[Commlist] CFP Public Service Media's Online Strategies

Call for papers (apologies for cross-posting):

SCREEN INDUSTRIES IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE VIII:
Public Service Media’s Online Strategies: Industry Concepts and Critical 
Investigations

22-23 November 2019, National Film Archive, Prague, Czech Republic

Sponsored by the Charles University in Prague, the Media Industries and 
Cultural Production Section of the European Communication Research and 
Education Association (ECREA), and the Czech Society of Film Studies

The Eighth Annual Screen Industries in East-Central Europe Conference 
(SIECE) is following up with the previous year’s topic by providing a 
forum for discussing the online strategies of public service 
broadcasters and their possible transformations into a new kind of media 
services. While critical studies of television in the internet era and 
of online distribution of audiovisual content more generally have boomed 
in recent years, there has not been enough attention paid to the 
specific challenges and opportunities that the internet brings to public 
service media (PSM). This is even more the case in the small countries 
of Central and Eastern Europe where PSM have generally limited their 
online presence to catch-up services and are still looking for more 
complex solutions to keep up with commercial and global competition. 
They face enormous difficulties ranging from outdated legal frameworks 
and financing models, a lack of skills in digital curation or data 
analytics, unpredictable changes in consumer habits, the impact of 
social media platforms, and political attacks trying to take advantage 
of PSM’s insecure position. At the same time, the convergence of 
television and the internet presents opportunities for new business 
models, modes of audience engagement, and conceptualisations of public 
value. The SIECE VIII will strive to bring together international 
scholars of online TV with media professionals and policymakers to draw 
a picture of the situation, its roots and contexts, and possible 
scenarios for future development within East-Central Europe and beyond.

Potential topics for papers and panels include, but are not limited to:
- Public value: how the shift to online TV makes media professionals as 
well as policymakers and audiences reconsider the core values of public 
service media possibilities for creating public value outside the 
designated institutional spaces of PSM
- Industry structures: shifts in the dual TV market and the place of PSM 
in the emerging online-TV/VOD market competition/cooperation with the 
commercial and global digital services strategies of overcoming the 
public/commercial divide (such as the “ecosystem approach”) and their 
dangers
- Infrastructures: issues of access and digital divide, net neutrality, 
mobile data, smart TV
- Digital curation and big data: balancing linear schedules with 
nonlinear catalogues, archival material with new content, personalized 
recommendation algorithms with top-down editorial selections and curation
- Online content strategies: development of trans-platform narratives, 
new promotional content/strategies, novel media formats, and short-form, 
web-only, spreadable content as a measure to re-connect with 
under-served (younger) audience groups
- Online audiences: the place of PSM online viewing in “media ensembles” 
and “use genres” of today’s TV audiences PSM’s own concepts and 
measurements of online audiences
- “Public social” media or “platformization” of PSM: consequences of 
interactions and hybridizations between social media and PSM
- National and supra-national policies/politics vis-à-vis online TV: the 
European Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy and its potential 
impact on PSM online services the place and role of the EBU; 
territoriality of copyright and geoblocking new dangers PSBs face from 
their political opponents after transforming into PSM PSM’s open data 
policy
- Professional cultures: tensions between TV and internet cultures 
within the PSM institutional spaces self-conceptions of PSM employees, 
independent producers and freelance talent up and down the professional 
hierarchy “industry lores” of PSM decision-makers
- Transnational flows and globalization: co-production, format 
adaptation, cross-border circulation, and localization of public service 
content in the internet era, threats to local content and content diversity

The Screen Industries in East-Central Europe conference investigates the 
region’s audiovisual media industries from all angles – local, 
transnational, economic, cultural, social, and political – and through a 
broad range of original scholarship delivered in the form of conceptual 
papers and empirical case-studies. We welcome papers and panels 
exploring these issues from a range of contexts within and beyond 
Europe. A selection of the conference proceedings will be published in a 
special English-language issue of the Czech Film Studies journal 
Iluminace (www.iluminace.cz <http://www.iluminace.cz>).

The 2019 Screen Industries in East-Central Europe Conference is 
co-organized with the ECREA Media Industries and Cultural Production 
Section. The conference will be preceded by a PhD workshop organized by 
the Media Industries and Cultural Production YECREA section, which will 
be held on 22 November.

The 2019 SIECE Program Committee invites proposals for twenty-minute 
conference papers and for panels of three or four speakers focusing on 
any topic related to public service media’s online strategies and within 
and beyond the East-Central European audiovisual industries. Panels of 
three to four papers should include a brief summarizing reflection of 
between five and ten minutes, which will be delivered by an assigned 
respondent to facilitate discussion. Proposals for conference papers 
should include a title, an abstract of up to 150 words, and between 
three and five key bibliographical references, along with the 
presenter’s name, the presenter’s institutional affiliation, and a 
concise academic bio. Panel proposals should include a panel title, a 
short description of up to 100 words on the panel’s focus, and proposals 
of all of the papers to be delivered (including the information 
described above). Please submit proposals no later than 15 June 2019 to 
(Petr.Szczepanik /at/ ff.cuni.cz) <mailto:(Petr.Szczepanik /at/ ff.cuni.cz)>.

Conference attendance is free, and the conference will be conducted in 
English.

Conference Organizers: Petr Szczepanik, Catherine Johnson, Pavel 
Zahrádka, Johana Kotišová, Giulia Manica, Maria Michalis, Julia Velkova, 
Kateřina Svatoňová, and Lucie Česálková, in association with the Film 
Studies Department, Charles University, and the National Film Archive, 
Prague.
Conference Management: Jiří Anger ((jiri.anger /at/ nfa.cz) 
<mailto:(jiri.anger /at/ nfa.cz)>; [+ 420] 778 522 720)

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