The Centre for International Communication Research (CICR) the Media 
Industries Research Centre (MIRC) and the Institute of Communications 
Studies at the University of Leeds 
together with the Faculty of Communications and Mass Media, National and 
Kapodistrian University of Athens 

are inviting you to a conference on

Porn Cultures: Regulation, Political Economy, and Technology

Monday 15th and Tuesday 16th of June in Leeds.

Please send your 200 word abstract, along with a 50-word bio and contact 
details to Steven McDermott ([log in to unmask]) by March 15th or earlier. 

There will be a small fee to cover catering and room facilities. Please let us 
know if you require an earlier decision regarding your paper. If you would like 
to discuss a panel/round-table proposal and /or your paper please contact 
Katharine Sarikakis ([log in to unmask]).

 The pornography industry is an under-researched culture industry. Its links to 
mainstream media and to the sex industry are intensifying. The mainstreaming 
of certain aspects of the industry in global popular culture raises questions 
about the adequacy, efficiency or appropriateness of existing policy. Other 
aspects of the industry, such as its labour conditions, the  geographies of 
production and consumption practices associated with it have largely fallen 
under the radar of scholarly analysis, while much more attention has been paid 
to the potential for emancipatory uses of aspects of sexually explicit cultural 
expression. Meanwhile, technological aspects of the industry’s operation are 
challenging our assumptions about ‘choice’ ‘privacy’ and ‘freedom’. With the 
proliferation of the pornographic product embedded in everyday life now more 
than ever before, existing and new questions require our urgent attention 
about human rights, migrants, workers and communication rights, media 
literacy, media ecology and the public sphere, global production and 
consumption cultures as well as underlying politics of gender, class, age 
and ‘race’. 

This conference aims to bring together scholars, policymakers and activists to 
discuss the global pornography complex. It is the second of two conferences 
organised within the British Academy funded project Socialisation of the global 
sexually explicit imagery: challenges to regulation and research. The project 
has given birth to an international Porn Cultures and Policy Network, which 
involves scholars from a number of countries, engaged in comparative studies 
with an emphasis on policy. We are inviting colleagues to take part in this 
debate and colleagues who would be interested in working with the existing 
network to join us. Information on this and our first conference can be found 
on http://sgsei.wordpress.com.



 Speakers include 

Prof Alison Beale
Co-Director, Centre for Policy Studies on Culture and Communities,
Simon Fraser University Vancouver

Julie Bindel

POPPY Project

 Dr Karen Boyle

Glasgow University

Dr Marcus Breen
Northeastern University Boston 

 Prof Gail Dines
Professor of American Studies, Wheelock College Boston

 Elizabeth Law

UK Board Member, European Women’s Lobby

 Dr Stephen Maddison

University of East London

 Dr Valentina Marinescu

University of Bucharest Romania

Prof Clare McGlynn

Deputy Head of Law School, Durham Law School, Durham University

Murray Perkins
Senior Examiner (18 and R18 Categories) British Board of Film Classification

Prof Julian Petley

Brunel University

Prof Karen Ross
Liverpool University 

 Dr Rebecca Sullivan
University of Calgary 

 Dr Liza Tsaliki

University of Athens

Prof Ian Walden
Acting Chair of Internet Watch Foundation, Institute of Computer and 
Communications Law Centre for Commercial Law Studies Queen Mary, 
University of London

 Dr Rebecca Whisnant
University of Dayton