The experience of the conference seems to evolve as one’s career grows—from the overwhelming experience of the graduate student newbie to the new challenges of working the publishing tables as a tenure-track faculty member developing a book. I seem to be in the joiner stage. A member of two special interest groups (SIGs), one caucus, and a committee, I devoted a good part of my conference to meetings rather than panels. This was somewhat disheartening, as I missed a lot of good work, but it has also made me think about value of working to improve SCMS from within.

I’ve been a core team member of the Media Industries SIG since its inception in 2012. In only three years, this SIG, which pulls from film, television, game, and new media studies, has grown to become one of the largest SIGs at over four hundred members. This year, we received an incredibly diverse range of proposals for SIG sponsorship, many more than the eight we are invited to submit. Among the topics reflected were media metrics, historical queer film, independent media, and advertising. The SIG’s growth is at once a testament to the vitality of this expanding area of research and a responsibility to continue articulating what is the role of the SIG within SCMS. For example, we’ve been working to create an “experts page,” detailing the particular subject areas of interest for our members, with the idea that this could become a resource for journalists needing quotes and talking heads. While we haven’t cracked the code of how to publicize this sort of resource, the desire to promote our members remains a priority for the SIG. I should note that this topic—identifying the continuing purpose and mission of a special interest group—came up at the Television Studies SIG meeting as well. For new and older SIGs, then, members seem eager to continue to push the possibilities of what an organization as large as SCMS can help us achieve.

My view of the possible scope of an organization like SCMS has been enlarged by serving on the public policy committee. The work of this committee tends to take place behind the scenes, so you may not know it exists even as it works to suggest policy updates and innovations to the SCMS Board that help you do your jobs better. In the past two years that I’ve been a member, the committee has provided advice for the board and drafted documents to advance the organization’s efforts to advocate for Fair Use protections (in publishing and teaching), Open Access, DMCA exemptions for teachers, and Network Neutrality (more on SCMS policies can be found here). There’s a whole world of activity at SCMS beyond the conference, and volunteering can be one path towards uncovering those efforts.

In the past few years, we’ve seen a wide range of new activities created solely through the support of the Board and the willingness of SCMS members to volunteer their time. Cinema Journal has expanded its reach online in a variety of (open access) ways to serve member interests. First, there is the “Teaching Dossier,” which features blog posts from members discussing their teaching strategies in line with particular themes for each issue. Second, the always entertaining “Aca-Media” podcast co-hosted by Christine Becker and Michael Kackman delivers a monthly program that features scholar interviews and discussions of current issues within media studies. The Media Industries SIG sponsored an affiliate event (one of three) at this year’s SCMS about the Sony Hack. Super topical, this event, too, helps us envision additional ways that SCMS can address current events and the place of scholars analyzing and commentating upon them. All of this activity confirms that SCMS members have the potential to inspire the organization to become more visible to scholars and the broader public across a range of platforms, transforming the conference into only one more opportunity to enhance the value of SCMS for all who work to give it meaning.

When attorney-on-the-partner-track Julia Braverman-Graham of Parenthood quit her job, I was upset, but patient. Having adopted a 10-year-old boy, Julia found her demanding job did not allow her to mother the lonely boy as she felt necessary. As the weeks have passed, however, and as Julia has had zero reaction to quitting the legal career she spent years building, I’ve begun to wonder where this storyline is headed.  So far, it is headed nowhere, at least in terms of a broader commentary on the difficulty of balancing home and family. I continue to wait because the show enjoyed only a short season and because I have confidence in Parenthood in the long run.

But Julia was the least of my problems.

Mindy Kaling brought her new show to Fox last fall, and I have been continually stymied by her odd embrace of a retrograde romantic ideal. Continually privileging an exploration of Kaling’s character’s personality quirks over her professional struggles as an OB-GYN, The Mindy Project often defies its audience to connect with the character. More problematic is the program’s broader gender politics.  In one episode, for example, Mindy “won” a battle of the sexes by forcing her co-worker to give her a breast exam.  In another episode, Dr. Mindy stormed into the office of two (male) midwives, accused them of being amateurs, forced them to call their patients “clients,” and reminded all pregnant women in the office that unless they were 22 and thin, they likely would have complications in labor requiring the assistance of a real MD. I simply can’t figure out what I should do with this program’s seemingly illiberal representations (and neither can Alyssa Rosenberg at Think Progress).

