1It all started in 2012, when a diverse group of researchers in the Department of Communication at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) came together to work on a small project about transmedia storytelling funded by the Catalan Audiovisual Council. The group included researchers at different career stages specialised in video games, reality television and celebrities, fan studies, transmedia storytelling and mediatizations that had in common their interest in popular media and qualitative approaches. Four years later, in 2016, some of these researchers (and new ones) came together to found a new research group: MEDIUM Research Group. Its founding members (Drs Carlos A. Scolari, Mercè Oliva, Óliver Pérez-Latorre, Xavier Ruiz Collantes, Lorena Gómez-Puertas, Mar Guerrero-Pico, Maria-Jose Masanet, and Joan Ferrés) felt the urge of creating a group to work on their shared interests and give visibility to the analysis of popular culture, media ecology, mediatizations and media literacy. Since then, other researchers have joined the group: the MEDIUM Research Group, currently coordinated by Dr Mercè Oliva, is composed of 12 postdoctoral researchers and 11 PhD candidates.
2In 2017, MEDIUM was recognised as an Emergent Research Group and funded by AGAUR, the Catalan Agency for Management of University and Research Grants (Generalitat de Catalunya, Ref. Grant: SGR 2017 812). During these past six years, the MEDIUM Research Group have led six research projects funded in competitive European, national and regional calls (with a total of €1,215,540 raised in funding), have published 83 articles in academic journals, 52 book chapters and 9 books, and presented 32 papers at international conferences. This prolific activity has also combined with an interest in transference activities to bring academic research closer to society, publishing white papers, teacher’s kits based on the results of our projects, curating exhibitions and being committed to make sure our articles are accessible in open access.
3The members and collaborators of the MEDIUM Research Group are interested in the study of popular media cultures, with a particular focus on the social discourses enabled by contemporary popular culture as well as its pedagogic potential to promote transmedia literacy beyond formal educational contexts. In parallel, we pay close attention to the evolution of the media ecosystem, findings in media archaeology, the impact of mediatization processes, to shed a broader light on the meanings, practices and experiences emerging in digital environments but bearing implications for a myriad of issues such as education, the construction of social imaginaries, gender, politics and labour.
4In terms of method approaches, our researchers are specialists in qualitative text and reception analysis drawing on techniques based on social and narrative semiotics, narratology and discourse analysis. Likewise, ethnography and participatory methods such as action research and design thinking are thoroughly implemented in order to integrate participants in research design.
5The intricate connection of youth with popular media cultures, and the crisis of the broadcasting model of media consumption is key to understand our case for observing the knowledge, skills and attitudes that teenagers are developing away from the school confines whilst they engage with playing video games, share pictures and videos on social media, and write fan fiction (Scolari, Masanet, Guerrero-Pico & Establés, 2018). These peer-to-peer, self-managed and ‘wild’ transmedia learning processes, commonly dismissed as ‘hobbies’ by traditional teachers and tutors, are laying the grounds for adapting teaching methodologies and contents, and motivate students in a classroom whose instructional and social purpose is now shared with tutorials in YouTube and TikTok, and the community of Fortnite, for example. In addition, the transmedia narratives teenagers navigate in their everyday lives can be seen as simulation devices to make sense of our social reality, propose alternative organisations, and inspire civic participation and activism, as recent work has shown (Jenkins et al., 2016). Additionally, our endeavours in transmedia literacy aim to develop tools to counter disinformation as well as strengthen digital citizenship and inclusion (Ataci, 2021).
6Because of the persuasive qualities of popular narratives through media, we also centre our research on critically enquiring the social discourses prevalent in popular texts, such as TV series, celebrity culture, reality TV, and video games. Specifically, we explore how persistent neoliberal discourses of austerity, resilience, self-discipline, and entrepreneurship are conveyed in these texts, legitimising inequalities ingrained in contemporary societies in the context of recession and post-recession. Our researchers have been interested in the portrayal of classed and gendered identities in TV series, reality TV, celebrity culture and social media (Pichel-Vázquez, Gómez-Puertas, & Medina-Bravo, 2019; Oliva, 2018; Oliva & Pérez-Latorre, 2020; Oliva, Gómez-Puertas & Besalú, 2021), and how these representations are entangled with social constructions and perceptions of the position of entertainment media in the cultural and social hierarchies (Oliva, 2020; Besalú, Oliva & Pérez-Latorre, 2018).
