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Bojana Romic

Malmö University, K3 - School of Arts and Communication, Faculty Member

Malmö University, Communication for Development, Faculty Member

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I am a media and communication researcher, teaching at Communication for Development, K3, Malmö University. My research is situated on the crossroads between audience studies, aesthetics of technology and image politics. I was a member of the Danish Council for Ethnic Minorities from 2014 to 2018.
Address: www.bojanaromic.com

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Papers by Bojana Romic

Are You Talkin' to Me?" : A Study of Social Robots Featuring in Robotic Art

Ian Ingram's robots: Communication between Interaction and Instrumentality

Negotiating anthropomorphism in the Ai-Da robot

International Journal of Social Robotics, Jul 30, 2021

The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Galler... more The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Gallery/Oxford University), perceived as an actor in the interplay of cultural and representational gestures. These gestures determine how this robot is presented-that is, how its activities are articulated, interpreted and promoted. This paper criticises the use of a transhistorical discourse in the presentational strategies around this robot, since this discourse reinforces the so-called "myth of a machine". The discussion focuses on the individuation and embodiment of this drawing robot. It is argued that the choice to provide Ai-Da with an evocative silicone face, coupled with an anthropomorphic body, is a socio-political decision that shapes public imaginaries about social robots in general.

Are You Talkin' to Me?" A Study of Social Robots Featuring in Robotic Art

Ian Ingram's robots: Communication between Interaction and Instrumentality

Audiences, towards 2030 Priorities for audience analysis

This report presents outcomes of the second phase of CEDAR’s work: a foresight exercise aiming to... more This report presents outcomes of the second phase of CEDAR’s work: a foresight exercise aiming to present a research agenda for the field as it would stand in the year 2030. In order to do this, the consortium, having used a systematic literature review already, conducted a trend analysis exercise, a stakeholder consultation exercise and a horizon-scanning exercise to arrive at a set of implications and research recommendations for the field of audience studies looking into the immediate future. This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to run between 2015-2018.

Small acts of engagement and interruptions in content flows

Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Interruption, Disruption or Intervention? A Stakeholder Analysis of Small Acts of Engagement in Content Flows

The Future of Audiences, 2018

This chapter builds upon central findings arising from consultations with stakeholders about audi... more This chapter builds upon central findings arising from consultations with stakeholders about audiences’ engagement in the content flows, defined as an ever evolving ecology of online and offline content produced by a number of more and less institutionalised content producers, ranging from news organisations to YouTubers. First, we note that increasing use of audience analytics tends to fragment the monolithic audience into tangible sub-communities. Second, we discuss how production routines of legacy media change in response to small acts of engagement via digital interfaces. Third, audience creativity enters economic relations and amateur production struggles with a tension between being creative and economic logic of production. Fourth, we look at transformations related to (dis)trust as a mutual dynamic that not only concerns audiences’ trust or mistrust in legacy media, but which is increasingly significant in regard to media’s trust in content produced by audiences as well, making it more difficult for audiences to engage with the content produced by media institutions.

Challenges when researching digital audiences : mapping audience research of software designs, interfaces and platforms

Based on an extensive literature review, this contribution explores current and future challenges... more Based on an extensive literature review, this contribution explores current and future challenges for media and communication scholars when enquiring people’s engagements with digital media. Structuring the existing literature around four themes (affordances, the political economy of digital audiences, self-representation and identity, domestication and (problematic) uses of ICT), an overview of the current state of the field is provided. As such, three challenges are defined: exploring the diversity of digital audiences that now engage with digital media, allowing more room for the semiotics and contexts in which people experience digital media, and moving beyond the functionalistic uses of the concept ‘affordances’.

Interruption, disruption or intervention?

