MeCCSA 2025

MeCCSA 2025 Conference Programme Schedule

You can view the Conference Programme here or download it. Below the Programme you will find the schedule, please note this is subject to minor changes. these should be complete by the end of the day 3rd September 2025.

4th September 2025
DAY 1

09:30 – 10:30                    Pre-Conference Meeting

MeCCSA Women’s Network pre-conference speed

mentoring – Women’s Network Group

CRL_1/06. Special request by Women’s Network

group for mentoring PhD students and ECR. Please

contact Nathalie Weidhase for more information:

n.weidhase@surrey.ac.uk

09:30 – 11:00                    Registration

Location: Entrance Foyer

10:30 – 11:00                   Teas and Coffees

Location: Entrance Foyer

Tour of War Poets Collection

11:00 – 11:20                    Session 1: Welcome and opening session

Location: Riady Lecture Theatre

Welcome: Prof. G D Jayalakshmi

Lighting of Lamp and opening of MeCCSA 2025:

Prof. Sue Rigby, Principal and Vice Chancellor, ENU
Professor Nazira Karodia, Deputy Vice Chancellor,
Learning and Teaching; and Research, ENU
Professor Diane Maclean, Dean of the School of Arts and Creative Industries, ENU

Felicitation to Dr Khiabany and Dr Sarabhai

Professor Einar Thorsen, Chair of MeCCSA
Mr Sundeep Bhutoria, Managing Trustee, Prabha Khaitan Foundation

Welcome address:

Professor Sue Rigby, Principal, ENU
Professor Einar Thorsen, Chair of MeCCSA

11:20 – 12:15                    Session 2: Keynote 1 (continues from Session 1)

Location: Riady Lecture Theatre

Dr Gholam Khiabany

Title: State of Citizenship and Identity

Reader in Media and Communications at Goldsmiths, University of London

Chair: Karen Ross, Emerita Professor of Gender and Politics in the School of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University

12:15 – 13:00                   Lunch

Location: Chapel with seating in Chapel and Hydra Café

Tour of War Poets Collection

13:00 – 14:30                    Session 3: Presentations

  1. Room Number CRL_1/06 – The Gendered Voice 
    Chair: Prof. Anne Schwan
  2. Room Number CRL_2/05 –  Space and Identity
    Chair: Prof. Kirsten MacLeod
  3. Room Number CRL_3/03 – Digital Technologies and Culture
    Chair: Aideen McLaughlin
  4. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Audience Construction, Fandom and Interaction
    Chair: Stevie Marsden
  5. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Panel: Presentation: Local journalism in transition: community, gaps, and challenges
    Chair: Miranda Hurst
  6. Room Number CRL_1/116 – Modern Media for 21st century educational pedagogy
    Chair: Avril Gray
  7. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Environmental Degradation and Climate Catastrophe
    Chair: Emile Shemilt
  8. Room Number CRL_1/118 – Exploring personal, regional, national and international cultural identity
    Chair: Arunima Bhattacharya

 

14:40 – 15:40                    Session 4: REF Roundtable with Prof Greg Walker, Panel Chair, Panel D

Location: Riady Lecture Theatre

Chair: Prof Peter Golding, Emeritus Professor, Northumbria University; Visiting Professor, Newcastle University.

Greg Walker, Chair Main REF Panel D Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at University of Edinburgh

Prof. Karen Boyle, Professor of Feminist Media Studies, University of Strathclyde

15:40 – 16:10                   Teas and Coffees

Location: Foyer

16:10 – 17:40                    Session 5: Presentations

Location: Various

  1. Room Number CRL_1/06 – Gender and Identity
    Prof. Kirsten McLeod
  2. Room Number CRL_2/05 – Nation-building: Policy and practice
    Chair: Prof. Haftor Medbøe
  3. Room Number CRL_3/03 – Cyberspace Use in expressions of identity
    Chair: Prof. Kerstin Stutterheim
  4. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Justice for Palestine
    Chair: Arunima Bhattacharya
  5. Room Number CRL_3/118 – Migrants’ construction of the self: Identity and belonging
    Chair: Sibylle Ratz
  6. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Panel Presentation: Action Heroines in the 21st Century: Sisters in Arms
    Chair: Zoë Irvine
  7. Room Number CRL_1/115 – The Mirror, Mirroring and Other forms of mediated reality
    Chair: Damien Swarbick
  8. Room Number CRL_1/116 – Barriers in Music: Change-making through pedagogical practices, institutional accountability and creative expression
    Chair: Jacob Danson Faraday

