International conference “Comparative media studies in today’s world: journalism cultures in various socio-political contexts” on 25th April 2014. Call for papers.

January 24, 2014

Date: 25th April 2014

Place: School of journalism and mass communications, St. Petersburg State University,

St. Petersburg, Russia (http://eng.jf.spbu.ru/)

Language: English

Submission deadline: 25.02.2014.

Description: Modern comparative media studies are today practically the only branch of research where one could tell of media studies not just as of an inter-disciplinary field but as of a separate science with its own object and method. Though emerging in the cold war years (Siebert, Peterson and Schramm 1960), since the late 1980s there has been a plea among scientists to de-ideologize the research field and to search for linkages between social, economic, political and cultural aspects of societal development and particular features of media systems. Especially essential is comparative studying and later modelling of democratic functions of media for established and transitive democracies (Blumler&Gurevitch 1995).

But such a research premise is both good and bad: having deprived comparative studies of direct ideology-based normativity, it implicitly introduces closeness to democratic ideal, not to 'insider' understanding of journalistic professional functions. There's an almost Marxist (inter)dependence of social, political, economic and cultural parameters and given parameters of media systems. Even the best milestone works in comparative media systems and media cultures research (Hallin&Mancini 2004; Hanitzsch et al. 2011) are not deprived of that. Another point of criticism is low 'stretching' potential in terms of applicability to transitive democracies and need for new assessment criteria suitable, e.g., for new political milieus like BRICS countries.

With this conference we would like to stress the importance of the comparative research on journalism cultures and functions in today’s globalised world, especially within Europe, which can bring us (Western and Eastern Europe in particular) closer to understanding of the interdependences between media and political systems and differences of the perception of journalism functions in various contexts. For the second year, this conference gathers comparative media research experts of the highest profile, like Thomas Hanitzsch (Germany), Daya Thussu (UK) and others. The program of the previous conference can be found here: eng.jf.spbu.ru/news/42-40.html

General topics and questions for discussions:

- Journalism cultures in Eastern and Western Europe

- Media research projects about journalism cultures: criticism and perspectives

- Russian media in the context of today’s comparative research

- Journalism functions in hybrid media systems: research and practice

Abstracts should range between 150 and 300 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).

There will be no registration fee for the conference. Travel and accommodation costs will be covered by participants. The organizers will, on request, provide the necessary letters for the purposes of issuing visas to foreign visitors.

Submission deadline: 25.02.2014

Email: nauka@jf.pu.ru