[ecrea] cfp Recherches en Communication - media competences of ordinary people

>CALL FOR PAPERS for a forthcoming issue of Recherches en Communication
><http://sites.uclouvain.be/rec/>, an international peer-reviewed journal
>edited by the UCL Center for Research in Communication.
>
>The present call for papers is for an issue entitled
>
>THE MEDIA COMPETENCES OF ORDINARY PEOPLE
>
>This issue will be edited by Pierre Fastrez and Thierry De Smedt.
>
>This call is available in English *and* French at:
><http://sites.uclouvain.be/rec/index.php/rec/announcement/view/14>
>
>
>No one will challenge the statement that the beginning of the
>twenty-first century has known a new media explosion, under the impulse
>of networked interactive multimedia. Also, rare are those who would
>oppose the notion that this media development poses anew the question of
>the autonomy (in its intellectual, affective and behavioral senses) of
>individuals and groups, as the invention of writing, of print and of
>animated images posed it in their respective times.
>
>The necessity of developing media literacy, understood as the art of
>reading and understanding, of searching, organizing and diffusing as
>well as that of producing media, is the object of a growingly shared
>consensus among industrialized countries. However, how this development
>should come about, and what means should be set up to support it is
>still the subject of many interrogations.
>
>This question interweaves two topics:
>[A] the topic of the place of the media in our contemporary environment
>on the one hand, and
>[B] the topic of human development and its conditions on the other hand.
>
>[A] Nowadays, the media represent a major part of the individuals
>relationship with their (social, cultural, economical, physical...)
>environment.
>
>Since the advent of communication science as a discipline, the
>perspective on the media has changed dramatically. The means of
>communication, which captured the attention of the first researchers in
>the field, were first regarded as neutral carriers of information. Their
>effectiveness was seen as depending primarily on the competence of the
>agent that the first terminologies called "transmitter". On the other
>hand, the media were also considered by many researchers, from a
>critical point of view, as "ideological apparatus" equipped with
>oppressive powers.
>
>Today, even if those founding views have left many legacies, research on
>the social history of media systems has gradually accepted the idea that
>these act as a mega-interface between members of society on the one
>hand, and with the real world on the other.
>
>In addition, the communicational interest for the media extends today,
>with the changing media landscape, to other realities than the efficient
>transport of information. The media are nowadays thought of as the new
>venues of social participation and, also, as shared reservoirs of
>representations of the world, and even as mindtools.
>
>[B] On the other hand, citizens generally believe they know what the
>basic needs of general (individual and collective) human development
>are, even if there is no stable social consensus on the list of those
>needs, as the recurrent discussions about the purposes of the school
>have shown.
>
>The issue of the development of a media culture then corresponds to the
>question of how to relate the evolution of media techniques and
>practices with the conditions of human development, whether individual
>or collective. This relationship can be examined in both directions.
>
>On the one hand, from the media to the people: what would be the
>conditions and provisions for the creation of a good-enough media
>environment for the development of the human being in society?
>
>On the other hand, from the people to the media: what are the conditions
>and provisions for the development of the individuals abilities to
>think, feel and act in a personalized and socialized manner in a given
>media environment? These are the abilities that we call media
>competences: the general individual and collective skills that
>condition the art of living in and with the media.
>
>This issue of *Recherches en Communication* focuses on the second
>question, considering the media environment as a given, without denying,
>however, that it is in part constructed by practices and uses.
>
>We propose to tackle the question of the development of these
>competences at three levels:
>
>- First, are they competences? Do these abilities, these potentialities
>correspond to the definition of what psycho-pedagogues call competences,
>or does this object call for another denomination or definition?
>
>- Second, what are these competences?
>    - How can we characterize them, specify them, describe them? What are
>their founding disciplines?
>    - How can they be mapped? How are they related and organized, between
>themselves and with other competences of contemporary action?
>    - Can we establish a hierarchy from general competences (independent
>from the particular contexts in which they are exerted) to specific
>competences (in terms of media technologies, for example)? Does their
>expression through different attitudes and behaviors present evidence
>that they are specific, or specified?
>    - What categories of competences are relevant with respect to the
>development of media literacy, today and in the foreseeable future?
>
>- Third, how can we recognize them, detect them, compare them, measure
>them, and develop them?
>    This question is related to that of competence evaluation, which
>assumes one can observe competences and confront them to a norm or a
>standard.
>    In what cases is a quantitative evaluation (whether on a unique or a
>multivariate scale) relevant? Complementarily, in what cases is a
>qualitative evaluation, based on differences in nature, on typologies
>and topologies, relevant?
>    How can one translate the evaluation of competences in terms of goals
>for media education?
>    What is the possible disciplinary cartography of teaching and
>education on media competences?
>
>These vast and numerous questions are peculiarly relevant in a time when
>media educations with a view to produce media literacy are on the
>agenda, be it through events occurring in the classroom, with the
>family, at work, in the press& or in the design of formal and informal
>systems of training and continued education.
>
>
>PRACTIAL DETAILS:
>
>The submissions for this issue of Recherches en Communication can be
>theoretical contributions (including literature reviews), presentations
>of original empirical research, or innovative methodological proposals.
>A limited space could possibly be allotted to an outstanding proposal in
>the form of an intuitive but relevant plea.
>Submissions are required to follow the author guidelines of the journal.
>
>
>IMPORTANT DATES:
>
>- Initial submission deadline : June 30th, 2010
>Each manuscript will be submitted through the journals website, and
>mention to what level of the issues structure it is related (nature of
>competences; contents of competences; measure of competences).
>- Notification to authors: September 30th, 2010
>- Deadline for final submission of accepted manuscripts: October 31st, 2010
>- Publication date: Novembre 30th, 2010
>

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
Pleinlaan 2 - B-1050 Brussels - Belgium
T: ++ 32 (0)2-629.18.56
F: ++ 32 (0)2-629.36.84
Office: 5B.401a
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European Communication Research and Education Association
Web: http://www.ecrea.eu
----------------------------
E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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