Media and communications research at Tallinn University Baltic Film, Media, Arts, and Communication School (BFM)

and Tallinn University Centre of Excellence in Media Innovation and Digital Culture (MEDIT)

If you'd like to keep up with what MEDIT is doing, please click here to receive future newsletters. 

NEW BOOKS

Media Management Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice

Ulrike Rohn together with Tom Evens from Ghent University in Belgium co-edited the book Media Management Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice published by Routledge, New York (2020, published in March). The book brings together twenty-four international scholars who reflect on university-industry collaborations, practice-led research and their implications for media management research.

For more information about the book see HERE.

Also, you can read a short interview with Ulrike and Tom - where they answer the questions: Why this book? What is the book about? Why should one read this book? - HERE.

Sex and Social Media

Katrin Tiidenberg will have a new co-authored book published in July:

Tiidenberg, Katrin and van der Nagel, Emily (2020). Sex and Social Media. Emerald.  PREORDER

Metaphors of Internet 

Furthermore, Katrin Tiidenberg co-edited another book that will be forthcoming by the end of the summer: Markham, Annette N.; Tiidenberg, Katrin (2020). Metaphors of Internet. New York, Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang

Twenty years ago, the Internet was imagined as standing apart from humans; a frontier to explore, and an ultra-high-speed information superhighway. Now, we don’t even “go online.” Instead, we chat, tweet, snap, friend, share, and post. We worry about the way algorithms polarize us. This curated collection complicates the growing bundle of academic narratives on the domesticated, ubiquitous, invisible internet. Collaborators share granular detail of lived experiences in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Spain, Israel, Russia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Denmark and Austria. These are stories about life, but they are also stories about the internet. For our collaborators and their informants the internet is inescapable and boring, necessary and magical, grand and mundane.  “Metaphors of Internet” analyzes the many diverse metaphors used for living on, in and with the internet today.
 "The Internet has disappeared. This exceptional book brings it back into focus - through richly illustrated histories, artworks, and reflections. It is both a historical document and an exploration of possible futures. On top of that, Annette and Katrin have given us a profoundly inspirational glimpse of what truly creative scholarship looks like.” Mark Deuze, University of Amsterdam, author of Media Life.

On the Digital Semiosphere: Culture, Media and Science for the Anthropocene

Indrek Ibrus and Maarja Ojamaa together with John Hartley signed a book contract with Bloomsbury for a book titled “On the Digital Semiosphere: Culture, Media and Science for the Anthropocene”. The manuscript is already finished and the book is in production, publication date is set in December 2020. The book uses Juri Lotman’s cultural semiotics and the semiosphere concept to make sense of the contemporary planetary sphere of digital cultures and technologies shaping not only how people live and interact, but affects also other planetary spheres such as biosphere, geosphere and atmosphere, leading to epochal environmental change. 

Estonian Human Development Report 2019-2020

Finally, the Estonian Human Development Report 2019-2020 (Eesti Inimarengu Aruanne) was launched in the middle of June!

This latest edition is titled “Spatial choices of the urbanising society” and reflects on the spatial development as related to human development in Estonia. The editor-in-chief of the report was Helen Sooväli-Sepping, Tallinn University vice-rector for the sustainable development. Chapter 4 “The Estonian discussion space” was edited by Indrek Ibrus. The article “The role and status of experts in societal media discussions” was authored by Arko Olesk.

Read the Report (in Estonian, English version will be published in July): https://inimareng.ee/eesti-inimarengu-aruanne-20192020.html 

ESSAY SERIES

In addition to book publications our team members have been also busy with authoring essays on digital culture in Estonia’s biggest daily Postimees. This year has been announced by Estonian Ministry of Culture to be the year of ‘digital culture’ in Estonia. Lots of thematic initiatives are taking place, one of these is the essay series in Postimees. The series is edited by Indrek Ibrus, Katrin Tiidenberg (both of MEDIT) and Marek Tamm (Humanities School, also Tallinn University). See the essays by MEDIT members: 

“Digikultuur. Kas Eesti digikultuur on võimalik?” Indrek Ibrus, Marek Tamm, Katrin Tiidenberg

“Digikultuur. Majandus kui kultuur kui majandus…” Indrek Ibrus

“Digikultuur. Sotsiaalmeedia – täiuslik või täiesti rikkis?” Katrin Tiidenberg

“Digikultuur. Kuidas muusika pilve kolis” Madis Järvekülg

“Digikultuur. Televisioon platvormide ajastul” Ulrike Rohn

NEW RESEARCH PROJECTS

We will be leading a new Horizon 2020 Twinning project on media entrepreneurship

We are extremely happy to announce that we just signed a Grant Agreement with the European Commission for a H2020-Widespread/Twinning grant. The three-year project that will be led by Ulrike Rohn will start in January 2021. Through this project, we aim at setting up a competence center for screen media entrepreneurship at MEDIT. MEDIT will be leading the international consortium that will also include Jönköping International Business School in Sweden, LUT University in Finland, Aarhus University in Denmark, Technische Universität Ilmenau in Germany, Vrije Universitet Brussels in Belgium, and Cork Institute of Technology in Ireland. More information about our new ScreenME-Hub will follow in our next newsletter. 

