RIPE@2010 Conference
September 8-11, 2010 in London
CALL FOR PAPER PROPOSALS
Public Service Media After the Recession
We are pleased to announce the fifth bi-annual
RIPE conference, this time hosted by the
Communication and Media Research Institute
(CAMRI) at the University of Westminster
together with the BBC and the Office of Communications (Ofcom)
The recession is feeding trends and conditions
that have long been festering but are now coming
to a head for Public Service Broadcasting, and
impacting transition to Public Service Media.
Although better times are coming, and may
already be appearing as ?green shoots?, the
consequences of changes in media policy,
corporate strategy and industrial arrangements
being pursued in response to the recession are
likely to have longer-term implications. As
deficits mount along with rising unemployment
and shrinking tax revenues, governments seem to
have less flexibility to support the public
sector in media. As advertising revenue declines
sharply commercial firms are lobbying more
aggressively for a share of public funding to
offset losses, threatening to end their
unprofitable areas of service provision, and
arguing more strenuously that PSM ought to be
restricted to PSB. A public stressed by economic
hardship, unemployment and financial losses are
worried about mounting deficits may be less
willing to pay for PSM. Thus, in the
recessionary context challenges that have been
simmering for years are coming to a boil. Media
policy, corporate strategy and societal
infrastructure are all in play as a consequence.
This conference will focus on the implications
in topical areas of particular importance:
1. Changing Conceptions and Practices in Journalism
· Dynamics and conditions that challenge professional journalism
· Citizen journalism, networked journalism
and ?journalism as conversation?
· Notions that PSM should be less a
producer and more a news curator or aggregator
· Trends in blogging, crowd sourcing and
wiki practices in information production
· Unique attributes and barriers in PSB news provision
2. Changing Patterns of Media Use and Engagement
· What is changing and for whom ? and what is not changing?
· Consumer experiences and expectations of media
· What advertisers understand about
audiences, behaviours and media consumption that
public broadcasters need to understand
· New models of audience ? emerging ways
to understand what media users are, and why and how this matters
3. Changing Strategies, Business Models and Sustainability
· - Challenges in
implementing new strategies and the structural
and organisational consequences
of altered strategic directions
· Comparing modes of funding for PSM and
evidence of impact on content and service
· Pros and cons of alternative
arrangements for allocating public funding
· Understanding the economic foundations
of PSB as a financial organisation, especially
economic analyses of these companies
· Viability of varied options for
financing in different platforms and genres
· Pay-for media online ? where is it working, how is it working, and why
4. PSM and pressures for Localism and Community Services
· The continuing importance of geographic
communities for democracy and industry
· Identities beyond geographic communities
and implications for democracies and economies
· Changes in targeting strategies and characteristic modes of address
· The complex balance between cohesion and diversity
· Experiments and experiences in public
media for local and regional government
· Patterns of investment in content, of
what kinds and for which groups, and why
· The challenges and opportunities of
community media specifically relevant to PSM
5. Assessments of PSB / PSM Performance
· The extent to which criticisms of PSB
/PSM companies withstand empirical scrutiny
· Organisational and operational performance indicators and results
· Competition in public service media
provision ? how it works and with what results
· Analyses of new instrumentation for
governing PSB (e.g. public value test, service
contracts, contestable funding, external governing boards, etc)
6. Media Policy and Discourse about PSM
· Assessment of public discourses about
PSB / PSM, especially comparative research
· The case for and against the historic status quo
· The debate on state aid and evidence related to that
· PSM?s proper place in the media market today
· Debate over who gets to be a public service provider
· Who deserves to receive public funding, why and on what basis?
· Can societies afford plurality in public service players and contents?
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
On one page (in English):
ü Provide the working title of the paper
ü Include your name, organisational affiliation
with location, and e-mail address
On a second page (in English):
ü Working title of the paper
ü An abstract addressing criteria 1-6 listed below
ü The maximum length is 600 words
ü Submissions due on or before January 11, 2010
All submissions will be peer reviewed as the
basis for acceptance. Reviewers will assess the
proposals using the following criteria:
1. Relevance to conference theme and topics
2. Conceptual/analytic quality (especially beyond purely descriptive)
3. Articulated implications for the
management of public service companies, i.e. relevance to practice
4. Comparative research is highly desired
5. Empirical research is prioritised
6. Generalisability of insights and findings is certainly a factor
Sixty papers will be accepted for presentation
at the conference. The conference language is English.
Decisions will be taken in February with
notification on or about March 1, 2010.
Please send your abstract proposal as an e-mail attachment to:
Jeanette Steemers <mailto:(steemers /at/ btinternet.com)>(steemers /at/ btinternet.com)
Gregory F. Lowe <mailto:(glowe /at/ pp.inet.fi)>(glowe /at/ pp.inet.fi)
The conference registration fee is £250 for
authors. The fee includes meals, amenities and
conference materials. For those attending but
not presenting, the registration fee is £350 and
space is limited. The RIPE conference does not
have funds to supplement personal travel costs
except for invited keynote speakers. A select
number of doctoral students can be included and
the fee in these cases will be £180.
For more information about the RIPE initiative
and the substance of the previous four
conferences, please visit our website:
<http://www.uta.fi/jour/ripe/2008/index.html>http://www.uta.fi/jour/ripe/2008/index.html.
The 2010 conference web site is under construction.
