6th Annual Convention – “Popular Culture and Media” division within
the German Association for Media Studies (GfM)

MANAGING POPULAR CULTURE?
Emergence, Strategy and the Development of Popular Phenomena
30 January – 1 February 2014
Karlshochschule International University, Karlsruhe

Keynote Lecture: Angela McRobbie, Goldsmiths, University of London

CALL FOR PAPERS
The 6th Annual Convention of the "Popular Culture and Media" division within the
German Association for Media Studies will explore the question “How does popular
culture develop?” We invite presenters from different backgrounds and disciplines to
a lively discussion on the intersections of economic, cultural and social aspects that
form popular phenomena.

Academic scholarship so far has often drawn a strict borderline between strategic
management approaches on the one hand, and subversive approaches, which draw
on the creative and uncontrollable potential of popular culture on the other. While the
first idea is associated with producers’ interests to control and operate a chaotic
condition, the latter is predominantly linked to aesthetic and/or socio-analytical
methods that all too often leave aside the economic context of popular phenomena.

The conference Managing Popular Culture? will question and challenge schematic
descriptions which play on top-down vs. bottom-up explanations by deconstructing
dichotomies such as management vs. emergence or design (planning) vs. rhizomatic
development. We seek to highlight the impact of commercial agents, cultural
policies, the media, and social interactions for the development of popular
phenomena. We strive to present analyses how these mechanisms and automatisms
create trends and hypes as well as more general practices and discourses within the
sphere of popular culture.

The conference is open for all kinds of work that connect the terms of ‘pop’,
‘management’ and ‘economy’ (not only in financial reference), all taken as cultural
practices. Possible topics include – but are by no means limited to – papers that
investigate models of popular funding such as crowdfunding, phenomena of Creative
Commons or the app-culture to name but a few. Equally, we include presentations
that critically ask for ‘popular economies’ beyond the market or explore how
economy itself may obtain ‘pop-status’ as we have seen with brands such as Apple,
RedBull or even with top-managers from Rockefeller to Steve Jobs.

PROPOSALS
The 6th Annual Convention – “Popular Culture and Media” is an interdisciplinary
conference (and thus) open for proposals from all fields of study that explore the
structures, impacts and phenomena associated with popular culture. Theoretical,
empirical and critical approaches are equally welcome. Applicants are not required to
become a member of the Association.
We support an internationally orientated exchange and invite proposals both in
English and German.
Please send an abstract of no more than 300 words and a short CV (max. 150
words) to
proposals@popkongress.de.
Deadline is 15 September 2013.

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS
Lioba Foit (Paderborn), Christian Stiegler (Karlsruhe), Martin Zierold (Karlsruhe)
team@popkongress.de, www.popkongress.de

The conference is hosted by Karlshochschule International University in cooperation
with the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg Automatismen, an interdisciplinary postgraduate
program, University of Paderborn.