Kateryna Sivak

• Informal media economies
• Film ‘piracy’
• Audiovisual translation
• Informal entrepreneurship

• SEDA Recognised Learning Facilitator
• Epigeum Research Integrity Training
• PgCert in Research Practice (Birmingham City University, UK)
• MA in Global Media Management (Birmingham City University, UK)
• BA in Advertising and Public Relations (Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine)

• Creative Industries Cluster of Birmingham Centre for Media and Cultural Research (BCMCR)
• Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association (MeCCSA)
• British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS)

Kateryna’s PhD project explores varying practices within the Ukrainian informal screen media economy that in one way or another make films and TV series accessible to the Ukrainian audience. The focus of the research is centred around groups and individuals who professionally, though unofficially, localise foreign screen media and around questionably legal platforms and services that distribute audiovisual content. By analysing the nature of these practices in relation to a unique social, political, and cultural context they exist in, the project aims to deepen our understanding of the endlessly diverse activities that comprise the informal media economy, while also questioning some of the more established, often limiting views on the role and status of such practices.

• Dr Simon Barber
• Dr Oliver Carter

• Sivak, K. (2022) Informal Screen Media Localisation in Ukraine. In: Languages and the Media: Welcome Back to the Future. Berlin, 7-9 November.
• Sivak, K. And Obia, V. (2022) Editorial: Disruption Issue. Makings, 3(1). Available at: https://makingsjournal.com/editorial-disruption-issue
• Sivak, K. (2022) “I Wish My Work Wasn’t Necessary”: Exploring Informal Screen Media Practices in Ukraine. In: MeCCSA 2022 Silenced Voices Conference. Aberdeen, 7-9 September.
• Sivak, K. (2022) Informal AVT Practices in Ukraine: Questioning the Notion of Global Access to Mainstream Television. In: Critical Studies in Television Slow Conference: The Outliers of Television (Studies), 27 June – 15 July.
• Poster presentation titled “Pirate Collaborations: The Case of the Ukrainian Informal Screen Media Economy” at BAFTSS 2022 Conference.
• Open-mic provocation titled “Pirates or Creative Workers?” at Inside//Out PhD Research Festival 2022.
• Sivak, K. (2021) Alternative as Mainstream? Interrogating Informality in Non-Western Media Economies. Makings, 2(1). Available at: https://makingsjournal.com/alternative-as-mainstream-interrogating-informality-in-non-western-media-economies/
• Sivak, K. and Obia, V. A. (2021) Editorial: Alternativity Issue of Makings Journal. Makings, 2(1). Available at: https://makingsjournal.com/editorial-alternativity-issue-of-makings-journal/
• Sivak, K. (2021) (Non-?)traditional Film Distribution Practices in Ukraine. In: Besides the Screen: Geographies, Spaces, and Places Outside the Screen. Ningbo, 10-12 June.
• Sivak, K. (2021) Film Piracy in a Non-Western Context: Alternative or Mainstream? Short Takes on Alternativity: BCMCR New Thinking #1, pp. 10-11.
• Organiser and chair at the PGR Studio Annual Conference 2020.

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