Paper Short Abstract:

In this presentation, I will examine how the "unwritten" nature of production-based scholarship creates both productive and challenging liminal spaces in academia. This dual positioning—as both media producer and scholar—often exists in the interstices between traditional academic documentation and professional practice. While this liminality presents distinct challenges, including the undervaluation of practice-based knowledge in academic metrics, it also offers unique advantages in bridging theoretical frameworks with practical insights.

Paper Abstract:

Media anthropology is my intellectual home. I operationally define it as "equipment for living" (Burke, 1973), a toolkit I have employed for almost two decades. As a professor in a media department, a social scientist studying media technologies and genres, and a media producer with experience in television journalism and documentary production, the tools of media anthropology have enabled me to excel across multiple domains. My deep engagement with media production continues to inform my work as a public scholar, where I consistently strive to combine theory and practice while maintaining a reflexive outlook on social issues.

In this presentation, I will examine how the "unwritten" nature of production-based scholarship creates both productive and challenging liminal spaces in academia. This dual positioning—as both media producer and scholar—often exists in the interstices between traditional academic documentation and professional practice. While this liminality presents distinct challenges, including the undervaluation of practice-based knowledge in academic metrics, it also offers unique advantages in bridging theoretical frameworks with practical insights. Through specific instances from my career spanning television journalism, documentary production, and academic research, I demonstrate how this hybrid disciplinary outlook, though often "unwritten" in conventional academic narratives, provides crucial insights into contemporary media phenomena that might remain invisible to purely theoretical or practical approaches.