Media and Emotion

MEDIA AND EMOTION CONFERENCE

7-8 September 2026

As neuroscientist Raymond J. Dolan observes, “emotion provides the principal currency in human relationships as well as the motivational force for what is best and worst in human behaviour” (2002). Within contemporary media production and consumption, emotion often binds us together, at times appearing as a language of intimacy, vulnerability and reflexivity, and at times appearing as a language of division, entitlement and exclusion. Therefore, emotions expressed and evoked through media have attracted sustained scholarly attention across a wide range of disciplines, spanning the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.

Notably, in the era of populism, political leaders deploy emotionally charged narratives, in offering simple answers to complex problems, often with minority groups as the targets of division and abjection. Also, techniques of production and representation deploy the language of emotion, in aesthetic and narrative-oriented contexts, and theoretical work is constantly evolving.

As Laura U. Marks discussed in her landmark text The Skin of Film (1999), contemporary media offers a creative space for issues of touch, memory and hegemonic challenge, invigorated through a media-based emotional landscape. At the same time Sara Ahmed has theorised in The Cultural Politics of Emotion (2014), that ‘affective economies’ and ‘sticky associations’ shape our phenomenological landscapes, defining boundaries for minority voices as much as offering spaces for resistance and reinvention.

We invite scholars from any related disciplines and industry practitioners to participate in this conference and share critical perspectives on media and emotion, drawing on their theoretical models, research trajectories or practice-based environments. Our keynote speakers, Kristyn Gorton, Kim Akass and Lisa Blackman, and our Industry keynote panel led by Christa van Raalte (see below), will offer insights into media affects and their intersection with scholarly and practice-based approaches.

AREAS OF INQUIRY (not exhaustive) 

• Emotional states, such as anger, anomie, confusion, compulsion, contempt, disgust, dissociation, fear, happiness, indifference, joy, longing, nihilism, rage, regret, shame, surprise.

• Practice oriented contexts, such as broadcasting, cinematography, directing, distribution, drama, documentary, editing, journalism, liveness, marketing, streaming, social media, touchscreen technology, workplace.

• Political and social worlds, such as Brexit, Covid-19, citizenship, community, Gaza, disability, ethnicity, inclusivity, nationality, neoliberalism, race, religion, Sudan, Thatcherism, Trump, Ukraine.

• Theoretical models, relating to concepts, such as affect, alienation, behaviour, cognition, community, colonialism, consumption, embodiment, gender, genre, identity, inclusivity, memory, minority, nostalgia, orientalism, otherness, pastiche, post-colonialism, phenomenology, reasoning, regulation, representation, sexuality, surrealism, social realism, trauma.

Please use the below links to submit abstract proposals (250 words max) for single papers or pre-formed panels by the 31 May 2026

SINGLE PAPER PROPOSAL

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=VZbi7ZfQ5EK7tfONQn-_uKTV25ijuANLi5dE2tVQ245UQTlTMVo3WjIxOU44MzVRQldYV0hYNUdXTS4u

PRE-FORMED PANEL PROPOSAL

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=VZbi7ZfQ5EK7tfONQn-_uKTV25ijuANLi5dE2tVQ245UQjBBMzcxWFVDUDRJMzhaU1dLTVFRWDRXSy4u

Decisions will be announced after 15th June 2026

NB: This conference is an in-person event only, with no facility for hybrid presentations.

STUDENTS

We will also offer postgraduate researchers the opportunity to enter a lottery to win a registration fee waiver (with five spaces available). 

REGISTRATION & ACCOMMODATION

Registration fee: including refreshments and lunch for two days:

£140 (students, part time employment)

£170 (full time employment)

Note that Eventbrite fees will be added on top.

Conference evening meal will be available under a separate invitation, at own cost.

On site campus accommodation will be available at £75 for three nights (fixed price), plus £25 for each additional night (over the preceding weekend)

Local hotels available at reduced conference rates.

CONFIRMED KEYNOTES

Lisa Blackman (Professor in Media and Communications – Goldsmiths University) - whose work includes:

• Grey Media: A Psychopolitics of Deception (Punctum Books 2026).

• Haunted Data: Affect, Transmedia, Weird Science (Bloomsbury 2019).

DECEIT AND DECEPTION: Lisa will explore media and emotion through the concept of ‘grey media’, a term which brings into alignment the long histories of apparatuses of deceit and deception which have a distinct mediality, linking the gaslighting of emotional abuse, information warfare and AI Deception.

Kristyn Gorton (Professor of Film and Television – University of Leeds)  -– whose work includes: 

• Emotion Online: Theorising Affect on the Internet (Palgrave 2013).

• Media Audiences: Television, Meaning and Emotion (Edinburgh University Press, 2009).

EMPATHY AND INTIMACY:  This paper returns to Kristyn’s earlier work (as above) and engages with recent work on 'empathy' and 'intimacy' to reflect on the development of the field and the ways in which television constructs emotion. Kristyn will draw on examples from serial melodrama which use excess to mark out spaces for viewers to work through narratives of social justice and change. The paper will also consider how the production cultures impact and inform the affective landscape of these stories.

Kim Akass (Professor of Radio Television and Film) - whose work includes: 

•  Mothers on American Television: From Here to Maternity (Manchester University Press 2023).

RAGE AND MOTHERHOOD: Since the overturn of Roe vs Wade in June 2022 and the resulting ban on abortion in 13 states (so far), is it surprising that we are seeing so much female rage on our screens? From postpartum psychosis in Die My Love (Lynne Ramsay, 2025) to If I Had Legs, I Would Kick You (Mary Bronstein, 2025) maternal rage is, well, all the rage. In this paper Kim will explore how female rage has emerged as a theme in film and TV and asks whether this is due to an increase in women behind the scenes or a reaction to punitive legislation against women’s reproductive rights.

Christa van Raalte (Associate Professor of Film and Television – Bournemouth University) – whose work includes:

• The Good Manager in TV: Tales for the Twenty-first Century, in Creative Industries Journal (2024), (with Wallis, R.).

• More Than Just a Few ‘Bad Apples’: The Need for a Risk Management Approach to the Problem of Workplace Bullying in the UK’s Television Industry, in Creative Industries Journal (2023), (with Wallis, R. and Pekalski, D.).

TV INDUSTRY PANEL: THE ECONOMICS OF EMOTION:  Christa will also bring together a range of industry practitioners, considering how emotion works as a commodity for creativity, in artistic and workplace contexts. What are the safeguarding standards when creators, collaborators and audiences engage with productions that frame emotional media? How might media producers negotiate the polarising emotional landscape and ethical broadcasting standards when creating content?

We are looking forward to your submissions!!

Conference organisers: Christopher Pullen, Catalin Brylla & Savvas Voutyras of

The Centre for the Study of Conflict, Emotion and Social Justice

Bournemouth University, Faculty of Media, Science and Technology, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow Poole, BH12 5BB.

Conference email contact: cpullen@bournemouth.ac.uk