7Also, the analysis of video games as cultural artefacts and their connections with contemporary neoliberal discourses is another crucial research interest of the MEDIUM Research group, merging game studies and cultural studies. Our researchers have focused on dystopian video games (Pérez-Latorre & Oliva, 2019), paratextual analysis (Oliva, Pérez-Latorre & Besalú, 2018) and recessionary games (Pérez-Latorre, 2019; Pérez-Latorre et al., 2019). These analyses understand video games as cultural artefacts that convey values not only through aesthetics and narrative, but especially through the design of their rules and mechanics (gameplay). At the same time, our researchers are also interested in the analysis of gamer identity and its intersections with class and gender (Vilasís-Palamós & Pires, 2021).
8Although fan studies somewhat crosscut both of the mentioned lines of research, MEDIUM addresses fan-producer relationships, productivity and professionalisation among the challenges of fan and participatory cultures shaped and transformed by the migration to digital platforms and transmediality as a whole. In parallel to instances of fan activism for more accurate media representations of sexual and racial minorities (Guerrero-Pico, Establés & Ventura, 2018) and audience measurement (Guerrero-Pico, 2017), MEDIUM is especially keen on mapping political fandom and affective forms of online political communication and strategy and its interesection with populist discourses.
9Taking into account these kinds of shifts in political and social communication, new developments in mediatization theory are also a featured topic in our research agenda. Our approach aims to bring together transnational academic traditions to comprehend this process at both theoretical and applied levels on both shores of the pond (Scolari, Fernández, Rodríguez-Amat, 2020).
10Another pillar of MEDIUM’s research efforts is the empirical advancement of a theory of the interface (Scolari, 2021). In this context, the concept of interface surpasses the typical graphic-user interface and extends towards established entities in the social sphere (schools, hospitals, companies, governments, etc.) or industries (e.g., video games as in Scolari, Masanet & Pires, 2021). Under this lens, these entities and industries are examined as interfaces where a network of human, technological and institutional actors interact, relate, and undertake a series of processes, not without tensions.
11Regardless of interfaces research, new actors, processes and relationships brought about by the platformization of digital media (van Dijck, Poell & de Maal, 2018) are currently being examined by some of MEDIUM’s members and collaborators. In particular, and aligning with recent research in the field (Poell, Nieborg & Duffy, 2022), we look into how platformization is remodelling labour culture in creative industries, specifically that of micro-influencers (Tomasena, 2019), and is propelling new forms of labour organisation and informal learning among workers in the so-called gig economy.
12In the last five years (2017-2021), MEDIUM has led six competitive research projects. These projects have often been articulated through international collaborations with other researchers, universities and institutions.
13Between 2015 and 2018 MEDIUM carried out two research projects focused on transmedia literacy and skills. The first one, Transalfabetismos. Competencias transmedia y estrategias informales de aprendizaje de los adolescentes (“Transliteracies. Young people’s transmedia skills and informal learning strategies”), led by Carlos Alberto Scolari, was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO). The second project, Transmedia Literacy. Exploiting Transmedia Skills and Informal Learning Strategies to Improve Formal Education also headed by Carlos A. Scolari, received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. This project involved more than 50 researchers from 10 institutions in 8 countries (Spain, Australia, Colombia, Finland, Italy, Portugal, United Kingdom, and Uruguay). The project’s main aim was to understand what teens do with media and how they learn to do it by providing a comprehensive map of their media practices, transmedia skills and the informal learning strategies applied to hone such skills. The fieldwork took place in the 8 countries involved in the project, and it consisted of participatory workshops and in-depth interviews with teens from 12 to 18 years old, and netgraphy (Scolari et al., 2020) of the teen’s favourite online communities and websites. Based on the scientific outputs of this research, the team produced the Teacher’s Kit, a series of open-access didactic activities for high school teachers to apply in the classroom (see below).