17:45 – 18:45                  Reception Drinks with Exhibition Opening
Location: Foyer

 

20:30 for 21:00               Pub Quiz: Voodoo Rooms – Location

19a W Register St, Edinburgh EH2 2AA

 

5th September 2025
DAY 2

09:00 – 09:30    Day Registration 

Location: Entrance Foyer  

09:30 – 11:00                    Session 6: Presentations

Location: Various

  1. Room Number CRL_1/06 – Rethinking clothes and hair
    Chair: Sana Bilgrami
  2. Room Number CRL_2/05 – Place and identity
    Chair: Avril Gray
  3. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Media and regulation: A treacherous navigation
    Chair: Aleksandar Kocic
  4. Room Number CRL_1/118 – Auto-ethnography: A powerful tool in identity exploration
    Chair: Prof. Kirsten McLeod
  5. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Explorations in traditional media
    Chair: Prof. Alistair Scott
  6. Room Number CRL_3/03 – AI: The new tool on the block
    Chair: Jane Wilkinson
  7. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Media affecting climate and sustainability policies
    Chair: Emile Shemilt
  8. Room Number CRL_1/116 – Digital narratives
    Chair: Jacob Danson Faraday

11:00 – 11:30                   Teas and Coffees

Location: Foyer

1130 – 13:00                    Session 7: Presentations

Location: Various

  1. Room Number CRL_1/10 – Panel Presentation: Journalism in ruins: Dependency, power and resistance
    Chair: Miranda Hurst
  2. Room Number CRL_1/120 – Role of Documentary in Identity Construction
    Chair: Judith Fieldhouse
  3. Room Number CRL_1/116 – Faces of Local Journalism
    Chair: Derek Livesey
  4. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Panel Presentation: Bad News on the Cost of Living Crisis: a Glasgow University Media Group panel
    Chair: Paul Reilly
  5. Room Number CRL_1/119  – Identity Construction through Media
    Chair: Stevie Marsden
  6. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Re-imagining Aesthetics
    Chair: Michael Wamposzyc
  7. Room Number CRL_1/06 Brand identity affecting political decision making
    Chair: Aideen McLaughlin
  8. Room Number CRL_1/118 –What can the archives reveal?
    Chair: Sarah Pedersen
  9. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Data Mining
    Chair: Ivana Ebel

13:00 – 14:00                   Lunch with Network Group Meetings

Lunch serving at Foyer;

Network Group meeting rooms 

  1. Climate Change Section CRL_3/11
  2. Disability Studies Section CRL_2/05
  3. Local and Community Media Section CRL_3/03
  4. Radio and Audio Studies Section CRL_1/115
  5. Social Movements Section CR_1/116
  6. Girlhood Section CRL_1/117
  7. Race Network CRL_1/118
  8. Postgraduate Network CRL_1/120
  9. Practice Network CRL_1/119
  10. Women’s Network CRL_1/06

13:30 – 15:00                    Session 8:  roundtables & Presentations

Location: Various

  1. Room Number CRL_1/06 – [Round table]: Future Paths for UK Practice Research: A Repository?
  2. Room Number CRL_2/05 – [Round table]: A Round Table linked to the new EUP volume The Ethics of Documentary Film
  3. Room Number CRL_3/03 – [Round table]: Intercultural explorations of identity and belonging in the work of hospitality and integration
  4. Room Number CRL_1/117 – [Interactive Workshop]: Mapping Youth Narratives: An Interactive Workshop On Art and Creative Methods for Decolonial Research
  5. Room Number CRL_1/115 – [Interactive Workshop]: From pen to pixels. Your handwriting in transition from paper to screen
  6. Room Number CRL_1/116 – [Interactive Workshop]: Values in the media: Understanding our cultural values and exploring how these may appear in our work
  7. Room Number CRL_3/11 – [Round table]: SACI Journalism Roundtable: The state of journalism in Scotland

15:10 – 16:10.                   Session 9: Keynote 2

Riady Lecture Theatre

Padma Bhushan Dr Mallika Sarabhai

Title: Says who?

