The STORYline research project is co-organising an international webinar to explore Cultural and Political dimensions of Intergenerationality.
The online event, to be held via Zoom, on 27 March 2026 at 2:00 PM (WET), will explore the cultural-theoretical, philosophical, aesthetic, historical and political dimensions of intergenerationality—a timely topic at the intersection of media studies, ageing, and communication research. The session will feature Stefan Schweigler, postdoctoral researcher from the University of Vienna's Department of Theatre, Film and Media Studies.
Stefan Schweigler's interdisciplinary work spans media studies, affect theory, ageing care, gender, queer, disability, and postcolonial studies, offering perspectives from across the arts and humanities on how different generations relate, communicate, and are represented in contemporary media and culture.
In this talk, Stefan Schweigler discusses the 2016 short documentary Papa Weifeng and its relational integration into Chinese media activism. This experimental documentary brings together several persons in Mainland China who are addressed as older adults and who present themselves as activist-parents of persons within the LGBTQ+ spectrum. The group discussions and the digital storytelling of director Wei Feng negotiate the aging of parents, the demand for LGBTQ+ rights, and perspectives from the Global South in an intertwined and mutually referential manner. Aging, queerness, and decolonial positions emerge as facets that are intersectionally linked. Intersectionality thus becomes the starting point for an artistic aesthetic formation of critical theory, which is rendered politically productive by the participants in the form of intergenerational and digital activism.
The STORYline project, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (10.54499/2023.11571.PEX), will co-organise the event with ECREA's Children, Youth and Media section and Temporary Working Group on Aging & Communication, and with SOPCOM's Communication & Education Working Group.
The event aims to provide valuable insights for scholars interested in how media shapes—and is shaped by—intergenerational relationships, care practices, and the cultural politics of age and difference.