This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Re... more

Small acts of audience engagement interrupting content flows

This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Re... more

SMALL ACTS OF ENGAGEMENT Small acts of engagement and audiences interruptions of content flows

Cloned images and the optical unconscious

Emerging Trends in Small Acts of Audience Engagement and Interruptions of Content Flows

The Future of Audiences, 2018

The history of Don Juan has frequently been the canvas of poetic works, testifying to the undying... more The history of Don Juan has frequently been the canvas of poetic works, testifying to the undying quality of the myth, and at the same time, to the depth with which the seemingly banal story of the adventures of the corrupt nobleman is imbued. The story of sin and punishment, or, of responsibility for one's deeds, became a creative inspiration for Jerzy Liebert, which resulted in his poem Kroki komandora. This essay adopts a bipolar perspective, treating the poem as, on the one hand, a translation of Alexander Blok's The Commander's Footsteps, which is thus closely related to the Russian original, and on the other hand, as a new and fully autonomous work taking into account the author's biography as well as contexts related to the aesthetics of the times and the artistic millieu of the Skamander group.

The Power of the Picture: Penetration of the Real on YouTube

Figure 17.1. The family of Neda Agha-Soltan released this picture of their slain daughter to the ... more

Negotiating anthropomorphism in the Ai-Da robot

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2021

The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Galler... more The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Gallery/Oxford University), perceived as an actor in the interplay of cultural and representational gestures. These gestures determine how this robot is presented—that is, how its activities are articulated, interpreted and promoted. This paper criticises the use of a transhistorical discourse in the presentational strategies around this robot, since this discourse reinforces the so-called “myth of a machine”. The discussion focuses on the individuation and embodiment of this drawing robot. It is argued that the choice to provide Ai-Da with an evocative silicone face, coupled with an anthropomorphic body, is a socio-political decision that shapes public imaginaries about social robots in general.

Robotic Art and Cultural Imagination

EVAC Copenhagen 2018, 2018

In this article, I aim to accentuate the importance of the cultural imagination about robots, obs... more In this article, I aim to accentuate the importance of the cultural imagination about robots, observing it 'as a mixed register of fantasy and an actual practice' (Kakoudaki 2007, 165). I emphasise the field of robotic art, which, I argue, is in a fluid state of exchange with other areas of robotic research, equally benefiting from the larger context of the cultural imagination about robots. Furthermore, I discuss artworks that offer a valuable commentary on robots even though they are not defined as robotic art in a narrow sense (Penny 2013), given that they feature only the representation of robots or robot-like characters. Nevertheless, these artworks contribute to the circulation of symbolic registers that revolve around the multifaceted figure of a robot.

Methodological challenges in the transition towards online audience research

This review of the literature published between 2005 and 2014 presents an overview of the methodo... more

It's in the Name: Technical Nonhumans and Artistic Production

Transformations: Journal of Media, Culture and Technology, 2022

In this conceptual article my aim is to challenge the attribute "creative" when applied to the te... more In this conceptual article my aim is to challenge the attribute "creative" when applied to the technical nonhumans (computers, robots or AI). Whilst acknowledging the long history of technical objects involved in a creative production, I suggest that such phrasing carries a surplus of meaning that may lead to ambiguous and possibly deceptive narratives about technical nonhumans amongst non-professional audiences. I shall be using science and technology studies (STS) theories as a methodological backdrop, and I shall rely on the theoretical paradigms about the myth of technology.

Small acts of engagement: Reconnecting productive audience practices with everyday agency

New Media & Society

In this article, we develop the concept of small acts of engagement (SAOE) in a networked media e... more In this article, we develop the concept of small acts of engagement (SAOE) in a networked media environment as a conceptual framework to study specific audience practices and as an agenda for research on these practices. We define SAOE, such as liking, sharing, and commenting, as productive audience practices that require little investment and are intentionally more casual than the structural and laborious practices examined as types of produsage and convergence culture. We further elaborate on the interpretive and productive aspects of SAOE, which allow us to reconnect the notions of a participatory culture and a culture of everyday agency. Our central argument is that audience studies’ perspective allows viewing SAOE as practices of everyday audience agency, which, on an aggregate level, have the potential to become powerful acts of resistance.

Are You Talkin' to Me?" : A Study of Social Robots Featuring in Robotic Art

Ian Ingram's robots: Communication between Interaction and Instrumentality

Negotiating anthropomorphism in the Ai-Da robot

International Journal of Social Robotics, Jul 30, 2021

The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Galler... more The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Gallery/Oxford University), perceived as an actor in the interplay of cultural and representational gestures. These gestures determine how this robot is presented-that is, how its activities are articulated, interpreted and promoted. This paper criticises the use of a transhistorical discourse in the presentational strategies around this robot, since this discourse reinforces the so-called "myth of a machine". The discussion focuses on the individuation and embodiment of this drawing robot. It is argued that the choice to provide Ai-Da with an evocative silicone face, coupled with an anthropomorphic body, is a socio-political decision that shapes public imaginaries about social robots in general.

