The CHANSE ERA-NET project DIGISCREENS: “Identities and democratic values on European digital screens: Distribution, reception, and representation” is coming to an end in December 2025, and we would like to invite you to attend our final conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on the 23rd and 24th of October.

Confirmed keynotes:

Cathrin Bengesser (Aarhus University)

Ramon Lobato (Swinburne University of Technology)

The rise of streaming platforms has changed the production, distribution and consumption of films and TV series. On the one hand, streaming platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, or Max have increased the possibilities for viewers to watch content produced in a wide variety of national contexts. On the other hand, some policies, such as the European Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVSMD), have sought to level the market between domestic and transnational platform suppliers and protect the production of film and television in Europe (Lobato 2019; Kostovska et al. 2020). This competition to preserve the European audiovisual sector raises a number of questions about programming, content, and viewing habits as well as how audiences negotiate their identities in relation to what they watch.

The DIGISCREENS’ team invites participants to focus on how digital audiovisual platforms contribute to transform social and cultural dynamics in Europe in the era of streaming. This conference, concluding our project, aims to connect researchers working with films and TV series on streaming platforms from the perspective of policy, production and distribution, social and cultural values on screen or audience reception. We hope to bring together industry actors and academics to assess how the current audiovisual media landscape affects (a) the construction of identity and understanding of the other through global, yet culturally specific, mediations of gender, race, class, sexuality, and other social aspects, and (b) the negotiation of democratic values such as equality, inclusion, and solidarity.

We are especially interested in researchers combining research methods and approaches, involving industry practices (interviews), representation (textual analysis), and audience research. We welcome submissions on (but not limited to):

  • (trans)national audiovisual media policy;
  • impact of audiovisual policy on global and national streaming platforms;
  • audiovisual policy and negotiation of democratic values (equality, inclusion and solidarity) or identity (gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.) and diversity;
  • impact of global streaming platforms on national film or TV industries, and on public service media (PSM)
  • representation of diversity and identity (gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.) in films and TV series distributed on streaming platforms (including PSM online platforms);
  • audiences’ streaming viewing habits;
  • audiences’ reception of diversity and democratic values in films and TV series;
  • audiences’ feelings of belonging through streaming content;
  • streaming and research methods.

The project DIGISCREENS is supported by The Research Council of Norway, Research Council of Lithuania, FORTE: Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare, la Agencia Nacional de Investigación del Ministerio de Ciencia e Investigación, under CHANSE ERA-NET Co-fund programme, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under Grant Agreement no 101004509.

For more info about the DIGISCREENS project: https://www.uib.no/en/digiscreens

Send your an abstract (max 300 words) and a short bio to digiscreens.conference@gmail.com

Deadline extended to the 30th of April

Participants will be notified by the 25th of May