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Istanbul 2011 - European Public Broadcasting Policies Working Group Call for Papers
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International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR)
29th Annual Research Conference
Istanbul, Turkey - July 13-17, 2011

Creating Public Value: For whom?

Convenors:

Jo Bardoel
ASCoR, University of Amsterdam
Radboud University Nijmegen
The Netherlands

Leen d’Haenens
Catholic University Leuven
Belgium

It is fair to say that public service broadcasters are confronted with changing environments due to economic constraints, political pressure, and technological innovation. The growth of media far exceeds the growth of consumption, which inevitably leads to audience fragmentation with extremes of use and non-use as well as fragmentation of financial resources, possibly resulting in quality loss.  These global market place forces and fundamental socio-political and technological challenges play a central role in the debate on the public service broadcasters’ mission: broad-scale or not. The further development of public service broadcasters into public service media is currently being contested, as further digital and online presence of public service broadcasters may provoke unfair competition with other market parties such as newspaper publishers.

This working group on public service media policies aims at discussing the functions of public service media as being a source of innovation and diversity (in terms of genres, content, perspectives, audiences); as an independent editorial source of credible information; offering a shared frame of reference (grounded in a multi-ethnic society), asking ourselves: Are we being served? And how inclusive are the contours of “we”?

The Working Group on European Public Broadcasting Policies invites papers on the following topics:

  • the creation of public value worldwide: cross-country evidence, in-depth country cases;
  • the role of the public service media in the crisis of informed citizenship;
  • the crisis of the national frame of reference, and citizenship beyond borders;
  • urban youth: taste cultures and media preferences, with an emphasis on public service media formats;
  • EC Communication on State Aid creating clear conditions for the role of PSB/PSM in society;
  • open and reflective diversity as indicators of quality: any impact of the economic downturn?
  • the impact of the Internet that seems to change everything when it comes to creating public value.
The Working Group on European Public Broadcasting Policies explicitly also welcomes submissions from non-EU countries, in order to be able to come to grips with the notion of public value as seen from a broader cultural and geographical perspective.

Deadlines and Submission Details

The deadline for submission of abstracts is February 8, 2011.

Submission of abstracts and full papers is to be done online through IAMCR's Open Conference System (OCS).