A new research project on local independent media

MEDIT has received funding for a new research project commissioned by the German Embassy in Estonia. 
The project is titled Prospects of Estonian and German local independent media in the era of global platformisation, disinformation campaigns and political populism. The main goal is, through international comparison, to study the status of local independent media and to find ideas and solutions for how to strengthen it. 
The project is led by MEDIT’s Ulrike Rohn, Professor of Media Economics and Management, and will last until January 2021. The main partners in this project include Dr. Ragne Kõuts-Klemm (University of Tartu, Estonia), Prof. Dr. Cornelia Wolf (Leipzig University, Germany), and Dr. Florian Toeplf (FU-Berlin and Passau University, Germany).
The project will conclude with the presentation of the research results at Tallinn University in January.

Find more information HERE.

MEDIT PEOPLE:

VISITING and BEING VISITED

Doctoral student Madis Järvekülg studying in Australia 16.02.-28.06.20

Since mid-February, our doctoral student Madis Järvekülg has been a visiting research fellow at the Digital Media Research Centre (DMRC) in Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane Australia (https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/).

Madis has been concentrating on completing his research articles in cooperation with professor Patrik Wikström. In addition, he has attended DMRC seminars and methods workshops, most of which were virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Madis will return to Estonia by the end of June.

New colleagues at Enactive Virtuality Lab

At the Enactive Virtuality Lab Dr Pia Tikka and her team, funded by the Mobilitas Pluss Top Researcher project (2017-2022), continue exploring the viewer’s experience of co-presence with an adaptive context-aware artificial agent. Eventually, by combining arts and sciences, the project aims to contribute to a range of societal applications in virtual and augmented immersive environments.

See more at http://enactivevirtuality.tlu.ee
 
In spring, three new specialist have joined the truly international lab:

Human Facial Expression in face-to-face communication (dyadic interaction). His work is concentrated in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual Reality (VR), and Machine Learning (ML). His aim is to create a Virtual Character that can respond to the viewer's non-verbal cues so that the character becomes more credible and socially intelligent. Abdallah will further his studies at our University for his Ph.D. and will realize the objective of his work.

issues surrounding the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and virtual reality avatars for governmental immigration regimes. He specifically focuses on drafting and researching related to ethical, socio-political, anthropological, and legal aspects in the context of employing human-like VR avatars and related XR technology. Robert will be working with the team until the end of September.

emotions or even change them according to the interlocutor's emotional state - this opens new and exciting possibilities to a fully immersive experience! 

CREATIVE LAB

„Das Haus“ is Creative Lab co-production with the private sector. It´s a Virtual Reality action short film that introduces real estate, more precisely apartments. The plot is inspired by the Hollywood movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith”, where married couple takes off a visually captivating fight scene in their home. 

In addition to prior advice, theoretical and technical knowledge, Creative Lab contributed to the production of “Das Haus” with its 360-degree camera Yi Halo and image post-production. This approach was novel and challenging for the actors, but it also gave the Creative Lab new knowledge and valuable experience on how to stage and capture the action in Virtual Reality. 

Creative Lab contributed to the students' first experiments with Virtual Reality and 360-degree video:

Creative Lab´s showreel has also been updated, watch it here!

Due to the pandemic and related precautions, several projects were unfortunately canceled or postponed. One of the most voluminous and exciting of these was a theatrical project “Flowers for Algernon”, which would have heavily relied on Creative Lab´s ROKOKO Smart Suite and novel Halo Net. According to the current plan, the production will be staged next year.

KEYNOTES AND INVITED TALKS,  January till June 2020:

Indrek Ibrus delivered a keynote talk titled “Open or Closed? The Paradoxes of Metadating Culture” at the conference "Digitizing Cultural Heritage and its Innovative Usage". The conference took place in March in Tallinn,  the recording can be accessed HERE.

Katrin Tiidenberg held a presentation “Feminist Interpretations of People’s Social Media Experiences” at the Tartu University doctoral winter school on linguistics, philosophy and semiotics, 3.-7.02.2020. See more HERE.