14Héroes de la crisis: Narrativa y discurso social en la cultura popular contemporánea (“Heroes of the Crisis: Narratives and social discourse in contemporary popular culture”) (acronymised as Hedecri) was a project that took place between 2015 and 2019, funded by MINECO and led by Óliver Pérez-Latorre and Mercè Oliva. The project’s main aim was to analyse the austerity imaginaries fostered by Spanish popular culture during the years of the economic crisis and how Spanish audiences made sense of and responded to these imaginaries. The project applied a mixed-methods approach that included qualitative textual analysis and reception analysis. First, the project analysed popular media texts in Spain from 2008 to 2014 (including TV series, reality TV, celebrity culture, video games and advertisement) using discourse analysis and narrative semiotics. After that, a qualitative audience analysis was developed: eight focus groups were held with middle- and working-class men and women, who discussed the narratives previously studied. This research showed how during the recession and post-recession years, neoliberal imaginaries and values were introduced and fostered in Spain. Popular culture conveyed narratives of the epic of adaptability, merging concepts such as resilience, flexibility, entrepreneurialism, and self-reinvention, while the drive for social transformation was relegated to the background and/or diminished. In our focus groups, although not all participants enthusiastically embraced this discourse, the critiques were somewhat timid, and the consensus tended to lean towards acceptance of the virtues of change, adaptability and resilience. One of the project’s key contributions was that not only did it analyse a broad range of popular culture genres and texts, but it also studied how audiences responded to these media portrayals. Thus, the project fills a gap in the existing academic literature on this topic, which mainly focuses on textual analysis.
15Currently, some MEDIUM researchers are participating in Plataformas de comunicación, fuerza de trabajo y aprendizaje informal (“Communication platforms, work force and informal learning”) (acronymised as Platcom), a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) and led by Carlos A. Scolari (2020-2023). Platcom’s goal is to analyse the informal teaching-learning processes of the new platforms’ workforce (such as Uber, Airbnb or Glovo) and apply these results to an online collaborative space for these workers. The Work On Demand (WOD) project, funded by the UPF Planetary Wellbeing Framework and headed by Fernanda Pires de Sá (2020-2022), is also centred on these platform workers. WOD focuses on the stories that these workers share on social media and takes special interest in observing and documenting emerging inequalities related to gender, age, country of origin, or race. Both projects use ethnographic approaches (e.g., life stories and digital ethnography), and textual and discourse analysis.
16Finally, Los referentes simbólicos de la ‘Generación de las Crisis’: Cómo interpretan la ciudadanía, el bienestar y la cultura laboral a partir de las series televisivas más consumidas por la juventud española (“The ‘Crisis Generation’ symbolic models: how citizenship, wellbeing and work culture is interpreted through the most watched television series”) is a project led by Lorena Gómez-Puertas and funded by the Queen Sofía Centre on Adolescence and Youth (2021-2022). The project aims to analyse how teenagers and young people understand themselves and foresee their individual and collective future and aspirations through television fiction. The study uses qualitative textual and discourse analysis as well as participatory ethnographic methods such as creative workshops with teenagers.
17As stated in the introduction above, in the last five years (2017-2021), MEDIUM has accomplished a rich production of scientific publications, comprising 83 articles published in highly ranked peer-reviewed journals, 52 book chapters, and 9 books.
18Among our co-authored articles, we can cite some derived from our research on transmedia literacy, located in some of the most renowned publications specialised in media and digital literacy: The risk of gender digital divide among teenagers (Masanet, Pires & Gómez-Puertas, 2021), What is WhatsApp for? Developing transmedia skills and informal learning strategies through the use of WhatsApp: A case study with teenagers from Spain (Costa-Sánchez & Guerrero-Pico, 2020); Toward a typology of young produsers: teenagers' transmedia skills, media production, and narrative and aesthetic appreciation (Guerrero-Pico, Masanet & Scolari, 2019); From Digital Native to Digital Apprentice. A Case Study of the Transmedia Skills and Informal Learning Strategies of Adolescents in Spain (Masanet, Guerrero-Pico & Establés, 2019); and How do teens learn to play video games? Informal learning strategies and video game literacy (Scolari & Contreras-Espinosa, 2019); What are teens doing with YouTube? Practices, uses and metaphors of the most popular audio-visual platform (Pires, Masanet & Scolari, 2019).
19Our studies on popular media culture and austerity and inequalities have led to the publication of several works published in leading journals focused on cultural studies and game studies: ‘In the end you adapt to anything’: Responses to narratives of resilience and entrepreneurship in post-recession Spain (Oliva, Pérez-Latorre & Besalú, 2021); Offshoring & leaking: Cristiano Ronaldo’s tax evasion, and celebrity in neoliberal times (Jorge, Oliva & Aguiar, 2021); Recessionary games: Video games and the social imaginary of the Great Recession (2009–2015) (Pérez-Latorre, Navarro-Remesal, Planells, 2019); ‘Celebrities also suffer from the economic crisis’: Broke celebrities and neoliberal narratives from Spain’s Great Recession (Oliva & Pérez-Latorre, 2020); Narratives of the Economic Crisis: National Neoliberalism in Spanish Advertising (2008-2017) (Ruiz Collantes & Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019); States in pandemics and reinvented narco-populisms: Consolidation of the “narco” as a driver of illegal but legitimate societies (Wilches Tincajá, Ruiz Collantes & Guerrero Sierra, 2020).
