[ecrea] CFP - Central European Journal of Communication -- Issue on Public Service Media

The Central European Journal of Communication is receiving article
proposal for its next issue:

Volume 6, No 2 (11) Fall 2013
Guest Editor: Roberto Suárez Candel
Editor: Michał Głowacki

The Extension of Public Service Media in the Multiplatform Scenario


Introduction

Digitalization and the subsequent technological innovations have
fostered the detachment between content, physical supports, networks
and devices. At the same time, the latter become more versatile thanks
to convergence and acquire a new protagonism in the media and
communication ecosystem. As a result, a multiplatform scenario is
being configured. This has a major impact on media contents and
services, which today experience a strong wave of innovation and
hybridization. Being available online is not any more an add-on but a
pre-requisite for success. In addition, mobility emerges as the next
distribution trend. Consequently, ubiquity, time-shifting, on-demand,
personalization and social sharing are becoming current and necessary
characteristics of any media content.
In the case of Public Service, technology innovation allows its
operators deploying new offerings that overcome the borders of
broadcasting. In fact, public broadcasters are demonstrating that they
are still innovators and pioneers. Across Europe, many of them have
developed a wide range of online and mobile services that have become
‘flag-ships’ of the market.
This evolution and extension of Public Service has led to a
confrontation between players within the media sector. On the one
hand, the private agents argue that the new opportunities enabled by
technology, and the associated potential revenues, should exclusively
belong to the commercial sphere. Otherwise, according to their own
calculations and benefit expectations, market viability, development
and growth might be jeopardized. From their point of view, most of the
innovation activities carried out by Public Service Media exceed their
remit and distort free competition. On the other hand, it is evident
that the configuration of a digital and multiplatform media scenario
generates opportunities for public broadcasters to improve their
performance and to offer a better service as well as a higher
value-for-money to the citizens.
Finally, a very relevant issue to consider is whether technology can
solve existing market failures and whether it creates new ones. This
fact is crucial in order to determine the need for Public Service as a
tool to ensure universal service and access as well as to guarantee
the quality, pluralism, diversity or the social representativeness of
the media offer.

Objectives
According to this scenario, this special issue of the Central European
Journal of Communication wants to explore the current transformations
and adaptations experienced by Public Service operators with regard to
their remit, organization and performance.
In addition, the issue wants to identify the different conflicts
arising from that evolution and in which way they are addressed by
national authorities by means of policy or regulatory instruments,
like the so called ex-ante evaluation procedures.
By means of tackling these facts, this special issue also aims to
identify and systematize the current debate regarding the future role
of public service in the field of media.

Questions
Submitted articles are expected to provide answers to some of the
following questions:
- Which are the main challenges, opportunities and risks that public
service faces due to the configuration of a multiplatform scenario?
- How do public service operators adapt themselves to the
multiplatform scenario? What does it imply from the point of view of
management culture, internal structure, productions practices and the
configuration of an extended offer?
- What are the main arguments of those economic profit oriented
players against the extension of public service activities?
- How do public service operators counteract the increasing hostility
of commercial players against them?
- How can public service operators improve the value-for-money
proposal that they offer to the citizens?
- What policy and regulatory mechanisms are being implemented to
address / determine / influence the evolution of public service?
- Is Public Service still necessary in order to face market failure
situations and to ensure that the media system provides social
profitability?

Paper submission
We ask scholars and researchers interested in publication to submit
manuscripts of max. 45 000 characters by 31 October 2012. Eight papers
for the publication will be selected by 15 November 2012. Full-length
papers shall be submitted (tojournal /at/ ptks.pl)  and
(r.suarez /at/ hans-bredow-institut.de)  according to the Style and Manuscript
Guidelines laid out on the official website of the CEJC:
www.cejc.ptks.pl
----------------------------
 "Central European Journal of Communication" (ISSN 1899-5101) - the
official Journal of the Polish Communication Association is published
twice a year by the University of Wroclaw Press.



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