Dear CMCS friends and supporters,
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
2009 has started in busy fashion and with several interesting projects
at the Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS) at Central
European University (CEU). We are expanding our work in media and
communications policy, community and citizen media, privacy and
surveillance and media development. 2009 will also be the year to
commemorate the dramatic change of 1989, and CMCS will host a major
conference to reflect on the developments in Central/Eastern Europe over
the past 20 years.
In this newsletter we would like to inform you about our most recent
activities and newly launched projects as well as to keep you posted on
the up-coming major events. If you have any feedback or queries, feel
free to contact us at (cmcs /at/ ceu.hu). If you no longer wish to receive this
quarterly newsletter, just send an email to the same address.
To read about all our past projects, events and news, visit the CMCS
Newsletters webpage: http://www.cmcs.ceu.hu/about-us/newsletters
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CMCS Budapest - Newsletter 1/2009
Contents:
1. "Beyond East and West" Conference: 25-27 June 2009
2. Executive Training on "Advanced Policies and Regulation of
Electronic Communications Networks and Services"
3. CMCS is going "BROAD"
4. Public lectures at CEU
5. CMCS Film series at CEU
6. Workshop Series on "Hate Speech and Incitement to Violence"
7. CMCS campaigns for Internet safety and freedoms
8. Up-coming summer school on â??Media, Democratization and
International Developmentâ??
9. Academic programs at CEU
10. CMCS out and about: Conferences, presentations and publications
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1. "Beyond East and West" Conference: 25-27 June 2009
CMCS is busy planning one of the major academic events to commemorate
20 years of systemic change in Central/Eastern Europe: the international
conference â??Beyond East and West: Two Decades of Media Transformation
After the Fall of Communismâ??. The gathering will serve to analyze and
understand the developments in this region since 1989, draw conclusions
from and for media change and media transformation, and explore
connections with transitions in Western Europe, East Asia, and elsewhere
across the globe.
We are very happy that a large number of internationally acclaimed
keynote and plenary speakers have confirmed their participation,
including Miklos Haraszti (OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media),
Slavko Splichal (University of Ljubljana), Elihu Katz (Annenberg School
for Communication, University of Pennsylvania) and Barbie Zelizer
(President of the International Communication Association, Annenberg
School for Communication). 200 scholars from Eastern and Western Europe,
the former Soviet Union, East Asia, North and South America, Africa and
Australia have submitted paper and panel proposals.
The event will mark the closure of the European research initiative
COST A30 â??East of West: Setting a New Central and Eastern European
Media Research Agenda", and will be a regional conference of the
International Communications Association (ICA). Read more on the
conference website: http://www.beyondeastandwest.net
2. Executive Training on "Advanced Policies and Regulation of
Electronic Communications Networks and Services"
In January 26-30, 2009, CMCS held an Executive Training designed for
The National Communications Authority Hungary (NHH) on "Advanced
Policies and Regulation of Electronic Communications Networks and
Services". The one-week training featured international guest lecturers
such as Michael H. Ryan (Arnold & Porter LLP), Monica Arino and Alistair
Bridge (Ofcom), Chris Doyle (Warwick Business School), and Russ Taylor
(Oxford University). Assistant Professor of the CEU Department of Public
Policy and CMCS member Kristina Irion developed the conceptual design of
the Executive Training and delivered a number of sessions. Laura Ranca
of CMCS helped to implement the Executive Training and presented on
â??Network Neutrality from the userâ??s perspectiveâ??. The
participants, all civil servants of the NHH, were highly satisfied with
the content and the faculty of the training. Read more about the
training concept, program and results here:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/nhh/training
3. CMCS is going "BROAD"
CMCS and partners have won a European Union grant for the project
"Broadening the Range Of Awareness in Data protection (BROAD)". The
BROAD Project, to be developed in the next 18 months, is a collaborative
effort of Hungarian and Dutch not-for-profit organizations to raise
awareness in the area of data protection and information privacy by
using innovative means and methods. The partners in this project are:
Center for Media and Communication Studies (CMCS), Eötvös Károly Policy
Institute - EKINT, Hungary, Stichting Katholieke Univesiteit Brabant
(Tilburg University -TILT), The Netherlands. With this project, CMCS
will expand its activities and expertise in the field of privacy and
surveillance. CMCS member Kristina Irion is the academic coordinator of
this project and CMCS researcher Eva Bognar will conduct the Hungarian
part of the surveys. Read more:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/cmcs-going-broad
4. Public lectures at CEU
In the past three months, the CMCS guest lecture series at CEU
included
two internationally renowned media scholarsâ?? presentations:
- Prof. Yoram Peri, Head of the Chaim Herzog Institute for Media
Politics and Society, Tel Aviv University: "Telepopulism: Media and
Politics in Israel and the U.S.", 7 January
