Media culture | Media Literacy | Media usage - Completed Projects

Agency in programmed society. Outlines for critical technology education
The dissertation concerns the constraints and possibilities of agency, its discursive production in different spheres and the ways of cultivating agency in the digital network society.

BlackBox – Opening the Black Box of Content Marketing
The project studies the logic of content marketing from the point of view of the users. The project is led by the School of Business and Economics at University of Jyväskylä. COMET and CIRCMI are project partners from the University of Tampere.

Children & the Change of Their Media Environment
National longitudinal study on children’s media environment and media use, repeated four times between 2007 and 2016.

Content marketing and changing journalism in consumers’ everyday media use

Culture Industry and Dialectics
Focuses on the thinking of Theodor W. Adorno and especially on his theory of the culture industry. Its main goal is to foreground Adorno’s research method and explicate its central premises.

The Post-human Condition – from Media as Extensions to Digital Singularity
Involved in questions concerning our (human) relationship with technologies (broadly defined as ‘media’).

Young People in the Limelight: Towards Agency through Multiliteracy
The project investigates the challenges young people have in multiliteracies and participation at the transition phase between comprehensive school and upper secondary education.

Youth, Literacies and Changing Media Environment
The study examines the Finnish youth’s use of media and different types of media-related literacies at home and at school.

The Changing Media Environment of Children and Youth: A Follow-up Study, Phase 2
This is the second phase of a four-part follow-up study dealing with the changing media environment of children and youth. Approximately 60 children living in Tampere and Vesilahti are being monitored for their use of the media. The means being used are interviews, questionnaires, observations, and media diaries. Groups whose members were 8, 11, and 14 years of age participated in a previous study in 2007. Currently, there is also a group of 5-year-olds.

Media events, circulation and emerging social media practices. Tracing the meaning of Fukushima (MECER)
Examines the relationship of social media and mainstream media in the case of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident. Jointly conducted by Japanese and Finnish scholars together with an international network of researchers in five additional countries.

Media Systems in Flux: The Challenge of BRICS Countries
The project funded by the Academy of Finland examines the role of media and journalists in the new coalition of global politics formed by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Aggressive Discussion in Social Media and Journalism – Restricting Freedom of Speech?
This project examines, how aggressive speech in media alters public discussion and journalistic and internet practices.

Television Advertising Study 2013
Analyses programs and advertising on three television channels: What is advertisements’ share of the prime time programming, how are the advertisements separated from the programs, and how are they located among the programs?

Survey on Advertising in the Finnish Television (2012)
The purpose of the survey is to analyze the placing and duration of commercials on three television channels.

Commercial Television in Finnish TV Culture 1956–1964
This doctoral thesis examines the meanings produced for the Finnish commercial television in the early years of television.

New Reading Communities, New Modes of Reading
The project investigates how contemporary forms of reading, reception of texts and readerly production transform into new reading.

MediaAct
MediaAcT is a comparative research project on media accountability systems in EU member states as indicators for media pluralism in Europe.

Russia in the Finnish Media

CAPCULT, Capitalizing Culture – Transnational Re-articulations of Economy and Culture
The project is tracing the mechanisms of cultural capitalization and re-articulations of economy and culture through several cases.

Fashion Blogs as Places of Marketing and Status Building
The study examines fashion and lifestyle blogging as well as Finnish fashion bloggers and asks them what blogging means to them.

Girls’ Magazines as Spaces of Meeting and Interaction
This study examines magazines aimed at teenage girls and their multimedial reader relationship as a part of the magazine publishing field. In particular, the aim is to study the readers’/users’ interaction and communal activities both in the magazine’s print and online versions. Contact: Kaarina Nikunen

Women’s Magazines as Places of Publicity and Journalism
The study examines how women’s magazine journalism today compares to that in earlier years. It considers the role women’s magazines have had as a public forum and how magazine writers perceive the role of their publications. Answers to these questions will be sought by interviewing journalists who write for women’s magazines and by analysing the content and development of the journalistic image of women’s magazines from 1968 to 2008.