Arko Olesk lectured at a web-based RDA-Estonian seminar on 06.04.2020, his topic was “Are There Users for Open Science in the Government”. See more HERE.

Ulrike Rohn in her role as President of the European Media Management Association launched and chairs a series of webinars, the so-called emma talks, in which invited industry speakers and academic researchers present their insights into media business issues.
The first emma talk featured Lucy Küng from Reuters Institute at Oxford University, Ken Doctor from Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University, and James Savage from The Local. This recordings of this and all future emma talks can be accessed HERE.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Abel, Kristel; Hiob, Tiina; Kaal, Esta; Soonik, Mart, Veetõusme, Rain (2019). Content marketing from the perspective of PR specialists: an Estonian case study. Baltic Screen Media Review, 7, 18-32.

Jõesaar, Andres; Kõuts-Klemm, Ragne (2019). Is the Role of Public Service Media in Estonia Changing? Baltic Screen Media Review, 7, 96-116.

Järvekülg, Madis. (2020). From institutionally embedded “serious” to individualized “popular”: a report on values and attitudes in Estonian music criticism. Journal of Baltic Studies, 51(2): 223–241. https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2020.1749094

Keevallik, Liina; Ibrus, Indrek (2019). Cloud Opera through the prism of artistic research: looking for media archeological issues from the clouds. Baltic Screen Media Review, 7, 72-95.

Lotman, Elen; Voodla, Alan; Uusberg, Andero (2019). What’s the value of a star? Actor familiarity and likebility effects on emotional mimicry of cinematic displays. Baltic Screen Media Review, 7, 4-16.

Nanì, Alessandro; Rohn, Ulrike; Kõnno, Andres (2019). Behind the scenes of the Estonian TV series The Bank: Ideas, practices, and stories. An interview with its creators. Baltic Screen Media Review, 7, 50-71.

Nielsen, D. and Nanì, A. (2019). The Moral Economy of User Created Content in the Digital Game Industry. G| A| M| E Games as Art, Media, Entertainment, 1(9). [forthcoming]

Renser, Berit; Tiidenberg, Katrin (2020). Witches on Facebook: Mediatization of Neo-Paganism. Social Media + Society [forthcoming] 

Rohn, Ulrike; Loeser, Henry (2020). Policy Alignment in the European Audiovisual Sector: A Small Market Perspective from Estonia. Journal of Digital Media and Policy,11 (1), 7-28.

Khan, Musa; Rohn, Ulrike (2020). Transnationalization, Exportation, and Capitalization of Turkish Television and its Impact on the Audience of the Egypt and Pakistan. European Journal of Social Sciences, 59 (2), 123−137.

Rohn, Ulrike; Evens, Tom (2020). Media management as an engaged scholarship. In: Rohn, Ulrike; Evens, Tom (Ed.). Media management matters: Challenges and opportunities for bridging theory and practice (9−28). New York: Routledge.

Rohn, Ulrike; Evens, Tom (2020). Media Management Matters: Challenges and Opportunities for Bridging Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge.

Rohn, Ulrike; Jaanson, Karli (2019). Film Branding: How the Estonia 100 umbrella brand influenced production, marketing and consumption of the Estonia 100 films. Baltic Screen Media Review, 7 (1), 34−49.

Teinemaa, Teet (2020). Õudusfilmi pikk ja okkaline tee tõsiseltvõetavusse. Vikerkaar, 2. https://www.vikerkaar.ee/archives/25707

Tiidenberg, Katrin (2020). A wormhole, a Home, an Unavoidable Place Introduction to “Metaphors of the Internet”. In: Markham, Annette; Tiidenberg, Katrin (Ed.). Metaphors of Internet, Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity (15−27). New York, Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang. (Digital Formations).10.3726/b16196 [forthcoming].

Tiidenberg, Katrin (2020). ‘Instagrammable’ as a Metaphor for Looking and Showing in Visual Social Media. In: Markham, Annette; Tiidenberg, Katrin (Ed.). Metaphors of Internet, Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity (67−77). New York, Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang. (Digital Formations).10.3726/b16196 [forthcoming].

Kolozaridi, Polina; Shchetvina, Anna; Tiidenberg, Katrin (2020). No Country for IT-Men: Post-Soviet Internet Metaphors of Who and How Interacts with the Internet. In: Markham, Annette; Tiidenberg, Katrin (Ed.). Metaphors of Internet, Ways of Being in the Age of Ubiquity (231−243). New York, Bern, Berlin: Peter Lang. (Digital Formations).10.3726/b16196 [forthcoming].

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