Call for Papers for Liverpool TAG 2012 "Archaeology & Media"

Call for Papers for a TAG session, proposed by Don Henson, Director, Centre for Audio Visual Study and Practice in Archaeology (CASPAR), Dr Monty Dobson, archaeologist, filmaker and TV presenter, Drury University, and Lorna Richardson, PhD Candidate, UCL Centre for Digital Humanities

Session title: Archaeology & Media – Entertainment or Edutainment?


This proposed session will explore both the educational and entertainment value of archaeological information in the media, from traditional television programming, archaeology on the Internet, online broadcasting, and the radio.


This session will ask what value does archaeology hold for the media? How has archaeology been presented to a media-hungry public to date, and what future does it have in the digital age? Does archaeology have brand-awareness? Should rigorous archaeological scholarship take a backseat to popular entertainment, and how can archaeological programming and information online provide narrative and information that is both entertaining and factual?


Papers are invited that discuss how archaeological sites and images are reused in popular culture; the longtail of archaeological edutainment; popular respresentations of archaeologists and archaeology in the media; is there an archaeological stereotype that we play to?; the importance of the presenter as the face of archaeology on television; how does media commissioning works with archaeological information and how do archaeologists work with the media?; how and why is archaeological information subverted, changed or ‘sexed up’ to pull in audiences?; should archaeologists share archaeological authority through media?; pseudoarchaeology as popular TV entertainment. Other related topics are welcome.


Submission deadlines for proposed papers is Friday 22nd June 2012.