For those of you unaware of it, Media Fields is a peer reviewed online journal that was started by graduate students in the Film and Media Studies department at UCSB. The journal was born out of the Media Fields Research Collective, which started at UCSB in 2007. According to the Media Fields website, the collective was started in order to explore "representations of space in media, and the spatial and environmental characteristics of media forms and practices." Now largely synonymous, the collective and the journal have grown and blossomed into an interdisciplinary, intercampus organization. It organized conferences in 2007, 2009, and 2011, and has one planned for this Spring (2013). Titled “Access/Trespass,” this Spring’s conference will be held April 4 and 5 in the McCune Conference Room (Humanities and Social Sciences Building room 2060). This year’s keynote will be Professor Ricardo Dominguez from UCSD’s Department of Visual Arts. For more information, go to the Media Fields website conference page.
Impressively, the journal, now in its fifth issue, is maintained through the volunteer work of graduate students. According to Carlos and John, that volunteer nature poses one of the big challenges for maintaining Media Fields; getting pro bono time commitments from busy graduate students is never an easy task. Furthermore, the temporary nature of graduate school, and the precariousness of grad student life make continuity and the passing on of knowledge a challenge for the journal. On the plus side, though, the people who are involved are there because they are interested and they care and, as John emphasized to me, Media Fields is always looking for more collective members, so there is room for you to join! There are even opportunities available for those with experience in web programming and design.
The journal offers a unique opportunity for those involved, it creates a special kind of professional community that is difficult to find in the graduate level. Carlos explained the rewards of working at the journal to me, saying that it is a community that is “there for learning, editing, writing, and collaborative work that is so rarely available at the graduate level, especially in the humanities.”
And, to top it all off, the journal puts out some [expletive deleted] good material! Don’t take my word for it, though, check out issues 1 through 5 online now, and be sure to apply to their upcoming issue on Media Spaces of Gender and Sexuality (CFP attached!).