Media Industries Podcast

Last year you listened to 494 hours of podcasts, your favourite genre was probably true crime, but your top podcast was Media Industries! Perhaps? Well, maybe. We’re so used to algorithms wrapping our data in a neat ball and presenting it back to us at the end of the year. The trailblazer of these algorithmic events has been Spotify’s end-of-year celebration, Spotify Wrapped. Taylor Annabell (Rese...

Copyright has been predicated on protecting original works of human authorship. When AI generates new works, however, what happens to the status of authorship, originality and protection? For this episode, we are very pleased to welcome back Tanya Aplin Aplin (Professor of Intellectual Property Law, King’s College London). Initially, Tanya outlines how copyright variously covers individual, collab...

Across many industries, a key belief driving the current boom in AI use is the economic logic that certain processes can be streamlined in ways that reduce human effort and thereby bring efficiencies and cost reductions. How possible is this in the media industries, however, which have traditionally relied on high value, skills intensive human labour to create unique, distinct outputs? Putting thi...

Developments in AI changed, transformed and disrupted many industries, but one of the industries where these shifts have been most felt is in music. From the bedroom producer using the assistance of AI in their creation, to multi-billion dollar music companies using AI for data management, AI is appearing everywhere. For this episode, Hazel Savage (VP Music Intelligence, SoundCloud) talks through...

When we think of AI, we tend to think about the chat bot, the prompt that generates the new image, the AI assistant that helps with some of our everyday admin. But, what about everything behind the curtain? The power dynamics, economics, and politics behind AI. Nick Srnicek (Senior Lecturer in Digital Economy, King’s College London) talks about the application of AI in the media industries, but al...

While there is a lot of talk about how AI is transforming creative industries, before this discussion, there was already an industry where artificial intelligence was not only prominent, but a must in most outputs: the digital games industry. Currently, the industry is going through tumultuous times globally, while generative AI is disrupting game development and production processes. Digdem Sezen...

Generative AI challenges the human monopoly on creativity, and consequently, when addressing the impacts of AI on the media industries, one of the highlight concerns that has emerged is the extent to which applications of AI may disrupt, and potentially also displace, the work of creative practitioners. Hye-Kyung Lee (Professor of Cultural Policy, King’s College London) reflects on how uses of AI...

Streamed video entertainment services are well known for their systemic collection and processing of big data. For the users of those services, the application of that data will manifest itself in the form of computer-generated recommendations. But amongst creative practitioners in the screen industries, what relationships and interactions do they form with that type of data? Nina Vindum Rasmussen...

Orçun Can and Paul McDonald (King’s College London) Opening series two of the Media Industries podcast, Orçun and Paul offer a sneak peek of what to expect from the upcoming episodes.

Traditionally, copyright has been predicated on protecting and sustaining human creativity. From the pen to the camera, human creativity has involved the use of tools. With digital forms of creativity, computing technologies have variously become the tools for creative action. What happens to the status of copyright, however, when the machine is no longer just a tool, and actively makes decisions...

Focusing on what he calls ‘mobile production’, Kevin Sanson (Queensland University of Technology) discusses the spatial configuration of creative relationships in film and television, and the logistical role of labour in making and maintaining those relationships. Yuening Li (Maynooth University) speaks about her work examining the place of digital payment services in our lives and the social medi...

Eva Cheuk-Yin Li (Lancaster University) introduces her work on the rise of the Girls Love media industry in Southeast Asia, and particularly the growth of GL television series production in Thailand. Jeanette Steemers (King’s College London) and Andrea Esser highlight findings from ‘ Screen Encounters with Britain ’, a project examining what young audiences in Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the Neth...

Forum Mithani (Cardiff University) outlines how in recent years Japanese dramas have achieved greater prominence in the international scripted television format market, focusing in particular on the remaking of ‘Mother’. Anthony Killick (Liverpool John Moores University) identifies how, since 2018, various developments in the industry and culture of film in Saudi Arabia should be read as indicativ...

Mark Deuze (University of Amsterdam) highlights issues of mental wellbeing in media work, and the paradox of professionals equally voicing unhappiness and joy about their working lives. Ivana Kostovska (Free University of Brussels) reflects on how regulatory responses amongst European nations to the popularization of video streaming services are variously obliging streamers to invest in local prod...

Doris Eikhof (University of Glasgow) reports insights from the Gender Equity Policy (GEP) Analysis project which conducted a comparative evaluation of gender equity policies for film industries in Canada, Germany, and the UK. Vejune Zemaitye (Tallinn University) outlines the scope and aim of CresCine (www.crescine.eu), a large multi-partner project examining the competitiveness of small European n...

Christopher Meir (Charles III University of Madrid) looks at how streaming platforms are transforming the conditions in which European films are produced and circulated. Tonguc Sezen (University for the Creative Arts) reflects on how large language models (LLMs) are being applied as aids in the writing of digital game narratives. Finally, Mathilde Sanders (Utrecht University) outlines the work of...

Ulrike Rohn (Tallinn University and the ScreenMe podcast) introduces the scope of research in media economics and media management, and her work co-editing The Handbook of Media Economics. Yuval Katz (Loughborough University) draws on research conducted in Israel/Palestine to discuss how the creation of media can offer a space for conceptualizing peace. Finally, Christa van Raalte (Bournemouth Uni...

Munira Cheema (King’s College London) provides an overview of her research examining how anti-state and anti-establishment publics in Pakistan express themselves online through Twitter/X and YouTube. Kristian Redhead Ahm (Danish School of Media and Journalism) considers the impact, in Denmark, of streaming logics on public service broadcasting principles and narrative practices in documentary prod...

Nur Kareelawati Abd Karim (Islamic Science University of Malaysia) discusses some of the challenges and insights arising from her study of the production culture of religious television at the Islam Channel in London. Madison Trusolino (Dalhousie University) situates her on-going work on the commercial actor lockout in Canadian television within broader concerns about formal and informal labour or...

Drawing on research into podcast and video game production in Denmark, Mads Møller T. Anderson (University of Copenhagen) discusses how experiences of workplace autonomy vary according to industry logics, professional roles, and individual needs. Rowan Aust (University of Bournemouth / ReelTime Media) unpacks the meanings of ‘good work’ in the film and television industries, reflecting on her expe...

As Director of the Media Industries conference, Paul McDonald (King’s College London) talks with Orcun Can (King’s College London) about the evolution and purpose of the conference.