But nothing—nothing—has exceeded my disappointment more than the transformation of Up All Night.  No, I’m not referring to its forthcoming transformation from single- to multi-camera; instead, I want to discuss its two (dramatic) upheavals prior to this forthcoming change. I started watching Up All Night because its premise featured a female television producer, Reagan, returning to work after the birth of her first child, while her lawyer husband, Chris, quit his job to stay home with the baby. A central tension of the show was Reagan’s struggles as a working mother–she struggled not so much with her decision to work but rather with the fact that her husband was developing a unique bond with the baby.  Up All Night‘s subversion of the typical expectation that a mother’s love predominates fascinated me, and it made for bold television.[1]

Half way into the first season, Up All Night‘s conceit dramatically altered. Reagan learned that the talk show she produced had been purchased by a new (female) boss. For a brief moment, it seemed an even more powerful woman had arrived on set to inspire talk show host Ava and producer Reagan to new professional heights. This, however, was a red herring, as the female boss immediately left town and left in charge a male show runner. His relationship with Ava and Reagan was immediately adversarial and contentious.  This shift—in plot and tone—was dramatic. It detracted not only from the focus on Reagan and her husband, but it also suggested that the female power dynamic of Reagan and her partner Ava required the insertion of a male antagonist for proper drama.

This change, too, was short lived, for in the second season of Up All Night, Ava and Reagan’s talk show was canceled entirely. So long, every single character involved with the talk show. So long, Reagan as mother working outside the home.  Now, Chris is starting a new business, while Reagan is developing a new life as a stay-at-home mother.[2] I do not begrudge a new program struggling to find its way, but I absolutely question the political shifts evident in this ratings-challenged series—a suggestion that network executives worry Americans prefer a traditional division of gendered labor on their TV.

Of course, I may be overreacting, and these are only three programs among many.  Yet between Mindy’s odd conservatism and the rejection of a balanced life of work and home by Reagan and Parenthood’s Julia, I’m wondering where a feminist can go on network television to find a satisfying depiction of the genuine struggles of contemporary women who work, who mother, who partner, and who develop individual goals, dreams, and values.

[2] I should also note that this storytelling choice has reeked of privilege, as the characters have suffered no seeming financial anxiety or duress.

The opening night plenary demonstrated this diversity in action.[1] The first speaker was Marsha Kinder from the University of Southern California, who presented personal reflections on the development of media scholarship over the past fifty years, tracing her own intellectual journey. María Elena Cepeda of Williams College spoke as an academic activist, calling on attendees to read and more fully acknowledge the innovative work coming out of feminist Latina studies. Bambi Haggins reflected on the work that “exploded her mind,” delivering a loving tribute to the feminist scholars, particularly those of color, who have most inspired her work. Mary Celeste Kearney concluded the plenary presentations with a rousing feminist manifesta, passionately declaring that the stakes for feminist media studies have never been higher and the work has never been more necessary.[2]

Among the values of CP is the way conference presenters engage with difficult questions. During a workshop about teaching race in media classes not dedicated to race and representation, presenters Racquel Gates and Kristen Warner provided practical suggestions for how to incorporate discussions and representations of race more frequently throughout media history and analysis courses. They also admitted to ongoing challenges, like how to account for D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation or how to teach whiteness to an all-white class. These challenges are difficult to solve, but the conversation in that panel was inspiring, making the possibilities for genuine change seem achievable. This conversation was also a stark reminder why academics continue to travel to attend conferences in person, despite the many technological means for virtual participation. While the sharing of research remains valuable, it is the sharing of ideas in dialogue that sustains the conference model in the digital age.

CP is a particularly friendly conference for graduate students. For example, attendees were offered the opportunity to reserve a room in a Suffolk University dorm. Sure, the dorm provoked a series of funny stories of thirty-something women awkwardly climbing into lofted beds, reminding us all that we are no longer 18. For those students or non-tenured faculty without financial support for academic travel, a dorm room at one-third the price of a hotel can be the means through which conference travel becomes economically feasible. The dorm option also conveyed the tone of the conference: friendly, humble, and accessible.

