Information, Medium & Society – The Publishing Studies Research Network

Origins: The Book Conference

Guided by David Emblidge, the early program focused on the book’s materiality, readerships, and circulation, balancing legacies of print culture with emerging digital practices. Early conferences at Oxford (UK) and at the Monash University Centre in Prato (Italy) established a cross-disciplinary forum where editors, scholars, and practitioners debated authorship, editing, design, and the economics of publishing.

Transformation: Publishing Studies and Media Futures

As digital technologies redefined communication, the Network broadened from the book as artifact to publishing as an information system within convergent media. Under Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, the scope incorporated platform economies, data infrastructures, openness, and creative industries, aligning the conference, journals, and book series with an expanded, global agenda.

In recent years the conference has traveled to University of Granada, Spain (2019); Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain (2021); University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece (2022); Sorbonne Université, Paris, France (2023); Sapienza University of Rome, Italy (2024); University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, USA (2025); and NOVA University Lisbon – School of Social Sciences and Humanities, Portugal (2026). Each edition advances a Special Focus that links scholarly reflection with professional innovation.

Recent and legacy plenaries include Jason Epstein (2003), John Man (2009), John W. Warren (2009), Marguerite Avery (2014), Michèle Cloonan (2014), Angus Phillips (2017), Rafael Ball (2013), Bob Young (2006), and Lawrence Lessig (2007)—together tracing a trajectory from book history and trade publishing to open knowledge, library futures, and platform-era policy.

Today, the Network connects researchers and practitioners who analyze the changing logics of communication and cultural production. Through conferences, journals, books, and online collaboration, it sustains a shared commitment to understanding publishing as both social practice and medium of transformation.

• 2003 - From Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age, Cairns, Australia
• 2004 - Challenges and Opportunities in a Digital Era, Beijing, China
• 2005 - Authorship and Publishing, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK
• 2006 - The Digitization of Everything, Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• 2007 - The Book: The Open Sarcophagus, Spanish National Research Council, Madrid, Spain
• 2008 - Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
• 2009 - Past, Present, Future, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland
• 2010 - The Digital Sphere, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
• 2011 - Creator to Consumer in a Digital Age, University of Toronto, Canada
• 2012 - Academe and the Book, Universidad Abat Oliba CEU, Barcelona, Spain
• 2013 - Publishing Practices: Past, Present, and Future, Universität Regensburg Universitätsbibliothek, Regensberg, Germany
• 2014 - Disruptive Technologies and the Evolution of Book Publishing and Library Development, Simmons College, Boston, USA
• 2015 - The Event of the Book, UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, BC
• 2017 - The Publisher Is Dead; Long Live the Publisher! Imperial College London, London, UK
• 2018 - Communicating Values—Scholarly Communication as Mediator, Agent, Actor, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA
• 2019 - Publishing Ecologies and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
• 2020 - The Role of Scholarly Communication in a Post-Truth Era: Lessons Learned, Futures Gained? Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy (Virtual)
• 2021 - Research in the Age of Thinking Machines: Implications for Scholars, Libraries, and Publishers, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain (Virtual)
  
• 2022 - Is Publishing a Critical Infrastructure? Innovation, Creativity, and Resilience in an Age of Artificial Intelligance, University of the Aegean, Rhodes, Greece
  
• 2023 - Social Narrative Makers: Storytellers, Researchers, Publishers, Platforms, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
  
• 2024 - Traveling Concepts: Publishing Systems and the Transfer and Translation of Ideas, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
  
• 2025 - Oceanic Journeys: Multicultural Approaches in Publishing Practices, University of Hawaii, Hilo, USA