[ecrea] Call for Papers A Question of Power, 29-30 september 2011, Groningen Centre for Journalism Studies

Call for Papers

A Question of Power
Conflict, agreement and negotiation between journalists and their sources

(Groningen, September 29-30, 2011)

In the two-day conference ‘A Question of Power’, the changing dynamics 
between journalists and their sources will be addressed. Conventional 
wisdom is that reporters want to obtain newsworthy or even spectacular 
information while their sources aim for a profitable image. However, 
among media researchers, be they from a political communications or 
journalism studies perspective, there is consensus that this relation 
has changed dramatically. Broadly discussed under the idea of 
‘mediatization’, it is thought that media logic increasingly determines 
the language in which public communication takes place. On the other 
hand, the proliferation of social media allows sources to bypass 
journalists to speak to audiences directly. Yet, the effect of these 
changes on the journalist-source relationship is not clear-cut and the 
question of how they affect the power relations between reporters and 
their sources has so far remained largely neglected. Is the development 
towards a ‘mediatized’ public sphere detrimental to meaningful political 
debate? And what does it mean for the journalist’s autonomy? This 
conference seeks to investigate how the journalist-source relationship 
as we know it has transformed and still is transforming.

A special focus of this conference is on the changing norms and forms of 
the journalistic interview, as it is an act central to modern news 
journalism, embodying the complexity and struggles that exist between 
reporter and source. This relation is most intensively researched in 
political journalism, but the changes mentioned above are also relevant 
for sports, celebrity, human interest and many other journalistic 
categories. The form of the interview significantly influences the 
reporter-source relation. For example, the difference between a 
conversation with an eye-witness, broadcasted live on television, and a 
multiple-page interview with a celebrity in a glossy magazine that 
results from several hours of conversation clearly impacts the 
interaction between interviewer and interviewee.

Comparison across time, media platforms and national environments is 
welcome. Submissions that address the following aspects – and the 
research challenges they present – are encouraged:

- Changes in the interaction between journalists and sources
- Mediatization and/or personalization in the interview
- Increasingly image-conscious and media-trained sources
- The position of the interview in different types of journalism
- Negotiating media content: do sources have a say?
- Changes in the role and position of the interview in the newsgathering 
process
- The interview as an instrument of accountability
- The ‘celebrity journalist’


Guidelines:
Submissions are welcome in the form of a working abstract (maximum of 
400 words). Participants are advised that the organizers seek to publish 
a selection of essays from the workshop, either in a special issue of a 
journal or in an edited volume.

Deadline:
Abstracts, along with full contact information (title, name, 
affiliation, email), should be submitted to (aquestionofpower /at/ rug.nl) 
<javascript:main.compose('new', 't=(aquestionofpower /at/ rug.nl)')> by april 
15, 2011. If your proposal is accepted, rough papers (approximately 
4000-6000 words) are expected by september 15, 2011.

Date:
September 29-30, 2011.

In this conference, keynote adresses will be combined with expert 
workshops and discussion, the overall aim being a fruitful scholarly 
debate. The conference will start on Thursday morning and will run until 
Friday afternoon (around 3 p.m.). Accommodation will be provided for all 
accepted paper contributors.

Workshop Coordinators:
Bas den Herder, Birte Schohaus, and Professor Marcel Broersma, Groningen 
Centre for Journalism Studies, University of Groningen