Media industry events as platforms for social justice : moving from inspiration to impact in creative production

This dissertation examines media industry events to understand their capacity as platforms for social justice in creative production. Organizations and individuals throughout the United States expressed vocal commitments to social justice following mass protests in 2020 over the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers. I investigate how these commitments, which build on existing social movements and extend beyond race to include gender, sexuality, class, and the environment, appear when media professionals gather to promote their work, connect with peers, and discuss the trajectories of their industries. As a liberal city within one of the country’s most conservative states, one that has seen massive growth as an epicenter for music, tech, and media, Austin, Texas is a productive location in which to ground this investigation. I present South by Southwest and the Austin Film Festival and Writers Conference as two case studies with a shared location but different scopes of programming. I take a critical media industry studies approach, which involved three years of ethnographic field work as a participant observer, in-depth interviews (N = 33), computational analysis of Twitter data (N = 1,607,302), and qualitative analysis of media artifacts surrounding the events to answer questions regarding the respective roles played by event organizers and event participants in advocacy and activism. I argue that media industry events can catalyze social justice within normative industry processes, however this comes with constraints and setbacks as media professionals navigate hegemonic pressures and balance corporate imperatives in seeking to close the gap between inspirational rhetoric and material impact.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Journalism and Media

Grantor

The University of Texas at Austin

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Limov, Brad

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Strover, Sharon

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Varma, Anita
• Straubhaar, Joseph
• Mallapragada, Madhavi

• Trade rituals
• Media events
• Platforms
• Film festivals
• Social justice
• Media industries

Identifier URI

https://doi.org/10.26153/tsw/55782

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/129275