Call for Papers of the Book Series "Relation: Communication Research
in Comparative Perspective"
In Cooperation with the "Network Media Structures"
"Media Structures and Media Performance: Current Research and New
Perspectives"
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Mass media are of utmost importance for contemporary society. Aside
from their economic importance, the media play a significant social,
cultural and political role. On the one hand, they influence social
formation by disseminating values, norms and ideas, and by providing
ways for viewing the world. On the other hand, modern democracies rely
on the mass media for making ideas widely known and for offering an
arena for debate about public policy issues. Thus, society makes high
demands on media content. Consequently, media quality and media
diversity are the subject of vivid scholarly debate.
However, the media's performance is not just the result of individual
action. A country's media structure =96 i.e. the political, economic,
legal, historical and organizational context as well as the
institutionalization of the media themselves =96 influences the actions
of media organizations and media performance fundamentally. Moreover,
media structures are increasingly integrated across borders. In spite
of this, the role of media structures is often neglected. Despite
Lazarsfeld and Merton's very early call for researching societal and
organizational structure, mainstream research for a long time almost
exclusively focused on media content, media use and media effects on a
micro-societal level.
An in-depth analysis of media structures is needed: Without considering
the macro- and meso-societal levels of analysis it is not possible to
explain and understand media performance. For one thing, there are
manifold influences of societal structures on media organizations. For
another, organizational structures enable and constrain journalism.
Developments like commercialization, globalization, digitization and
regulatory reform explicitly demonstrate the significance of media
structures.
This volume attempts to review current research on and to outline
perspectives for research on media structures. It specifically aims at
discussing the interaction of media structures and media performance.
Our Call for Papers invites contributions that deal with media
structures and their influence on media performance from different
perspectives and research fields. The contributions should examine
either theoretically or empirically the manifold effects media
structures, institutions and organizations have on each other or on
media performance. We explicitly welcome papers taking a comparative
perspective.=20
Contributions may focus on theories and/or methods useful for the
analysis of media structures. We are looking for papers that either
discuss the merits of specific theoretical approaches (e.g.,
structuration theory, system theory, organization theories,
institutionalism, innovation theory, regulation theories) or methods
for performing research on media structures.
Contributions may also demonstrate the potential of researching media
structures by presenting empirical case studies. Papers should discuss
practical implications of dealing with media structures in various
research fields (e.g., media economics, media policy, media history). A
key requirement for papers is to deal with the relationship of media
structures and media performance.
Extended Abstracts in English or German of no more than 1500 words
should be submitted by April 11, 2010, to (mediapolicy /at/ ipmz.uzh.ch). =20
All submissions undergo double-blind peer review, so the name(s) of the
author(s) should appear on a separate cover sheet only. This cover
sheet should also contain the complete address (including telephone,
fax, and e-mail) of the corresponding author. Submitted contributions
may not have been published before or be under consideration for
publication elsewhere. There is no guarantee of eventual publication.
For more information please visit
http://www.oeaw.ac.at/cmc/en/instruction.html.
In case of acceptance, full papers are required no later than September
30, 2010.
The volume is edited by Manuel Puppis, Matthias K=FCnzler and Otfried
Jarren (University of Zurich).
The editors are co-founders of the "Network Media Structures". More
information is available online:
http://www.mediapolicy.uzh.ch/netzwerk/.=20
