Dr Lisa Lin

Dr Lisa Lin is a documentary producer and media scholar specialising in convergent media, digital streaming aesthetics and immersive documentary storytelling. She has developed and produced award-winning documentaries for Channel 4, National Geographic Asia, the BBC and Channel News Asia in the UK and Singapore.

[email protected]

Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn

Background

Lisa is the author of Convergent Chinese Television Industries (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Having worked as a documentary producer for over ten years in the UK, Singapore and China, her producing credits include Matter Patterns (2014), I Wouldn’t Go in There Season 2 (National Geographic, 2015), G-Force (Hummingbird Music, 2016), Last Breath (One World Media, 2017), The Truth about Fake News (Channel News Asia, 2018), Frontline Medics Diaries (Channel 4, 2020), Delhi (2021).

Before joining Anglia Ruskin University, Dr Lin worked as a Lecturer in Media Studies at the University of Kent and a Visiting Lecturer in Media Industries at Royal Holloway, University of London since 2017. She was the Principal Investigator for a Global Challenge Research Fund-funded project ‘How to Employ Environmental Documentaries as Visual Evidence to Engage a Wider Debate on Social Injustice Behind Air Pollution in Jingjinji (China) and Delhi (India)’ (2019-2020). Dr Lin holds a PhD in Media and Communications and MA in International Broadcasting from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Spoken Languages

• English
• Mandarin
• Japanese

Research interests

• Convergent television industries
• International television co-production
• Asian screen cultures
• Changing storytelling norms and aesthetics of digital streaming services
• Multiplatform production and distribution
• Television format adaptation

Dr Lin holds a PhD in Media and Communications and MA in International Broadcasting from Royal Holloway, University of London. Having been an ethnographer of convergent television production cultures, her research interests revolve around the correlations between technology and creativity and how digital technologies have transformed and disrupted the traditional logics of media production and distribution between the Western and Eastern contexts on macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. Her goal across these research projects is to examine the changes and continuities in production cultures and storytelling norms between broadcast television and streaming services. Drawing upon her international industry experience in the UK, Singapore and China, Dr Lin also conducts research on international format trade and television coproduction particularly between Asian and European markets.

Areas of research supervision

• Practice-based documentary research
• Multiplatform production and distribution
• Convergent production cultures
• Changing storytelling norms and aesthetics of digital streaming services
• Asian screen industries
• Immersive documentary storytelling

Current PhD Supervisions:

• How Interactive Narrative-Driven Virtual Heritage Can Re-Build The Lost City (practice based research)
• How Co-Created Digital Storytelling Influences Hidden Teacher Bias of Higher Education Students (practice based research)

Teaching

Lisa currently teaches on the following modules:

• Creative Practice Method Workshops (CPM)

Qualifications

• PhD in Media and Communications, Royal Holloway, University of London
• MA in International Broadcasting, Royal Holloway, University of London
• Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education, Royal Holloway, University of London
• Diploma in Factual Television Development and Production, National Film and Television School (UK)
• Diploma in 16mm/35mm Filmmaking, London Film School

Memberships, editorial boards

• Higher Education Academy, Associate Fellow.
• Royal Television Society, Member.
• The International Association for Media and Communication Research, Member.
• British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies, Member.
• Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association, Member.

Research grants, consultancy, knowledge exchange

• Knowledge Base Supervisor, Knowledge Transfer Partnership UK Antarctica Heritage Trust, Innovate UK, 2022-2023.
• Principal Investigator, Sustainable Futures Pump Priming Research Fund, Anglia Ruskin University, 2022.
• Principal Investigator, Global Challenge Research Fund Development Fund, UKRI/GCRF, University of Kent, 2019-2020.
• Project Lead, University of Kent Teaching Enhancement Awards, 2019-2020.
• Event Organiser, Chinese Independent Film Festival, UCMeCSA/Royal Holloway, 2018.
• Department Research Fieldwork Grant, University of London, 2016-2017.
• PhD Candidate, Crosslands Scholarship, Royal Holloway, University of London, 2015-2018.

Selected recent publications

Lin, L. (2022) Convergent Chinese Screen Industries: An Ethnography of Chinese Production Cultures. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9783030917555.

Lin, L. (2022) 'A Market Failure or Successful Social Experiment: Re-Examining the Chinese Adaptation of Dutch Reality TV Utopia', Flow, 28(4).

Lin, L. (2022) 'A New Era of Creative Freedom: How Tencent Originals are reinvigorating Chinese talk shows'. In: Lotz, A. D., and Lobato, R. (Eds.) (2022) Streaming Stories: Subscription Video and Storytelling Across Borders. New York: NYU Press.

Lin, L. (2020) 'Beyond Canned Television: BBC Earth’s Global Community Building and Coproduction Adventure in the Case of Tencent Video', VIEW Journal, Special Issue Canned Television Going Global, 9(17) pp. 21-34. Available at: https://doi.org/10.18146/view.224

Recent presentations and conferences

‘Technologically-empowered Production Cultures in Post-TVIII China: Creative Freedoms and Implicit Fears’, IAMCR 2020 (International Association for Media and Communication Research), Online, July 2020.

‘New methods for production research in the global pandemic’, IAMCR 2020: Media Production Working Group, Online, June 2020.

‘From Analogue to Convergence: Changes and Continuities in Chinese Television Industry’, MeCCSA 2019, Stirling, UK, Jan 2019.

‘Opening Speech: UK-China Creative Industries and Film Coproduction Treaty’, UCMeCSA Chinese Independent Film Festival, Dec 2018.

‘The Rise of Tencent as a Hybrid Economic, Strategic and Production Model’, ECREA 2018, Lugano, Switzerland, Oct 2018.

‘Television Collaboration between China and the UK in the post-Brexit era’, ICA Pre-Conference, Prague, May 2018.

‘The Rise of Tencent? A New Era of Creativity and Connectivity on Chinese Internet Television’, Digital Economy: Ubercapitalism or Postcapitalism, King’s College, University of London, May 2018.

‘Television Collaboration between China and the UK in the Era of Post-globalization: From Chinese New Year to Dancing on Ice’. Oxford One Belt One Road Summit, Oxford, September 2017.

‘TV III with Chinese Characteristics: Chinese Entertainment TV in the Multiplatform Age’, UK Chinese Media and Culture Studies Association Annual Conference: The Evolving Landscape of Chinese Entertainment TV, UEA, April 2017.

‘Creative Freedoms vs. Implicit Fears: Production Studies on Chinese Multiplatform Television’. Media Arts Annual Conference, RHUL, June 2017.

‘From Analogue to Digital: shifts and continuities in television studies’. Hong Kong Sociological Association Annual Conference Coming of Age: Sociology through the Generations. HKU, December 2016.

‘TV III with Chinese Characteristics’, Media Arts Annual Conference, RHUL, June 2016. ‘Is It TV Yet? TV III with Chinese characteristics’. MeCCSA PGN 2016: New Directions in Media Research. Leicester, July 2016.

Media experience

Local, national and international media platforms, including Channel 4, One World Media, Channel News Asia, BBC Documentary Unit and National Geographic Asia.