20Regarding the study of video games, we have published several articles and books focused on this field of study from multiple perspectives merging game studies, cultural studies and ethnography: Video Games, Dystopia, and Neoliberalism: The Case of BioShock Infinite (Pérez-Latorre & Oliva, 2019); ‘Choose, collect, manage, win!’: Neoliberalism, enterprising culture and risk society in video game covers (Oliva, Pérez-Latorre & Besalú, 2018); The devil of emotional gameplay is in the details. Microanalysis of affectively complex scenarios in video games (Pérez-Latorre, 2021); Perspectives on the European Videogame (Navarro-Remesal & Pérez-Latorre, 2022); How do teens define what it means to be a gamer? Mapping teens’ video game practices and cultural imaginaries from a gender and sociocultural perspective (Vilasís-Pamos & Pires, 2021).
21One of the outcomes of our enquiry on mediatization is the Communication and Theory article A Latin American Approach to Mediatization: Specificities and Contributions to a Global Discussion About How the Media Shape Contemporary Societies by Scolari and Rodríguez-Amat (2018) which later on would bloom into the Intellect Books collection of essays Mediatization(s): Theoretical Conversations between Europe and Latin America (2020). Other selected volumes in both English and Spanish dealing with media evolution, interfaces and political discourse are, respectively: Media Evolution. Sobre el origen de las especies mediáticas (Scolari & Rapa, 2019); Las leyes de la interfaz (Scolari, 2021); La construcción del relato político: Crear historias para ganar votos (Ruiz Collantes, 2019).
22Between 2017 and 2021 the MEDIUM researchers have presented their work at over 32 international conferences, including the most prestigious conferences in the field of communication: International Communication Association (ICA), International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA).
23To conclude this section, the MEDIUM researchers have also carried out several transference and dissemination activities that go beyond merely scientific outputs and are aimed at reaching broader audiences. For instance, the Transmedia Literacy project published a white paper (Transmedia literacy in the new media ecology) downloadable for free in 5 languages and targeted at educators and researchers. This project also published a complete online Teacher’s Kit (https://transmedialiteracy.upf.edu) containing more than 70 learning cards based on the mapped transmedia skills and informal learning strategies to be applied in any curricular subject at secondary level. In this same vein, MEDIUM’s video game expert Óliver Pérez-Latorre alongside Jérôme Nguyen commissioned in late 2019 the exhibition Gameplay: The Culture of Video Game, hosted by the Centre of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB), which welcomed more than 50.000 visitors in the first three months following its opening.
24Our research group is a very active member of the UPF community, and a wide range of activities are regularly organised by the group’s researchers and collaborators. The purpose of these initiatives is to share experiences, perspectives and thoughts both with UPF academics and with other national and international researchers. Among the activities promoted by MEDIUM, two are periodically-organised: the Book Club and the Academic Experiences. The Book Club takes place on a monthly basis and, each time, a group member suggests an academic paper or a book chapter with a connection to the group’s research interests or to ongoing research projects. The person leading the session gives a brief presentation and fosters debate on the selected work in order to share opinions and thoughts on the methodological design, theoretical framework, or results. Once a term, a special edition of the Book Club is held to reflect and discuss a recent publication. The last special edition of the Book Club was held in March 2021 around the release of the last book of Lev Manovich titled Cultural Analytics. Carlos A. Scolari moderated a panel with MEDIUM members Frederic Guerrero (UPF), Manuel Garín (UPF), and Francisco Leslie (UPF), and Gabriela Sued (UNAM), as a guest researcher. The following special edition of the Book Club will be held in April 2022 on the occasion of the publication of Perspectives on the European Videogame, edited by Óliver Pérez-Latorre alongside Víctor Navarro-Remesal (UPF-Tecnocampus).
25Regarding the Academic Experiences, it’s an activity organised by MEDIUM’s PhD students with the aim of sharing experiences of early-career researchers. Some of the topics that have been discussed so far are the experience of being a PhD supervisor, recommendations for publishing in academia and attending conferences, and accounts of research stays abroad.
