[ecrea] Interaction of Media and Politics in the Baltic States

Interaction of Media and Politics in the Baltic States
International Scientific Conference hosted by Institute of Journalism of 
Communication Faculty of Vilnius University, 7--8th May 2015, Vilnius. 
Co-organized by Department of Communication Studies of Riga Stradins 
University and Institute of Journalism, Communication and Information 
Studies of Tartu University. The registration is now open and abstract 
submission deadline is 20th January 2015.

Economic crisis has challenged Baltic media field and stimulated 
specific interaction of media and politics. Moreover, media environment 
in the Baltics had experienced new challenges and changes that are due 
to sharpened global tensions in the Eastern Europe. In a short period of 
several months the critical questions of what is the role of Baltic 
media and political journalism when facing possible military threat, how 
to strengthen and protect informational environment of the still 
developing region, have re-emerged and expects answers informed and 
highlighted by the experiences of current events.

Therefore the Conference's Organising Committee issues this call for 
papers for all scholars focusing their research on Baltic media, 
journalism and communication. It is planned to organise the conference 
in following sections:

I. Media policy section's objective is to analyse media policy processes 
in the Baltic countries. Topics of the section:
.        global and local media policy,
.        government policy and public broadcaster,
.        media regulation and self-regulation,
.        economic policy regarding to media subjects,
.        problematic of implementation of media policy,
.        media literacy and education,
.        other topics related to the media policy field.

II. Political and investigative journalism section invites contributions 
from journalism scholars who study problems of contemporary political 
journalism. Topics of the section:
independent journalism and bias in the face of foreign military threat,
.        credibility of information sources during political crisis,
.        censorship and self-censorship,
.        problems of social media use in political reporting,
.        changes of political journalism in an internet era,
.        contemporary political journalists' working environment,
.        commodification and commercialisation of political journalism.
.        conditions for development of investigative journalism,
.        quality of investigative journalism.

III. Political communication section invites to analyse more closely 
processes and tendencies of political communication in the Baltic 
States. Topics of the section:
.        relations between news media and politicians,
.        media impact,
.        governmental political communication,
.        impact of interest and pressure groups communication,
.        political election communication,
.        new media use in political communication

IV. Propaganda, information wars and media audience section is devoted 
to analyse extensive media exploitation during military, paramilitary 
and other political crisis. Section invites contributions that focus on 
problems of:
.        foreign media penetration into local media area,
.        impact of unfriendly foreign news media agenda to local 
communities,
.        methods of news media channels' exploitation in current 
information wars,
.        social media use in information wars,
.        means of battling contemporary information wars,
.        propaganda impact on media audience.

Other topics related to intentional and systematic efforts by the states 
who wage information wars in order to create foreign audience's opinion, 
intervene into internal political affairs, causes tensions in local 
communities and threats to national security are also welcome.

Conference's language is English.

To register, please fill online submission form here: 
http://www.mediaconference.kf.vu.lt/registration/ by 20th January 2015.

No registration or participation fee will be required.

Regarding questions on the conference please e-mail at 
(deimantas.jastramskis /at/ kf.vu.lt) <mailto:(deimantas.jastramskis /at/ kf.vu.lt)> 
or (inga.kazakeviciute /at/ kf.vu.lt) <mailto:(inga.kazakeviciute /at/ kf.vu.lt)>

Interaction of Media and Politics in the Baltic States Conference 
website: http://www.mediaconference.kf.vu.lt/


Kind regards,

Inga Kazakevic(iu-te.
specialist

Faculty of Communication
Institute of Journalism
Vilnius University
Bernardinu; st. 11
Phone (8-5) 219 30 41
Fax (8-5) 219 30 39