The French Media Research Group was founded in 1995 by Dr Hugh Dauncey (Newcastle University), Dr Geoff Hare (Newcastle University, now Honorary Senior Research fellow) and Dr Sheila Perry (then University of Northumbria, now University of Nottingham).
The FMRG holds one-day conferences on the French media, usually located in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, but also in other venues in the North of England, the Midlands and Scotland.
Although the FMRG was originally created to provide a focus for researchers, teachers and students of French media located in the North of England (very broadly defined) and Scotland, members of the group come from all over the UK (and France), and the one-day conferences bring contributors and participants from France, UK, Ireland and the US.
The FMRG's activities and the publications of H. Dauncey and G. Hare on media were an element in Newcastle University French submission to RAE2001 (1996-2001), when the four person Film and Media unit was 'flagged' as being of the highest 5-star quality although the unit itself was not in a UoA rated as 5-star overall.
Since 1996, we have organised 24 day-conferences.
in October 2015, we organised FMRG24 'French and Francophone Videogames', held in Newcastle upon Tyne (organised by H. Dauncey, J. Ervine from Bangor and C. Tinker from Heriot-Watt).
In September 2014 we were part of the 'L'Age d'or : Médias, mémoires et nostalgies' conference (Paris) co-organised by CHCSC (Université Versailles Saint-Quentin en Yvelines), GRIPIC (Celsa Paris-Sorbonne).
Before that, our three most recent day-conferences were:
- FMRG23 'Media, Memory and Nostalgia in France and Francophone world' II - organised by Hugh Dauncey (Newcastle) and Chris Tinker (Heriot-Watt) - held in Newcastle on Friday 25 October 2013.
- FMRG22 'Media, Memory and Nostalgia in France and the Francophone world' I - organised by Chris Tinker (Heriot-Watt) and Hugh Dauncey (Newcastle) - held at Heriot-Watt University on Friday 19 April 2013.
- FMRG21 '"Vivement Dimanche !" Politics, Media and France's Electoral Year 2011/12' - organised by Sheila Perry (Nottingham) and Paul Smith (Nottingham) - held at Nottingham University on 12-13 September 2012.
In December 2008, the FMRG became affiliated - as a 'thematic branch' - to the Association for the Study of Modern & Contemporary France. See http://www.asmcf.org/
If you would like to propose a paper or help organise FMRG24 on Videogames (October 2015), please get in touch.