- Katherine Sender, Annenberg School for Communication, University of
Pennsylvania: "Makeover television, audiences, and the reflexive self",
25 March
5. CMCS Film series at CEU
In addition to public lectures, CMCS organized several film screenings
followed by discussions for CEU students and faculty as well as external
visitors:
- â??The Lives of Othersâ??, on the occasion of CMCSâ??s participation
in the Council of Europe's campaign marking the 3rd International
â??Data Protection Day", 28 January. More at:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/be-aware
- â??Don't get me wrong" and "Viva Constanta", two international
award-winning Romanian documentaries, introduced by Dr. Brindusa
Armanca, Director of the Romanian Cultural Institute in Budapest, 2
March. More at: http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/Romanian-documentaries
- â??Wapikoni Mobileâ??, a collection of short films by First Nations
Youth of
Quebec, Canada, in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada in Hungary,
23 March. More at: http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/wapikoni-mobile
6. Workshop Series on "Hate Speech and Incitement to Violence"
CMCS Senior Research Fellow Peter Molnar and Professor Kendall Thomas
from Columbia Law School (New York) have designed a workshop series at
Columbia which is to reflect on hate speech and related issues. The
first workshop took place on 9 February. Peter Molnar is currently at
Columbia Law School as a Visiting Lecturer. Read more:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/launch-workshop-series-hate-speech-and-incitement-violence
7. CMCS campaigns for Internet safety and freedoms
With the occasion of the 2009 "Safer Internet Day" promoted by the
European Commission - DG Information Society and Media, CMCS hosted a
half-day workshop on the topic of "SAFER INTERNET - The Hungarian
Agenda" on 10 February at CEU. The event was organized in collaboration
with several Hungarian NGOs and enjoyed a diverse audience and active
panel participation from the civil society, academia, media and policy
makers alike. Read more at:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/safer-internet-day-hungary-event-february-10-2009
In the context of the on-going revision of the EU Telecom Package (i.e.
the Communications Framework Directive), CMCS has also joined a European
civil society initiative of internet, media and communications NGOs and
policy research institutes that advocates the principles of Network
Neutrality and Privacy Protection in the online environment. The
initiative was launched in late-January 2009 and a joint declaration was
published on February 16th. The declaration, which has been publicly
supported by the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), states
concern on those amendments to the Telecoms Package which challenge the
traditional freedoms of the Internet and of its users. The full text of
the declaration is available at:
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/campaigns/open-letter-telecom-package. The
campaign continues and a follow-up declaration drafting by the same
coalition is currently in progress.
8. Up-coming summer school on â??Media, Democratization and
International Developmentâ??
We are very pleased that our 2009 summer school â??Media,
Democratization and International Development: Foundations for a More
Robust Research Agendaâ?? has drawn a large number of very interesting
applicants from all over the world. The summer school will take place in
Budapest from 29 June to 15 July 2009 and it will bring together
renowned faculty from a number of institutions, including the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, CEU, the
University of Georgia, Oxfordâ??s Programme in Comparative Media Law and
Policy (PCMLP), the London School of Economics (LSE), the BBC World
Service Trust, and many others. The course is co-hosted with the
Annenberg School for Communication and developed in partnership with
international NGOs. The program will focus on assessing the impact of
media in a development context and will discuss development theories,
governance, assistance practices, research methods and case studies. In
addition, students will embark on mentored field trips, involving
practical work on media development projects.
The summer school is greatly benefiting from the financial support of
the Open Society Institute (OSI)â??s Network Media Program, which
provides scholarships for 12 participants from all over the world. For
further information on the course and syllabus up-dates please visit the
course web site: http://www.sun.ceu.hu/media
9. Academic programs at CEU
CEUâ??s Department of Public Policy, which offers in collaboration with
CMCS a specialization stream in Media, Information and Communications
Policy as part of its MA in Public Policy (MPP), has received the
highest number of dedicated applications for this stream since its
establishment. More than 20 candidates from eleven countries
specifically chose to apply to CEU for admittance to the Media,
Information and Communications Policy Stream and inter alia the
scholarships provided by Magyar Telecom. Read more about the stream
here: http://www.ceu.hu/web/dpp/studies/streams/media. CMCS is also
continuing to collaborate with the CEU Department of Political Science
in offering the very popular Certificate in Political Communication as
part of the Departmentâ??s MA in Political Science. Read more here:
http://web.ceu.hu/polsci/
The application deadline for the PhD in Political Science, including
the dedicated Public Policy track, has been extended to April 15, 2009.
