Media Frictions

This edited collection presents new work by leading international scholars that addresses the multi-layered meaning of frictions within empirical and theoretical research across media and communications, digital technologies, culture and society.

It brings together an impressive range of global scholars from media and communication, visual and cultural studies, to sociology, anthropology and cultural geography, and digital technology research, to critically examine the dynamics of friction, providing an original perspective on media frictions and a new understanding of the social tensions, instabilities and power inequalities of friction within media, culture and society. Together the chapters provide a timely opportunity to understand both the creative force, and negative consequences, of frictions within media and society.

The book will be of interest to scholars and students of television, media and cultural studies.

Annette Hill is Professor in Media and Communication, Jönköping University, Sweden. With 25 years’ experience of audience research, in over 100 publications, her work addresses transnational audiences for factual and fictional genres, live events, tourism and theatre, using multi methods and analytic dialogue with industry and citizen stakeholders. She is author of, most recently, The Companion to Media Audiences (with Peter Lunt, 2024) and Media Imaginaries (with Joke Hermes and Simon Dawes, 2026)

Simon Dawes is a Senior Lecturer at L’Institut D’ Études Culturelles Et Internationales (IECI) – and member of the research team, Centre D’histoire Culturelle Des Sociétés Contemporaines (CHCSC) – at l’Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (UVSQ) in France. He is the founding editor of the open access journal, Media Theory, the editor-in-chief of French Cultural Studies, and co-editor of the Media & Communication Studies Section of the Open Library of Humanities. He is the author of British Broadcasting and the Public-Private Dichotomy (2017), co-editor of Neoliberalism in Context (2019), and editor-in-chief of the journals Media Theory and French Cultural Studies.

Christine Geraghty is Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Glasgow and Honorary Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. She is the author of Now a Major Motion Picture (2008), My Beautiful Laundrette (2004) and British Cinema in the Fifties (2000). She sits on the board of Screen and is Book Reviews editor for Critical Studies in Television.

Joke Hermes is Professor in Inclusion and Creative Industries, Inholland University of Applied Sciences and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands.. She has published widely on popular culture, audience research and feminist analysis of gender and diversity. She holds the Erik de Vries Chair in the History of Dutch Radio and Television, and is the co-founding editor of the European Journal of Cultural Studies. She is author of, most recently, Cultural Citizenship and Popular Culture (2024) and the Pocketbook of Audience Research (with Linda Kopitz, 2024).