26Besides these monthly sessions, MEDIUM regularly invites researchers to give seminars on topics such as popular culture, political communication and qualitative methodologies. In the past years, some of guest researchers have been: Clara Fernández-Vara (NYU), who gave a session on ludic narratives; Lasse Thomason (Queen Mary University of London) for a seminar on contemporary politics and populism; Hannah Yelin (Oxford Brookes University), Simon Foxall (visual creator) and Joe Speck (Brand New Beat) for a roundtable about celebrities and bad taste moderated by Mercè Oliva; Diane Negra (University College of Dublin) and Rebecca Bramall (London College of Communication), who gave a lecture during a seminar about austerity imaginaries in contemporary popular culture, and Cheryll Soriano (De La Salle University, Manila), who presented her ethnographic research with groups of platform workers on social media.
27Since 2017, MEDIUM has welcomed PhD students with research projects deeply connected to the group’s interests and projects. Some of the theses defended in the last years are related to transmedia literacy and storytelling, and media education. That is the case of Media education in initial teacher training in Peru (Julio César Mateus, 2019); Media education in teacher training of undergraduate students of preschool education in Chile (Pablo Andrada Sola, 2019); and Transmedia storytelling and participation for peacebuilding and peace education: Rwandan youth, digital inclusion, and socio-political context (Tugçe Ataci, 2021). There are also projects connected to participatory culture and social media (Spanish BookTubers: between participatory culture and the exploitation of connectivity by José Miguel Tomasena, 2020), and television and fan studies (Between professionals and amateurs: relationships and tensions among fans and cultural industries, practices and strategies of work and creation. Case study of Spanish fandoms of Doctor Who and El Ministerio del Tiempo, by Maria José Establés, 2020). At the moment, there are eleven predoctoral researchers supervised by senior MEDIUM members, with projects based on qualitative methodologies combining text analysis, semiotics, reception studies and digital ethnography. Some of the research topics being tackled in such projects belog to the fields of videogame studies (Júlia Vilasís and Sara González), fan studies and queer studies (Ona Anglada), social media and girlhood studies (Maria Castellví), (trans)media literacy and platform workers (Martina Piña), youth studies and musical platforms (Andrea Angulo), health communication (Lara Martín), digital transformation in museums (Javier Pantoja), new audio platforms (Joel Olusegun), fashion communication (Gabriela Pedranti) and television fiction (Daniela Afonso).
28During the next few years, the MEDIUM Research Group aims at continuing our task analysing popular media culture, its connections with social imaginaries and potential for media literacy, as well as the evolution of media ecologies.
29Our researchers are particularly interested in the analysis of work imaginaries, platforms and the gig economy. In addition to our work related to the projects Platcom and WOD, we are currently studying work practices of social media content creators (viewed as platform workers), how they engage with platform rules and algorithms and what kind of relationships (solidarity, competition) they create with each other.
30Connected to this topic, MEDIUM is also interested in the analysis of redistributive imaginaries and practices (which encompass different forms that enable individuals to ‘give back’ to their societies, such as taxation, philanthropy, charity and mutual aid), in order to investigate how they are portrayed and discussed in the media, how people make sense of them and how they are interlinked with ideas of care of others, inequality and prosocial contribution. This area of interest is connected to previous research on celebrity tax evasion scandals (see above) and current research about public discussion about celebrity and tax havens, through the case study of Spanish YouTubers.
31Another area of interest is the study of dystopian popular narratives and how they portray contemporary topics such as inequality and labour, gender, the political system, technology and the environment. Following the work initiated by Pérez-Latorre and Oliva in the Hedecri project, we are particularly interested in analysing the values conveyed in the dystopian narratives that have populated popular culture in recent years (young-adult novels, TV series, films) and how young people conceive themselves and envision their personal and collective futures in relation to these media texts. Connected to this area of interest, the MEDIUM researchers are working on a book to be published by Editorial Gedisa in 2023: Espejos rotos: Narrativas distópicas y sociedad de entrecrisis (2008-2021) (“Broken mirrors: Dystopian narratives and between-crisis society, 2008-2021”).
32Finally, the Medium Research Group is interested in developing new conceptual tools to analyse platforms and interfaces, as well as new methods and analytical approaches that combine qualitative, textual and audience analysis with digital methods to better understand digital media and their audiences.
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