Dr. Daphne Rena Idiz is a postdoctoral fellow with The Creative Labour and Critical Futures (CLCF) cluster. Alongside Dr. MaryElizabeth (“M.E.”) Luka and Dr. Rafael Grohmann, she forms 1/3rd of CLCF’s operations team. Last month, Daphne interviewed M.E. and Rafael to hear more about their research backgrounds and CLCF projects. Today, the co-leads are asking the questions…

M.E.: In a nutshell, who are you as a researcher?

Daphne: ​​That’s a big question. I would say my core interest as a researcher is on cultural producers in the screen industries and the many internal and external factors that shape their production processes, especially related to emerging technologies. So how cultural producers experience creating content for streamers and platforms, with their heavy reliance algorithms and big data and particular contractual and monetization models. And now, with CLCF, I’m going to be looking at the parallels with generative AI.

So, zooming in on the creative worker and their role in cultural production, my research interests span a few different areas. There’s cultural policy and how it addresses or misses key issues when regulating online services. There’s the industry, the big tech companies that have come to play a huge role in the audiovisual ecosystem, and the sorts of business models and data driven logics they bring to the table. And then also how content is circulated algorithmically, how it’s made visible, how it’s consumed and interpreted by audiences, which plays a big part in cultural production. And, at the heart of all of this, there’s the creative workers themselves and their beliefs, practices, decisions, and negotiations of this complex terrain—individually and collectively.

Because of this, I tend to gravitate towards more eclectic and interdisciplinary research. And directly linked is an interest in methodology and ethical best practices, because I often deal with people in my research. So, thinking about how to be non-extractive and integrate ethics of care in my research. And also provide value to the communities I’m researching.

Before joining CLCF as a postdoc, my PhD focused on how cultural production in the EU context is reshaped by streaming giants. So, I’ll be building on that research to look at creative workers in the Canadian screen industry and their responses to generative AI.

 

Rafael: What are your research interests in relation to AI?

Daphne: I would say right now, I’m really interested in building on two particular aspects of my prior streaming research, which I’m thinking about as two intertwined sides of governance. But now looking at these in the context of generative AI and how the screen industry is responding to its emergence.

First, from the “bottom-up”, I’m interested in how screen workers themselves, through collective bargaining and strikes, are vocalizing and addressing concerns when it comes to generative AI. So that’s the unions and guilds and worker side of things. And then there’s the “top-down” governance perspective, meaning how policy and legislation is governing generative AI when it comes to IP and copyright, things like defining author and authorship, all of that. And this tends to be a lot slower but equally important.

At this early stage of my research, the way I’m thinking about this is that the conversation around generative AI is complicating pre-existing issues and sort of creating an impetus to address some things that were already challenges for screen workers, particularly working with streamers. And of course, the precursor to all of this is also just getting a better understanding of how folks in the screen industry are currently thinking about and encountering generative AI. So, things like, you know, what is their positionality? What are their feelings? Their every-day practices? All of that…

So, these are the parts of the AI discourse I find most intriguing right now, and the pieces that I think we need more systematic and research-based knowledge of to cut through some of the hype.

 

M.E.: How do you think you could/want to bring your expertise on streaming services into CLCF programming over the next two years? 

Daphne: When looking at generative AI in the screen industry, I think so much of the conversation mirrors issues that were raised about streaming productions (impact of tech on creativity, data-driven logics, transparency issues, erosion of IP rights, power asymmetries between producers and distributors, et cetera). So, I want to connect these discourses and contextualize the challenges.

What I’m excited about is that, already in the short time I’ve spent at UTSC, I’ve seen how CLCF members are really engaged with the communities they’re researching and coming up with creative and innovative ways to share their research. For instance, Rafael is collaborating on graphic novels about the tech sector with the Homeless Worker Movement in Brazil and the Argentine Federation of Tech Co-ops. T.L. and Jas recently launched a book all about Trans- Feminist and Queer process heavy research methods. Another postdoc, Godwin, was just on a panel with a Nigerian filmmaker for an event about Nollywood that also included musical performances and a screening. M.E. has done some really cool things with arts-based and transgressive methods. And these are just the examples that spring to mind, but I find that all really inspiring.

And for me, this opens a lot of possibilities in terms of how we’re sharing knowledge and what reciprocal research looks like. So that’s something I want to really explore, beyond just the traditional outputs that we expect in academia, like journal articles. Even writing for CLCF’s blog and doing more popular writing… I wrote a piece for The Conversation recently based on a creative note some screenwriters I interviewed had received from Netflix, and that led to a little radio interview. I’m really looking for ways to sort of exercise producing and sharing knowledge for a wider audience, in more accessible ways, and in formats that are also useful to the people involved in my research.

In terms of my contributions to CLCF’s programming specifically, I’m hoping that as my own research projects progress, I’ll have the opportunity to organize some events that bring together industry people, policy makers, and academics. I think we really need to encourage more cross-sector dialogue to understand and address the challenges facing cultural producers, so I want to create spaces for those conversations to happen.

I’m also co-editing a special issue for Television & New Media with Dr. Nina Vindum Rasmussen from LSE on “Streaming Production Cultures,” which includes papers focused on global and local streaming services, video platforms, and live-streaming in 8 countries. So I’m definitely looking forward to organizing some webinars or events around that!