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About Us
Audiovisual media permeate the world beyond movie theaters and television receivers. Every day, many of us carry screens around with us in the palm of our hands. While the portability of film and media has been enhanced by smartphones and digital networks,
mobile media are not a recent phenomenon. Portable film projectors have long been used by amateurs and professionals in institutions and sites such as schools, universities, museums, offices, factories, libraries, and homes; these practices continue
today in our digital networks, with corporate training webinars, online how-tos, and viral dance videos. Nontheatrical media may be known by many names—useful, instructional, minor, vernacular, industrial, government-sponsored, educational, activist,
amateur, orphaned film and video, and more—but what they share is a position on the margins of commercial entertainment production.
Central to our scholarly interest group is a consideration of film and media as cultural forms that oscillate between their value as aesthetic objects and their embeddedness in infrastructural environments and networks. While the content of these media
cover a wide range of applications and subjects (including both fiction and nonfiction forms), this heterogeneous realm of media experience is united by a set of research challenges that pose unique methodological issues for media scholars. What institutional
or ideological needs prompts the production of specific works? What does textual analysis of nontheatrical media reveal about the aesthetics of usefulness? How do we study the use and impact of audiovisual productions screened for small audiences
or with limited and fleeting distribution? How have new technologies and differing media formats (i.e., celluloid, video, digital), and distribution infrastructures transformed approaches to studying nontheatrical media? How can scholars, artists,
and enthusiasts access and preserve such materials for research, creative use, and pleasure when copyright ownership is unknown or access is tightly controlled by corporations?
The Nontheatrical Film & Media SIG was founded in 2007 at a time when scholars and archivists were beginning to turn their scholarly attention to nontheatrical film. Here the SIG supported, amongst others, the study of orphan, amateur, industrial,
and state-sponsored films. What these films have in common is that they were created to serve particular and fleeting purposes. As a result, the vast majority of these films were not being preserved in traditional archives, and records of their production,
distribution, and exhibition were not kept. Consequently, the task of the SIG has long been to work with archives to advocate for their preservation and to create an interdisciplinary community of scholars to research these works. As the scholarly
value of nontheatrical media has become widely recognized, there have been strides in preserving materials and making them available for researchers, artists, and global publics.
Today, online archives, streaming platforms, artistic reuse, and the collector's market for 16mm film have transformed the non-theatrical film scarcity of the past into a state of digital abundance. With the profusion of amateur videos posted onto corporately
owned social media platforms, familiar questions about copyright, access, and preservation have emerged for scholars interested in studying these works. Analyzing these audiovisual forms offers provocative and novel ways of connecting contemporary
digital media with the historical trajectories of film and media studies in our field.
Our Mission
Our mission is to facilitate interdisciplinary discussion, outreach, and inclusion for all scholars whose research falls in between traditional scholarly preoccupations with commercial entertainment and art cinema. The Nontheatrical Film & Media SIG
provides a setting for scholars to collaborate, share research tips, debate methodological issues, and for the support of the intellectual pursuits of our members.
Our Activities
- Provide a forum in which nontheatrical film and media scholars can discuss their work, organize panels and workshops for conferences, and work together to set goals and objectives of the group.
- Encourage international membership and participation in SCMS for nontheatrical film and media scholars across the world.
- Regularly produce and distribute a nontheatrical film and media newsletter to all interested scholars, regardless of SCMS membership status.
- Facilitate a graduate student reading group on recent scholarship within the field.
- Judge and award an annual Graduate Student Essay Award in collaboration with The Moving Image.
- Take on special projects, such as specially designated panels, joint conferences, plenary participation, and/or workshops.
- Schedule a yearly meeting at the SCMS conference where scholars can gather to formulate more specific programs and plans, as well as provide space to support and collaborate with each other.
- Work with the SCMS Executive Committee and each year's Conference Program Committee to provide nontheatrical film and media-related expertise.
- Collaborate with other SCMS groups, such as the various caucuses and issues groups, to bring a nontheatrical film and media-specific orientation to ongoing SCMS issues.
- Encourage the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies and other publications to include nontheatrical film and media-related scholarship.