The Department of Public Policy welcomes applications in all fields of
public policy research and analysis including Media and Communications
Policy. For more information on the PhD program, visit:
http://web.ceu.hu/polsci/
10. CMCS out and about: Conferences, presentations and publications
Kristina Irion, Assistant Professor of the CEU Department of Public
Policy and CMCS member, gave several international talks in the past
three months. On 8 February 2009, she gave a remote presentation on
â??The Level of Data Protection in Kyrgyzstan: A Comparative
Analysisâ?? on occasion of the 1st International "Internet and Law"
Conference in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. On 24 March 2009, she presented to
the staff of the Data Protection and Freedom of Information Commissioner
of Hungary (OBH, www.obh.hu) on International Communications
Surveillance. On 31 March, she participated in a roundtable on â??Online
Data Collection, Targeting and Profiling for Commercial Purposes in
Online Environmentsâ?? of the European Commission Directorate General
for 'Health and Consumers' in Brussels, and attends the April 1-2
â??European Consumer Summit on Consumer Trust in the Digital Market
Placeâ?? (http://www.european-consumer-summit.eu/). She recently
published a column on "International Communications Tapped for
Intelligence-Gathering" in the February edition of the Communications of
the ACM. Read the article here:
http://cmcs.ceu.hu/files/u3/KristinaIrion_CACM5202PrivacyandSecurity.pdf
.
Kate Coyer, Postdoctoral Research Fellow recently published: 1)â??The
Need for an Enabling Environment,â?? in the Internews â??Community Media
Sustainability Guide: The Business of Changing Livesâ??, 2009
(http://cmcs.ceu.hu/files/u3/InternewsCommunityMediaGuide2009.pdf)
and 2) "Community Media: Scholarship, Policy Advocacy, and Power
Toolsâ?? (http://www.ssrc.org/essays/mcrm/?p=28), an essay for the
Social Science Research Council's (SSRC) series entitled "Making
Communication Research Matter" (http://www.ssrc.org/essays/mcrm/). Coyer
also gave a talk on "Technology, data and door knocking: data-driven
grassroots mobilizations in the Obama campaign" as part of a series of
sessions examining the strategies and tactics employed in the U.S. 2008
elections for the Hungarian content provider Origo.
Kate Coyer and CMCS' Laura Ranca organized and ran a lecture and a
workshop session on â??Communicating community: issues of media and
literacy, old and newâ??, in Kremunster, Austria, for the Visegrad Fund
- sponsored youth conference â??Stay in Touch: Media Innovations and
Influences in Central Europeâ?? (February 18-22, 2009).
Coyer and CMCS Director Arne Hintz gave a presentation on â??Community
Media in the Academic Context: Current Situation and Tendenciesâ?? as
part of a workshop â??Community Media and European Policyâ??, held in
Halle, Germany, on 13-14 March, which brought together community media
researchers and practitioners from 14 countries and continued CMCSâ??
ongoing collaboration with the Community Media Forum Europe (CMFE), an
advocacy network for and by community media.
Laura Ranca took part in the Consumer Forum on Communications (CFC)
hosted by the UK communications regulator Ofcom in London on 25 March.
The trip was part of a study tour during which she interviewed a wide
range of international policy experts for a policy study on
â??International Regulatory Practices for Consumer Awareness and
Empowerment in the Communications Marketâ?? which she is currently
conducting for the National Communications Authority of Hungary (NHH).
Peter Molnar spoke on a panel on "Freedom of Speech and the Legislation
of Memory" as part of the conference "Healing the Wounds: Speech,
Identity, and Reconciliation in Rwanda" on 30 March 2009, organized by
the Program in Holocaust and Human Rights Studies at the Benjamin
Cardozo School of Law, US
(http://cmcs.ceu.hu/news/healing-wounds-speech-identity-and-reconciliation-rwanda).
+++
CMCS is a center of excellence for promoting media and communication
studies throughout the Central and Eastern European region. Based at the
Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, it conducts cutting-edge
practice-oriented research, organizes workshops, lectures and
conferences on current developments in the field, and operates within an
international network of acclaimed scholars and academic institutions.
More information on these and other activities is available on the
center's website: http://cmcs.ceu.hu/