Are You Talkin' to Me?" A Study of Social Robots Featuring in Robotic Art

Ian Ingram's robots: Communication between Interaction and Instrumentality

Audiences, towards 2030 Priorities for audience analysis

This report presents outcomes of the second phase of CEDAR’s work: a foresight exercise aiming to... more This report presents outcomes of the second phase of CEDAR’s work: a foresight exercise aiming to present a research agenda for the field as it would stand in the year 2030. In order to do this, the consortium, having used a systematic literature review already, conducted a trend analysis exercise, a stakeholder consultation exercise and a horizon-scanning exercise to arrive at a set of implications and research recommendations for the field of audience studies looking into the immediate future. This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, to run between 2015-2018.

Small acts of engagement and interruptions in content flows

Palgrave Macmillan, 2018

Interruption, Disruption or Intervention? A Stakeholder Analysis of Small Acts of Engagement in Content Flows

The Future of Audiences, 2018

This chapter builds upon central findings arising from consultations with stakeholders about audi... more This chapter builds upon central findings arising from consultations with stakeholders about audiences’ engagement in the content flows, defined as an ever evolving ecology of online and offline content produced by a number of more and less institutionalised content producers, ranging from news organisations to YouTubers. First, we note that increasing use of audience analytics tends to fragment the monolithic audience into tangible sub-communities. Second, we discuss how production routines of legacy media change in response to small acts of engagement via digital interfaces. Third, audience creativity enters economic relations and amateur production struggles with a tension between being creative and economic logic of production. Fourth, we look at transformations related to (dis)trust as a mutual dynamic that not only concerns audiences’ trust or mistrust in legacy media, but which is increasingly significant in regard to media’s trust in content produced by audiences as well, making it more difficult for audiences to engage with the content produced by media institutions.

Challenges when researching digital audiences : mapping audience research of software designs, interfaces and platforms

Based on an extensive literature review, this contribution explores current and future challenges... more Based on an extensive literature review, this contribution explores current and future challenges for media and communication scholars when enquiring people’s engagements with digital media. Structuring the existing literature around four themes (affordances, the political economy of digital audiences, self-representation and identity, domestication and (problematic) uses of ICT), an overview of the current state of the field is provided. As such, three challenges are defined: exploring the diversity of digital audiences that now engage with digital media, allowing more room for the semiotics and contexts in which people experience digital media, and moving beyond the functionalistic uses of the concept ‘affordances’.

Interruption, disruption or intervention?

This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Re... more

Small acts of audience engagement interrupting content flows

This report has been produced by the CEDAR network which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Re... more

SMALL ACTS OF ENGAGEMENT Small acts of engagement and audiences interruptions of content flows

Cloned images and the optical unconscious

Emerging Trends in Small Acts of Audience Engagement and Interruptions of Content Flows

The Future of Audiences, 2018

The history of Don Juan has frequently been the canvas of poetic works, testifying to the undying... more The history of Don Juan has frequently been the canvas of poetic works, testifying to the undying quality of the myth, and at the same time, to the depth with which the seemingly banal story of the adventures of the corrupt nobleman is imbued. The story of sin and punishment, or, of responsibility for one's deeds, became a creative inspiration for Jerzy Liebert, which resulted in his poem Kroki komandora. This essay adopts a bipolar perspective, treating the poem as, on the one hand, a translation of Alexander Blok's The Commander's Footsteps, which is thus closely related to the Russian original, and on the other hand, as a new and fully autonomous work taking into account the author's biography as well as contexts related to the aesthetics of the times and the artistic millieu of the Skamander group.

