[eccr] --- !!! ECCR !!!! --- CALL FOR PAPERS & CHAPTERS --- please read

BEYOND THE WSIS:
Towards a sustainable agenda for the future
Information Society

A call for papers
ECCR-conference, European Parliament, 1 March 2004

A call for book chapters
ECCR-book, edited by Jan Servaes & Nico Carpentier

Rationale:
The stakes are high at the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society 
(WSIS). The "peoples of the world" declare in the Draft Declaration of 
Principles (14 November 2003) that their "common desire and commitment (is) 
to build a people-centred, inclusive and development oriented Information 
Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information 
and knowledge, enabling
individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in 
promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of 
life, premised on the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United 
Nations [and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]."

The ECCR-conference will focus on these ambitious aims, in order to analyse 
and evaluate the conditions of possibility, processes and actual/expected 
outcomes of the first phase of the WSIS. One specific point of attention 
will be the inclusion of civil society and business actors in the 
decision-making process, as Resolution 56/183, adopted by the 90 th plenary 
meeting of the General Assembly on 21 December 2001, called for their 
active participation in the WSIS. In one of the EU's PrepCom documents the 
Summit itself is seen as a model for the future role of civil society (and 
commerce): "the preparatory process is almost as important as the political 
outcomes of the Summit itself. The format and positioning of the Summit 
will be key factors for an event which will attract attention and activate 
a decentralised follow up process, not only at political level but also in 
society at large." (EU, PrepCom 1 document 19/6/02: 12)

This touches directly on the second objective of the ECCR-conference. Since 
the Lisbon summit official texts of the European Commission teem with new 
terms coined with reference to the Information Society, such as New 
Information and Communication Technologies (NICTs), on-line world, 
knowledge and innovation economy, e-Europe, etc. The very same ambitions 
that are present in the WSIS discourse can be found at the European level. 
In the eEurope 2002 Action Plan (EU, 2001: 4) for instance a call towards 
the member states can be found in order to "draw the attention of citizens 
to the emerging possibilities of digital technologies to help to ensure a 
truly inclusive information society. Only through positive action now can 
info-exclusion be avoided at the European level."

Objectives:

The ECCR conference and book aim to analyse and evaluate these ambitions, 
but at the same time we want to develop a number of recommendations for 
consideration to policy makers and researchers. Here the points of 
attention are the need to increase the social dimension of ICT policies, to 
develop new forms of awareness raising activities, to support to cross 
country research and to re-formulate the economic drivers of the digital 
growth.

Papers and Book chapters can be submitted to:

Nico Carpentier,
Catholic University of Brussels (KUB)
Email: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ kubrussel.ac.be)

Jan Servaes,
President, European Consortium for Communications Research (ECCR)
Email: (Jan.Servaes /at/ eccr.info)

Deadline for the submission of papers:
February 1, 2004.
Early abstracts will be given priority.

Deadline for the submission of book chapters:
May 1, 2004.
For more information, please visit the website of ECCR at
http://www.eccr.info
or contact Rico Lie at <(Rico.Lie /at/ wur.nl)>


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Carpentier Nico (Phd)
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Katholieke Universiteit Brussel - Catholic University of Brussels
Vrijheidslaan 17 - B-1081 Brussel - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-412.42.78
Office: 4/0/18
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Media Sociology (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.30
Office: C0.05
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ kubrussel.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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ECCR - European Consortium for Communications Research
Secretariat: P.O. Box 106, B-1210 Brussels 21, Belgium
Tel.: +32-2-412 42 78/47
Fax.: +32-2-412 42 00
Email: (freenet002 /at/ pi.be) or (Rico.Lie /at/ pi.be)
URL: http://www.eccr.info
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