Centre for Cinema Studies - Postdoctoral Fellows

He has published numerous book chapters and journal articles, he sits on the editorial boards of the Canadian Journal of Film Studies and Nouvelles vues sur le cinéma québécois, and he is co-editor of Challenge for Change: Activist Documentary at the National Film Board of Canada (with Prof. Thomas Waugh & Ezra Winton, McGill-Queen's Press, 2010).  His post-doctoral research examines the aesthetic heritage of interactive digital media and the place of genre in an age of proliferating media platforms.

Project outline: Image, music, and the aesthetic heritage of interactive digital media

Do we recognize the aesthetic traditions of cinema in a new world of digital and interactive media? This project examines how established formal conventions of the moving image persist in newer forms of media. Specifically, I ask how visual representations of popular music in the video game genre known as 'rhythm games' (i.e. Rock Band; Guitar Hero) are central to the user’s comprehension of game goals and structure interactivity by way of digital media’s reliance upon a longer tradition of visual representations of popular music in film and television, specifically documentary. The uniqueness of this particular form of interactive digital media is the explicitness with which the old and the new co-exist in a video game which is both a participant in, and a receptacle for, the visual culture of popular music. The project is informed by a cluster of inter-related theories on the relationship between digital media and ‘older’ regimes of audiovisual representation, and ideas on ‘re-uncovering’ cultural history through acts of, and references to, connoisseurship and collecting. At the core are two concepts concerned with the historical mediation of culture: the concept of residual media (media once thought obsolete that find new use), and the theory of remediation, which posits “what is in fact new [about new media] is the particular way in which each innovation rearranges and reconstitutes the meaning of earlier elements.”

Other research interests include globalization and culture, film and TV co-production, interactive and alternative media, and social movements. She has published several journal articles and book chapters on these topics in Canada, the U.S., England, Australia and China (also see http://members.shaw.ca/baltruschat/).Her new book is titled ‘Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television’ (Routledge, 2010). She holds an MA from the University of Leicester in the UK and a Ph.D. from Simon Fraser University.

Selected Publications:

Baltruschat, D. (2010). Global Media Ecologies: Networked Production in Film and Television. New York: Routledge.
Baltruschat, D. (forthcoming) ‘Branded Entertainment’. In G. Sussman (Ed.), The Propaganda Society: Neoliberalism and the Regime of Public Persuasion. New York: Peter Lang.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). Auditioning for “Idol”: The Audience Dimension of Format Franchising. In A. Moran (Ed.), Localising Global TV: New Perspectives On Program Formats. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). First Nations’ Narratives in International Film and TV Co-productions: ‘The Journals of Knud Rasmussen’. In S. B. Hafsteinsson & M. Bredin (Eds.), Indigenous Screens. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Press.
Baltruschat, D. (2010). Book Review of ‘Outside Looking In: Viewing First Nations Peoples in Canadian Dramatic Television Series’ by Mary Jane Miller. Great Plains Quarterly, 30(3), 240–241.
Baltruschat, D. (2009). Reality TV Formats: The Case of Canadian Idol. Canadian Journal of Communication, Special Issue.
Baltruschat, D. (2008). Film and Television Formats: The Cross-Border Adaptation of Interactive Media Productions. In J. Wasko & M. Erickson (Eds.), Cross-Border Cultural Production. Youngstown, NY: Cambria Press.
Baltruschat, D. (2008). Global Media Ecologies: Networked Film and TV Production and the Interactive Audience. London, U.K.: London School of Economics (LSE Research on-line archives).
Baltruschat, D. (2007). The New Media Geography of Global and Local Production Networks. Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, 124, 134–144.
Baltruschat, D. (2006). Global Civil Society and Media/Democracy Action. International Journal of the Humanities, 3(3), 53–64.
Baltruschat, D. (2004). The ABC of Media Education. Feliciter, 50(5), 190–192. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Library Association.
Baltruschat, D. (2004). Television and Canada's Aboriginal Communities: Seeking Opportunities through Digital Technologies. Canadian Journal of Communication, 29(1), 47–59.
Baltruschat, D. (2003). International Film and TV Co-productions: A Canadian Case Study. In S. Cottle (Ed.), Media Organization and Production. London: Sage Publications. Translated and reprinted 2005 by Fudan University Press, Shanghai, China.

Professional Service, Academic and in the Media field (Selected):

Reviewer of articles and books for the Canadian Journal of Communication, The International Journal of the Humanities, Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy and Great Plains Quarterly.

Participant in Canadian New Media Fund consultations with industry and stakeholders for the development of program guidelines, 2009 and 2010.

External evaluator for SSHRCs standard research grants competition.

Juror, Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, 2007.

Vice President of Canadian Association for Media Educators, 2003 and 2004.

Planning committee member and workshop facilitator for ‘Media and Democracy Day’ conferences, Vancouver, BC.

Planning committee member for BC Ministry of Education conferences on learning technologies.

 

Post-doctoral Research Opportunities:

The Centre for Cinema Studies welcomes researchers wishing to conduct post-doctoral research during a prolonged stay (1-3 years).

In order to allow us to collaborate on and fully support applications for the funding of your stay, we recommend you contact us well in advance of the deadlines of international and national granting agencies (for Social Science and Humanities Research Council deadlines, visit their website.

Please refer to the Centre's research pages for our research profile. For more information, please contact Ernest Mathijs and/or Brian McIlroy at: emathijs@interchange.ubc.ca and bmcilroy@interchange.ubc.ca.