The idea for GMSN emerged through an ongoing dialogue between colleagues in two newly formed research centres: the Global Media Studies Initiative housed in the Department of Communication at the University of Michigan and the Centre for Research in Communication and Culture at Loughborough University, both of which were launched in 2016.
This dialogue identified a common concern for a global approach to media research and a lingering dissatisfaction with the fragmented way in which this has been developed across the field to date. While global perspectives in media research have become increasingly common in the last 20 years, there remain limited opportunities for scholars doing global media research to share ideas and methodologies and to develop collaborative research and common research agendas. This means that non-western media research continues to remain at the margins of the field, comparative analysis are thin on the ground and international research collaborations are all too often stubbornly difficult to foster and realise.
GMSN was developed in order to address these challenges by bringing together scholars working in global media studies and to facilitate dialogue and interaction between them over the long term.
Initial network partners were:
- GMSI, Department of Communication, University of Michigan, US.
- CRCC, Loughborough University, UK.