Director and Founder, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad, India

Opening Remarks: Mr Sundeep Bhutoria, Managing Trustee, Prabha Khaitan Foundation

Chair: Bashabi Fraser, Emerita Prof. ENU; Chair Scottish Centre for Tagore Studies

16:15 – 16:45                   Teas and Coffees

Location: River Suite and Foyer

16:45 – 18:15                    Session 10: AGM and Awards

Location: Lindsay Stewart Lecture Theatre

18:00 – 19:00                    Drinks Reception – The Bar and Foyer

19:00 – 20:30                    Dinner: River Suite, Chapel, Café Hydra and Foyer (or some combination)

20:30                                    Pay Bar opens: River Suite

21:00 – 22:00                    Ceilidh – The Chapel (Open to all MeCCSA Conference delegates)

6th September 2025
DAY 3

09:00 – 09:30                    Day Registration 

Location: Entrance Foyer  

09:30 – 11:00                    Session 11: 9 Panels

Location: Various

  1. Room Number CRL_1/116 – Gender informed social media strategies
    Chair: Prof. Sarah Pedersen
  2. Room Number CRL_1/118 – Panel Presentation: ‘I girlbossed too hard’: Gender, Labour, Visibility and Identity
    Chair: Sana Bilgrami
  3. Room Number CRL_2/05 National Identities: Confronting Populism and Neo-liberalism
    Chair: Arunima Bhattacharya
  4. Room Number CRL_3/03 – Initiatives for Cultural Community Building
    Chair: Antje Glück
  5. Room Number CRL_1/120 – Enacting Feminism and Femininity
    Chair: Ivana Ebel
  6. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Navigating a Queer identity
    Chair: Leo Philp
  7. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Creating a Better world: Eco- Activism, Creative and cultural policies and much more!
    Chair: Michael Wamposzyc
  8. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Identity and belonging through labour in the 21st century
    Chair: Judith Fieldhouse
  9. Room Number CRL_1/119 – Ethics in an age of disinformation
    Chair: Stevie Marsden

11:00 – 11:15                   Teas and Coffees

Location: Foyer

11:15 – 12:45                    Session 12: 8 Panel Presentations

Location: Various 

  1. Room Number CRL_3/03 – Digital Media and Responsibility
    Chair: Nelson Correia
  2. Room Number CRL_2/05 Narratives of place, identity and representation in local media
    Chair: Aleksandar Kocic
  3. Room Number CRL_1/117 – Panel Presentation: Trust in Arts-Based Research
    Chair: Emile Shemilt
  4. Room Number CRL_1/118 – The Making of a Nation: National Identity Pre-occupations
    Chair: Arunima Bhattacharya
  5. Room Number CRL_1/119 – Media and community re-imaginings of heritage
    Chair: Prof. Kerstin Stutterheim
  6. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Panel Presentation: How can media and arts practice support and promote greater sports participation for women and girls?  Followed by film screening
    Chair: Judith Fieldhouse
  7. Room Number CRL_3/11 – Media power relations: what they reveal
    Chair: Derek Livesey
  8. Room Number CRL_1/115 – Scandalous!
    Chair: Ivana Ebel

12:45 – 13:05
 Session 13: Closing Session 

Location: Lindsay Stewart Lecture Theatre 

13:00 – 14:00                   Lunch

Location: Foyer

15:00
Edinburgh Walking Tour  

Location: TBC – Starting point will be confirmed once numbers are confirmed