Has research ‘carried out at the crossroads of Geography, Media and Film Studies’ reached such volume and complexity to necessitate a major international conference which seeks to assess ‘the prospects of communication geography as a more formalized academic field’? Apparently the answer is yes, seeing the advanced call for papers for GeoMedia 2015, which will be held 5-8 May 2015 in Karlstad, Sweden.

As I’ve indicated in a past post, in some ways I’ve had a conflicted relationship with the idea of ‘communication geography’, though this is mainly in terms of the specific way it has materialized at the peculiar event that is the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting. In that specific context, I think that the worry I’ve had is that, despite the clear merits of highlighting the relationships of media and spatial thinking, and my own interests in doing exactly that, having a set of themed ‘Geographies of Media’ sessions in a conference can also dilute more specific sub-themes in this area by categorizing research and theorizing under fairly generic categories (which tend to be more determined by medium- or genre-specificity than anything else).

I have a feeling this conference could be different, however, and possibly really productive, or at least very interesting. For one, the event does not appear to be directly attached to any major subject association in media studies or geography. In addition, there seems to be a clear interest in identifying themes, rather than just slotting work into predefined areas, indicated for example by opportunity to propose themed panels. I remain slightly skeptical about the likelihood and even the merit of formalizing this area into an academic field, but I plan to be open-minded. Which is to say that I’m thinking this is something I’d really like to participate in, one way or another, if they’ll have me.