Finnish Biographical Movies as Popular History 1937–1955
The doctoral thesis examines the relationship between film and history from the perspective of biographical movies. Contact: Anneli Lehtisalo

Commercial Television in Finnish TV Culture 1956–1964
This doctoral thesis examines the meanings produced for the Finnish commercial television in the early years of television.

Media as a holder and a vehicle of power (2007–2009)
The study produces concrete and empirical knowledge that illuminates media power in today’s information based society.

Social Media for Citizens and Public Sector Collaboration
The project engages in the development, testing and evaluation of new media applications with which the information created by the public sector, different types of media content and the information created by the citizens themselves, can be gathered, augmented and further disseminated.

Immigration and Media project (2007–2009)
Research on the one hand how immigrants to Finland use media and on the other the interpretations they and the Finnish mainstream population make of media content.

Immigrant Youth and the Use of Media
The study concentrates especially on the relevance of television and the internet to the everyday life of the youth. Contact: Kaarina Nikunen, kaarina.nikunen at uta.fi

Markets and Fans of Transnational Japanese Popular Culture in Finland (2007–2008)
The research project follows the transnational flow of media products in an empirical setting, focusing on the usages of Japanese popular media in Finland. The one-year project aims to map the markets for Japanese popular culture in Finland, the main commercial and non-commercial production and distribution organizations and their strategies, likewise their relationship with the media markets in other countries. Partner: Helsingin Sanomat Foundation. Contact: Katja Valaskivi

Mapya
The Mapya project aims to increase understanding on needs and requirements for development of tools and services for citizen journalism in low infrastructure environments. JRDC will carry out research activities related to children’s citizen journalistic activities in Kenya and define guidelines for public children’s citizen journalism forum from journalistic and editorial perspective. The project is cooperative in nature and the parties involved in the project are Nokia Research Center, University of Tampere and Plan Finland. Contact: Maarit Mäkinen

Tabloid press in a changing mediascape and society (2007–2008)
The development of the Finnish tabloid press will be studied in the contexts of changing mediascape and society. Current Finnish tabloid journalism is compared to its Swedish and Norwegian counterparts. The position of the tabloid press in the everyday life of Finnish people will be studied through group interviews. Partner: Helsingin Sanomat Foundation. Contact: Pasi Kivioja

Podracing (2006–2007)
The aim of the project Podracing (Intuitive and parallel media service platform to 3G, podcasting and DVB-H) was to develop a mobile media prototype and to compare three different media formats (text, audio and video) and three delivery methods (broadcast, unicast and pre-download) from end user’s perspective. The two year project was coordinated by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and it was funded by Finnish Technology and Innovation Agency Tekes, VTT and several companies. Contact: Esa Reunanen

Adequate Information Management in Europe (AIM) (2004–2007)
The EU funded research project investigated the media’s impact on the European public sphere with regard to actors (media institutions and organisations on European, national, regional, and local levels, as well as journalists, correspondents and editors, etc.) and mechanisms (EU news management processes). In the centre of attention was how the mass media manage and produce positive and negative EU coverage and assessment in the context of diverse journalistic and editorial cultures, standards, and ethical considerations in Europe. JRDC was one of the eleven project partners from eleven European Countries. The project was coordinated by Erich Brost Institute for Journalism in Europe. Contacts in JRDC: Heikki Heikkilä

Broadcasting in the Post-Broadcast Era: Policy, Technology, and Content Production
The objective of this four-year project funded by the Academy of Finland is to describe and critically analyse broadcasting as technology and as cultural form in the emerging context of network communications.

Next Media Transforming the Media Experience
The Next Media research programme (2010–2013) aims at innovations which by means of new business models, concepts and technology, meet people’s insatiable need for engaging and activating media experiences.

The Network Society as a Paradigm for Legal and Societal Thinking (NETSO)
Project generates basic knowledge of the theoretical foundations and context of the network society development.

Debriefing Media Sector’s Anticipation
This project summarizes the results of the qualitative anticipation of the media sector.