and modes of address in current content targeting young audiences.
Conceptual and critical interventions into the production and consumption of youth media content, including perspectives on cross-media storytelling, youth fiction, social media entertainment, content creators and influencers.
Methodological interventions that address the challenges in researching young audiences, youth productions and/or youth content.
We particularly encourage PhD students and young scholars to submit their research.

Keynote

Sophie H. Bishop: Young People and Influencer culture in the UK

"The relevance of 'influencer culture' and even the word 'influencer' is hotly debated in policy, media and industry. This keynote draws from my ethnographically informed research on influencer and promotional ecologies. It will cover key issues relating to influencer culture in the UK, and particularly how they may impact young people. Themes include labour exploitation within influencer industries, consumer culture and regulation, and the role of children both as influencers, and influencer audiences".

Bishop is a Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries at the Sheffield University Management School and the Specialist Advisor in the UK influencer inquiry.

The pre-conference will also include shorter talks from the organising committee.

Organising committee

Andrea Esser, Pia Majbritt Jensen, Marika Lüders, Eva Novrup Redvall, Jeanette Steemers, and Vilde Schanke Sundet.

The following research projects co-organise this pre-conference:

Reaching young audiences: Serial fiction and cross-media storyworlds for children and young audiences
Global natives? Serving young audiences on global media platforms
Screen Encounters with Britain: What do young Europeans make of Britain and its digital screen culture?