IAMCR 2014: Public Service Media Policies Working Group - CfP - Deadline 10 February

Public Service Media Polices Working Group - Call for Proposals -Redefining public media spaces: Regional frames, global challenges

Established public media provisions are under threat: both public service broadcasting and professional journalism are severely challenged by new technologies and increasing competition in market-based media ecologies. At the same time the new cyberspace promises unprecedented new informative and participatory opportunities for citizens and civil society, independent from the powers that be, although new corporate power positions are becoming more prominent. In addition to new technologies that break down the barriers of distance and time, changing global power relations and news flows are also challenging existing borders between nations and regions.

In this new context public media spaces and policies have to be rethought and redefined, building both on established practices and new opportunities, taking into account regional traditions and differences in organizing public spaces, and based on redefined relations between the state, the market and civil society and new conceptualizations of media governance. The conference theme provides an excellent lens for thinking through contemporary transformations in state-market-civil society-relations.

Theme-related questions of particular interest from a public service media policy perspective include:

• How do regional differences in media culture, media economics, and media policies shape the implementation of public service media platforms?

• How are national media regulation and policy-making affecting public service media traditions and practices, including at the regional level?

• How do laws, regulations, and policies affect or even stimulate the ability of regions to set up collaborations between public service media actors and relevant other regional actors with a view to exchange of information and culture-building goals?

In addition to and/or in articulation with the conference sub-themes, the Public Service Media Polices Working Group also welcomes theoretical or empirical submissions on:

• The Internet and social media as public service media platforms

• Audiences and public service media content

• Journalism and public service media goals

• Privacy and public service media

• Public service media and responsibility: e.g., reporting on vulnerable groups, victims

• Public service media and issues of diversity, gender, and age representation

• Media capital and financial means for public service media platforms

• Public interest and public value: for whom?

• Media policy and regulation and their impact on public service media provision

• Media, citizenship, democracy and the role of public service media

• Creative industries and public service media

• Public service media’s coping strategies with on-going crisis

• Public service media and the voices from the OccupyWallStreet, Arab Spring and Indignados around the world (Brazil, Colombia, Greece, Mexico, Spain, Turkey, etc.) as counter-hegemonic social agents

The Public Service Media Policies Working Group also invites papers addressing World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)-related topics with the focus on its 10 year history to be presented in a session organized by the Working Group on Global Media Policy.
Abstracts should range between 300 and 500 words in length including the research objectives, theoretical framework and methodology. Each proposal must include title, name(s), affiliation, institutional address and email addresses of the author(s). All abstract submissions must be made centrally via the IAMCR Open Conference System (OCS) available for abstract submission at http://iamcr-ocs.org.

The deadlines are as follows:

Paper Submission

Early submission is strongly encouraged. Individuals may submit 1 abstract (paper) per Section or Working Group as lead author, and a maximum of 2 abstracts (papers) to a single IAMCR conference in general.

Panel Submission

Panels are for 90 minutes. A complete panel proposal will include:

1. The panel description, including, the panel title, a framing text, the names of the panelists and the titles of their papers. The framing text (maximum 350 words) should contain the overall idea and goal of the panel. A panel chair and a discussant should also be proposed.

2. An abstract for each paper, including title and author(s). Abstract submissions must include the words PANEL PRESENTATION in their title and the complete title of the panel in the first line of the abstract.

IAMCR accepts presentations in English, French and Spanish. However, it is requested that abstracts, if at all possible, be submitted in English.

Further information about IAMCR and this conference is available on the respective websites at:

IAMCR Website: www.iamcr.org

Conference website: http://iamcr2014.org/conference-theme/

‘Public Service Media Policies’ Working Group

Chair:
Jo Bardoel, University of Amsterdam/Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands

Vice-Chair:
Leen d’Haenens, KU Leuven, Belgium