Panels also featured a range of experience levels, with graduate students sitting alongside more established academics. This multi-generational arrangement not only facilitated dialogue between emerging and experienced scholars, but it also assured graduate students that their panels would be well attended. Console-ing Passions also carries a spirit of genuine curiosity and respect, which allows graduate students to present their research in a safe and encouraging setting. There is tremendous value in a conference that allows scholars to experiment, even to fail, and this can only happen in a room in which everyone wants to see you succeed.

As a first-time presenter at CP, I was validated by the questions posed by panel attendees, eager to help me find what should be the next steps of my project. A more senior scholar also helped me work through some questions about how to incorporate interview material, and her gentle guidance was not only apt but also something I really needed to hear at this stage of my research.

If I have one critique, it was that there was not a more pronounced engagement with the past of CP. I would have loved to attend a “20 Years of Console-ing Passions” panel featuring founding board members of CP reflecting on the organization’s original goals and to what extent this conference has helped them achieve those goals. The desire for some sort of comprehensive “state of the industry” discussion was apparent in a panel organized by Northwestern students Leigh Goldstein and Meenasarani Linde Murugan featuring a discussion of Jane Feuer’s Seeing Through the Eighties. At this panel, the attendees and panelists discussed fundamental challenges to our work—from the struggle to account for television history in our research and classrooms, to the ways scholars approach television as an aesthetic and industrial medium. As the panel ended, it was clear that attendees would have sat for an hour more, just to listen to Feuer’s stories and observations about our place within media studies.

As a first-time Console-ing Passions Conference attendee, I learned that CP is more than a conference—it is a revival. Console-ing Passions has found in feminism the ideal way to draw connections across methodological differences and disciplinary distinctions. The mediating power of a dedication to the examination of race, class, and gender unified the efforts of every conference attendee, reminding us that these are conversations we can and must continue outside the walls of Suffolk University.

Lesson 2: Teachers need to be aware that they may be personally liable for their use of copyrighted materials through digital interfaces.[1]

There are a host of factors to consider when reading about this case. First, the plaintiff publishers named the following figures as defendants: the university President, Provost, Dean of Libraries, and the Board of Regents. Individual teachers, though cited by name in the decision and asked to testify at trial about their pedagogical use of publisher-owned materials, were not in this instance directly sued by the publishers. This seems an important item for further discussion. When I asked an attorney whether I may myself be personally liable in the future, I was told by said attorney that I was not named in this case. That is the sole comfort I received as I was seemingly legally bound to participate in this process.  Certainly one presumes a member of the Board of Regents may have deeper pockets than an early-career academic, but the fact that the elite of our university were named in this case does not mean that they are exclusively vulnerable to this type of claim.  The lessons of the individuals sued over Napster remain significant when considering copyright protection.[2]

Every time any attorney addressed me in an email or at the start of a meeting, they called me professor, and every single time I reminded them of my status as a graduate student. I don’t think the lawyers necessarily understood the full implications of my insistence on this distinction, but I felt uniquely vulnerable as a graduate student. While other non-tenured faculty called to testify bore the burden of different professional stakes than tenured faculty members, my status as a graduate student identifies unique risks for a young teacher. In addition to my relative inexperience compared to other GSU teachers asked to testify about our classroom use of E-Reserves, I also question my relationship with the university. Am I an employee with the same protections as faculty? Would the university defend my role in the classroom on an equal level?  Are there deeper dangers in my testimony as someone building a CV and entering the job market? More broadly, to what extent are graduate student teachers being prepared for education in the digital age? Should universities and departments be even more active in mentoring and overseeing graduate student teaching, including advice about the use of digital course sites (from E-Reserves to uLearn to a personal website) and instruction about the requirements for a claim of Fair Use? I voluntarily attended sessions offered through our Center for Teaching and Learning that allowed me to chat with a University attorney and to learn more about copyright issues.  But this is not necessarily typical behavior for extremely busy graduate student teachers. Given the current institutional context in which we live, departments and universities should require more education about copyright law and fair use exemptions for both undergraduates and graduates.

Lesson 3: This case highlights the limits of the symbiotic relationship between academic scholar and the academic publisher.