The Power of the Picture: Penetration of the Real on YouTube

Figure 17.1. The family of Neda Agha-Soltan released this picture of their slain daughter to the ... more

Negotiating anthropomorphism in the Ai-Da robot

International Journal of Social Robotics, 2021

The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Galler... more The central interest of this paper is the anthropomorphic social robot Ai-Da (Aidan Meller Gallery/Oxford University), perceived as an actor in the interplay of cultural and representational gestures. These gestures determine how this robot is presented—that is, how its activities are articulated, interpreted and promoted. This paper criticises the use of a transhistorical discourse in the presentational strategies around this robot, since this discourse reinforces the so-called “myth of a machine”. The discussion focuses on the individuation and embodiment of this drawing robot. It is argued that the choice to provide Ai-Da with an evocative silicone face, coupled with an anthropomorphic body, is a socio-political decision that shapes public imaginaries about social robots in general.

Robotic Art and Cultural Imagination

EVAC Copenhagen 2018, 2018

In this article, I aim to accentuate the importance of the cultural imagination about robots, obs... more In this article, I aim to accentuate the importance of the cultural imagination about robots, observing it 'as a mixed register of fantasy and an actual practice' (Kakoudaki 2007, 165). I emphasise the field of robotic art, which, I argue, is in a fluid state of exchange with other areas of robotic research, equally benefiting from the larger context of the cultural imagination about robots. Furthermore, I discuss artworks that offer a valuable commentary on robots even though they are not defined as robotic art in a narrow sense (Penny 2013), given that they feature only the representation of robots or robot-like characters. Nevertheless, these artworks contribute to the circulation of symbolic registers that revolve around the multifaceted figure of a robot.

Methodological challenges in the transition towards online audience research

This review of the literature published between 2005 and 2014 presents an overview of the methodo... more

It's in the Name: Technical Nonhumans and Artistic Production

Transformations: Journal of Media, Culture and Technology, 2022

In this conceptual article my aim is to challenge the attribute "creative" when applied to the te... more In this conceptual article my aim is to challenge the attribute "creative" when applied to the technical nonhumans (computers, robots or AI). Whilst acknowledging the long history of technical objects involved in a creative production, I suggest that such phrasing carries a surplus of meaning that may lead to ambiguous and possibly deceptive narratives about technical nonhumans amongst non-professional audiences. I shall be using science and technology studies (STS) theories as a methodological backdrop, and I shall rely on the theoretical paradigms about the myth of technology.

Small acts of engagement: Reconnecting productive audience practices with everyday agency

New Media & Society

In this article, we develop the concept of small acts of engagement (SAOE) in a networked media e... more In this article, we develop the concept of small acts of engagement (SAOE) in a networked media environment as a conceptual framework to study specific audience practices and as an agenda for research on these practices. We define SAOE, such as liking, sharing, and commenting, as productive audience practices that require little investment and are intentionally more casual than the structural and laborious practices examined as types of produsage and convergence culture. We further elaborate on the interpretive and productive aspects of SAOE, which allow us to reconnect the notions of a participatory culture and a culture of everyday agency. Our central argument is that audience studies’ perspective allows viewing SAOE as practices of everyday audience agency, which, on an aggregate level, have the potential to become powerful acts of resistance.

Cloned images and the optical unconscious

Methodological challenges in the transition towards online audience research

by David Mathieu, Miguel Vicente-Mariño, Maria José Brites, Niklas Alexander Chimirri, Juliane Finger, Bojana Romic, Riitta Tammi, Marisa Torres da Silva, and Liliana Pacheco

This review of the literature published between 2005 and 2014 presents an overview of the methodo... more

Audiences, towards 2030: Priorities for audience analysis

by Bojana Romic, David Mathieu, Jelena Kleut, Niklas Alexander Chimirri, Ana Jorge, Lucia Vesnic-Alujevic, Sander De Ridder, Ike Picone, Frederik Dhaenens, Gilda Seddighi, Juliane Finger, Maria Francesca Murru, Maria José Brites, Rafal Zaborowski, and Tereza Pavlickova

Edited by Ranjana Das and Brita Ytre-Arne, with contribution from the CEDAR network. This repor... more Edited by Ranjana Das and Brita Ytre-Arne, with contribution from the CEDAR network.

This report brings together the work done by CEDAR - Consortium of Emerging Directions in Audience Research, an Arts & Humanities Research Council funded consortium of early-career European audience researchers. CEDAR came together to map trends, gaps and priorities emerging over the past decade in the field of audience studies.