[ecrea] cfp international conference Comparative media studies in today’s world: journalism cultures in various socio-political contexts

we are glad to invite all who are interested in media studies to join 
the scientific discussion at the international conference  "Comparative 
media studies in today’s world: journalism cultures in various 
socio-political contexts" that will be held on 25th April 2014 in St. 
Petersburg State University (Russia).

Thank you for dissemination of this CFP.

Best wishes,
Anna Smoliarova


CFP: international conference “Comparative media studies in today’s 
world: journalism cultures in various socio-political contexts”

Date: 25th April 2014

Place: School of journalism and mass communications, St. Petersburg 
State University, St. Petersburg, Russia (http://eng.jf.spbu.ru/)

Submission deadline: 25.02.2014

Language: English



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: http://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 /at/ jf.pu.ru)



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