DSMN funding opportunity for small creative projects

The AHRC-Funded Diaspora Screen Media Network (DSMN) is offering TEN awards of up to £300 each for proposals for small creative projects (content can take the form of illustrated blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, audio-visual essays, short animations, e-zine, critical reviews etc.). The network calls for proposals for projects on topics relevant to the Network’s aims and focus on the impact of new technologies on viewing practices.

The Diaspora Screen Media Network

This AHRC-funded network examines the impact of electronic technologies and social media on production, consumption patterns, and modes of reception of diaspora screen media texts.

It explores how selected diaspora screen media texts including documentaries and short films engage with new media and the digital world of the internet to create new global forms of visual awareness considered as 'glocal imaginaries'. Building on recent work that traces the global mobilization of culture, the project uses British Asian and Black British screen texts as case studies in identifying how 'glocal' formats of the new media align with or juxtapose national, regional or transnational perspectives of today's increasingly fluid visual landscape (key texts include, but are not limited to: Ghuz Khan’s Man Like Mobeen, Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You; Steve McQueen’s Small Axe; Gurinda Chadha’s Blinded by the Light and Bhaji on the Beach).

The network has held/will hold symposia on the following topics:

The impact of social media on consumption patterns of diasporic cinema and media culture
New screen media: the digital environment in a post-COVID world
Globalising the local in diasporic cinema and media culture (to be held 17-18 March 2022)

The network has also commissioned two short films: one reporting on the first symposium held at the University of Northampton, the second features interviews on ‘Viewing Habits in Lockdown’

Reports on network meetings, symposia, films, a virtual exhibition (memorabilia, ephemera, film and popular music archives, fliers and posters), bibliography and blogs written by network members are all available on the network’s website here.

Proposals, topics, perspectives and project concepts

Any one or more of the following might be your focus:

New audiences and viewers for the digital technologies- how to identify, measure and interact with viewers; big data; changing consumption patterns:
Changes in production, circulation and dissemination practices with reference to feature films, mini-series, and other visual culture (e.g. previews, pre-release trailers, You Tube clips)
Festivals (e.g. Flatpack; BFI; New York; Sundance; Cannes): highlights, community and international constituencies; dissemination practices
Prizes and awards (Emmys and Oscars): patterns of viewing, dissemination and consumption
Major and minor streaming platforms: comparability between media companies, subscription services (e.g. Netflix, Neon, I-Player, You Tube, BritBox, SkyQ, Acorn TV, Disney +, Amazon Prime)
Gender, ethnicity and class: the changing sociology of the Black British/British Asian cinematic text
Viewing patterns: diversification due to changing attendance in public venues like multiplex cinemas; picture houses; theatres; private (home) cinemas, niche audiences
Black Lives Matter: issues of Inclusivity, diversity and representation; industry racism and changing patterns of visibility
Online self-presentation and microcelebrity culture (e.g. Bilal Zafar, Michael Dapaah, Vee Brown, Asim Chaudhury, Mo Gilligan, Ghuz Khan): the use of social media platforms
Changing visual settings and narratives: how do the new patterns of production and consumption affect styles of telling and techniques of presentation of Black British/British Asian visual culture? (e.g. role of social media in story line)
Black British/British Asian music and film scores: South Asian disco music; soundtracks, original and adapted scores, UK Bollywood sound
Funding and sustainability of new visual culture: social media, crowd sourcing and other collaborative methods and forms of cultural exchange
Reception: reviewing practices on social media, metrics like Rotten Tomatoes, traditional media coverage; the voice of the reviewer; minority group responses
The ‘glocal’ marketplace: mainstream versus minority; niche markets, market drivers in relation to public interest.
Local, global and ‘glocal’ imaginaries – tracing strands in films, documentaries, mini-series: e.g. production techniques, locations, performance, fashion, settings, music, mise en scene, narrative schema

Application instructions

Proposals should contain the following and be no more than two A4 pages.

Brief description of maximum 300 words stating project’s relationship to current digital climate
Methodology: research techniques and methods; timetable for completion
Output: format, relevance of project to network’s aims; interim reporting date
Budget requested up to £300 maximum with a brief breakdown of the budget

Please include a brief CV (no more than two pages maximum) and your contact details.

If selected, you might be invited to present and discuss your proposal with the network in some form (e.g. via an online conference presentation or round table discussion at the symposium to be held 17-18 March 2022). Where possible, all creative outputs will be featured on the DSMN project website.

Key dates and deadlines

Submission of Proposals: 18 February 2022

Results: 25 February 2022

Project completion: 28 March 2022

Contacts

Submit any queries and completed proposals to all the DSMN organisers:

Professor Rajinder Dudrah: Rajinder.Dudrah@bcu.ac.uk

Professor Janet Wilson: Janet.Wilson@northampton.ac.uk

Dr David Simmons: David.Simmons@northampton.ac.uk