[ecrea] Disintermediation Processes and New Media

> Italian Political Science Association (SISP)
>
> > Annual meeting, Luiss University, Rome, 17-19 September 2009
> >
> > Panel on Disintermediation Processes and New Media
> > Section of Political Communication
> > Convenors: Lorenzo Mosca and Cristian Vaccari
> > Discussant: Sara Bentivegna
> >
> > By promoting processes of disintermediation, 
> > the new media stimulate the production of 
> > autonomous information flows, which bypass 
> > gate-keeping practices by both political actors 
> > and traditional mass media. While journalists 
> > maintain an important filtering function 
> > between society and the mediated public sphere, 
> > they have to face a double challenge. On the 
> > one hand, they are by-passed by the 
> > proliferation of alternative media, especially 
> > online (web radios, portals, blogs, forum, 
> > street televisions, and so forth). On the other 
> > hand, they have to deal with the possibility 
> > for political and social actors to autonomously 
> > represent themselves via the new media, not 
> > least through social networking tools 
> > (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.). In turn, 
> > these new communication arenas enable actors 
> > that are outsiders in the institutional 
> > political sphere to autonomously organize 
> > themselves and, in some cases, to incisively 
> > participate to public life. How does, then, the 
> > functioning of the public sphere and political 
> > communication change as a result? How does the 
> > relationship between communication producers 
> > and receivers change when disintermediation 
> > processes occur? Under which conditions can 
> > effective participatory spaces be opened up for 
> > actors excluded from the institutional sphere? 
> > Which strategies do political actors devise to 
> > take advantage of these opportunities, and to 
> > what extent are they motivated to doing so?
> >
> > During the last decade, the scientific 
> > literature on these issues has produced 
> > comparative analyses on the online presence of 
> > political parties, unions, representative 
> > institutions, civil society actors and groups, 
> > or of some combinations of these different 
> > actors. Most of these studies have utilized 
> > standardized codebooks for website analysis. 
> > Other studies, however, have developed 
> > insightful qualitative analysis, while at the 
> > same time being limited by their focus on single case-studies.
> >
> > While this line of research has mostly focused 
> > on the organizational (meso) level, research on 
> > the individual (micro) level has only 
> > episodically relied on fully representative 
> > surveys capable of solid generalizations. The 
> > surveys conducted so far have often been based 
> > either on samples representative of the whole 
> > population ­ where, as a consequence, a 
> > limited amount of items focused on internet 
> > usage ­ and surveys on self-selected samples 
> > of internet users, which in some cases featured 
> > articulated sets of indicators on information 
> > consumption and production online, but offered 
> > little in terms of generalizability. Moreover, 
> > to date the literature does not feature any 
> > longitudinal study of internet users.
> >
> > This panel aims at collecting contributions 
> > focusing on processes of disintermediation 
> > enabled by new media, focusing on both 
> > individuals and organizations. We particularly 
> > welcome proposals that integrate quantitative 
> > and qualitative methods and that shed light on 
> > the role of contextual factors in these 
> > participatory practices, thus illuminating the 
> > nexus between online and offline environments.
> >
> > SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
> >
> > Please send a title and an abstract of up to 
> > 250 words to 
> > <mailto:(lmosca /at/ uniroma3.it)>(lmosca /at/ uniroma3.it) 
> > or 
> > <mailto:(cristian.vaccari /at/ unibo.it)>(cristian.vaccari /at/ unibo.it) 
> > by June 15, 2009. Proposals and papers can be 
> > submitted either in English or Italian. A 
> > decision about which contributions to include 
> > will be made by June, 20 2009. See 
> > <http://www.sisp.it/convegno>http://www.sisp.it/convegno 
> > for rurther details on the meeting.

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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