NEWS PhD researcher Mikaela Wikström attended the NordMedia 2023 conference in Bergen, Norway, 16–18 August 2023 to present a text and network with Nordic researchers. The activity was funded by Arctic Centre at Umeå University.
Mikaela Wikström presenting at the Environment, Science and Risk Communication division at NordMedia 2023.
Image Annika Egan SjölanderMikaela Wikström is a PhD researcher at the Department of Culture and Media Studies, and a student at the Arctic Graduate School at Umeå University. She attended NordMedia 2023, which is a Nordic conference for researchers in media- and communication studies.
What did you do at the conference?
– I was mostly at a conference division called Environment, Science and Risk Communication. There, I presented a work-in-progress text co-authored with Annika Egan Sjölander and Moa Eriksson Krutrök, about the media industry’s mobilisation and news media discourses relating to the so-called “green” industrial transition in the Swedish North, Wikström explains.
She continues and describes that the conference consisted of sessions with presentations and panels within twelve different divisions and three temporary working groups.
– It was very well attended. This meant that the schedule was very rich and there was an abundance of interesting presentations and discussions to participate in and researchers to meet and speak with. The setting of Bergen as the location of the conference was beautiful and contributed to the overall very good experience, Wikström shares.
For me, as a PhD researcher, it was very valuable to be in a context such as this conference, where there are broad competencies within media- and communication studies and a division that relates to the topic of my PhD project
What significance did the conference have for you as a researcher?
Wikström says that she learned a lot at the conference, both from feedback on her own work-in-progress text, and from other researchers and their presentations.
– NordMedia 2023 was very rewarding. For me, as a PhD researcher, it was very valuable to be in a context such as this conference, where there are broad competencies within media and communication studies and a division that relates to the topic of my PhD project. Presenting a work-in-progress text at the conference also meant that I got good and interesting feedback that will help me in my continued research. I also learned a lot by participating in different sessions and listening to other scholars presenting their research. At NordMedia I also got the chance to meet and network with a lot of Nordic researchers within media and communication studies, and hopefully, some of these connections might also lead to future contact or collaborations, Wikström speculates.
What significance did the conference have for the Arctic?
Wikström explains that NordMedia is a Nordic conference, and this contributed to the significance in relation to an Arctic perspective. Topics that connect to the Arctic were for example raised by discussions and perspectives relating to the climate and climate communication within the context of specific challenges that apply to the Nordic countries.
– I mainly participated in the division devoted to Environment, Science and Risk Communication which meant that sustainability could be seen as a theme connecting almost all texts and presentations in one way or another. Since media and communication studies consist of very broad and different orientations of research, these different topics and themes were also tackled from different points of view.
NordMedia 2023 is a Nordic conference for researchers in media- and communication studies. It is held biannually, and this year’s conference was the 50th edition and the biggest yet with around 400 participants. It was held from the 16th to the 18th of August in Bergen, Norway.
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