My use of ‘symbiotic’ implies that we each offer the other something, sharing a mutual dependency. Publishers need content, and scholars need an outlet for their work. Yet is symbiotic too generous a term for a system in which our work is commodified with little or no remuneration for our individual effort? Also consider this next example which is not hyperbole or hysteria—one of the professors called to testify in this case was asked about her classroom use of an essay she herself wrote.  This professor did not hold the rights to her work, though, so the publisher alleged that her provision of that essay for her students through the library’s E-Reserve was a violation of the publisher’s ownership of the content she produced.[3]

At a minimum, I’d like this post to remind any readers entering into a contract with an academic publisher to consider the details of the contract. Do you maintain any ownership rights to your work? Has the contract accounted for digital reproduction and classroom use? Does the publisher have an official policy on what qualifies as Fair Use? Sage, Cambridge and Oxford were the plaintiffs in the GSU case, but academics should demand more equitable terms with any publisher with which we partner.[4]

Some of you may have heard that this week a Georgia judge issued a long-awaited legal decision in a case entitled Cambridge University Press v Mark P. Becker. If you haven’t paid attention to it before, it is important to read up on it now, as the ruling impacts each and every academic and student.

In case you haven’t been following the suit, here’s a quick summary: In 2008, three academic publishers (Oxford, Cambridge, and Sage) filed suit against Georgia State University [GSU] for copyright infringement. At issue was how instructors were using the library’s E-Reserve system—a password-protected site that offered for students scanned copies of chapters from books and journal articles from reading lists for individual courses. After a three-week trial in May 2011 and one year of deliberation, Judge Orinda Evans found GSU guilty of five cases of copyright infringement. That may sound like a loss but in fact GSU was not considered liable or viewed as acting within the bounds of Fair Use for 94 other alleged infringements.[1] You can read the decision here and there are already a few legal interpretations of the decision offered online here and here. There is certain to be more legal analyses of this decision because its implications for broader academic and pedagogical practices may be significant.

In general, there seems to be reason for GSU and other universities to pop the cork on some champagne—the limited “wins” for the plaintiff have likely made future cases of this type more trouble than they are worth. The wider implications of the case, however, are more concerning.

I should note up front that I am not a law student. I’m a media studies doctoral candidate with an interest in policy. Nothing I write here carries with it the authority of a legal degree. Instead, I offer an experiential discourse because I provided a deposition for this trial. I’d really love this post to be a detailed discussion of the deposition process, because I found it fascinating, but as this case will likely continue on appeal, I don’t want to implicate myself further. This concern—my worry of implicating myself—is what I’d like to focus on for the rest of this piece, offered in two parts, sharing a few lessons learned.

Lesson 1: Universities and departments have a responsibility to educate faculty and student teachers about Fair Use and official policy regarding copyright.

Even as we worry that libraries are losing their role as community centers of learning and gathering, Fair Use has infused many of these sites with a new mission. The GSU legal team advanced an argument that our use of digital materials on E-Reserve equaled the placing of hard copies of a book chapter owned by the library on a tangible reserve list. This argument seems persuasive to me, but it demonstrates the thorny issues involved in digitally reproducing materials for instructional purposes. The fact that faculty use of library resources formed the heart of this case should not be read as a validation of similar use of uLearn (formerly Blackboard) and personal faculty websites. Any time teachers upload copyrighted material to a website without adequate attention to Fair Use, they are potentially liable for copyright infringement.[2]

My favorite tidbit about this case is that one dispute between the plaintiff and the defendant centered on the question of what qualifies as a book or work in a Fair Use claim. The plaintiff argued that any numerical interpretation of Fair Use should not include in the page count the table of contents, figures, index, or footnotes. For example, a common perception of Fair Use posits that use of 10% of a book, when that 10% does not constitute the “heart of the work,” may be Fair Use. The 10% here must be calculated against the page total of the chapters only. This struggle over semantics indicates the intricacies involved in understanding the constantly evolving case law of copyright and Fair Use, underscoring the urgent need for a common set of practices across academia, or at least within disciplines.[3] As the GSU case documents, many professors do not share a common understanding of how our university defines Fair Use. Education of our educators is essential.

In the comments, please feel free to offer ideas for how universities can better address the challenges of copyright and Fair Use. Did your pedagogy course address these topics? Does your university host mandatory continuing learning sessions about Fair Use and university policy? Do you partner with an organization that advocates for Fair Use?

In part two of this post, I will address lessons for individual scholars and teachers.