DIGISCREENS - Identities and Democratic Values on European Screens

The project has the objective to analyse how current practices of digital distribution of films and TV series on global and national platforms intertwine with the representation and the reception of identities and democratic values. We problematise how European distribution policies and individualised algorithms govern public and commercial platforms, creating both “filter bubbles” and a promise of common democratic values and models of identity. Thereby the project asks how the increased possibilities for audiences to watch audiovisual content from a great geographical diversity affect our construction of identity and understanding of the other, as well as our negotiation of democratic values such as equality, inclusion, and solidarity.

By investigating digital film and TV distribution, representation, and reception in Norway, Sweden, France, Spain and Lithuania, this project discusses how transnational distribution and consumption of audiovisual content may create social encounters and a sense of global integration. By combining methodologies from media studies, anthropology, literature, cultural and political analysis, we compare how members of different social and cultural groups perceive their roles, rights and democratic participation in contemporary Europe.

DIGISCREENS is a collaborative project led by Dr. Maud Ceuterick (University of Bergen, Norway), in collaboration with Principal Investigators Dr. Lina Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė (Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania), Prof. Maria Jansson (Orebro University, Sweden), and Prof. Adelina Sánchez (University of Granada, Spain).

Objectives

DIGISCREENS consists of four Work Packages (WP):

WP1: Overview of practices of digital distribution aims to produce an overview of practices of digital distribution cross-nationally, in France, Lithuania, Norway, Spain and Sweden, and of differences in consumption of streaming platforms and accessibility to national/transnational productions across the countries studied (PI: Lina Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė).

WP2: Close readings of identities and democratic values on digital screens aims to provide new insights into how distribution practices play a role in the representation of identities and democratic values on screen across Europe, through the close analysis of a selection of popular content on popular platforms (PI: Adelina Sánchez).

WP3: Qualitative study of viewers’ reception of transnational identities and democratic values aims to develop an understanding of how individual viewers discuss their consumption habits of digital platforms and produce an in-depth analysis of how current transnational consumption and distribution models affect viewers’ reception and negotiation of identities and democratic values as they are represented on digital screens (PI: Maria Jansson).

Finally, WP4: Develop a cross-national theory on cultural transformations of digital distribution in Europe aims to to compare the results from the first three work packages implemented at national level, resulting thus in the production of a cross-national theory of the impact of the digitalisation of distribution on AV content and reception habits in the European context (PI: Maud Ceuterick).