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[ecrea] Media and Journalism in Central and Eastern Europe - CALL FOR PAPERS

Tue Sep 27 20:46:32 GMT 2011




Media and Journalism in Central and Eastern Europe: Reflections on Journalism Culture

Edited by Aukse Balcytiene, Boguslawa Dobek-Ostrowska, Epp Lauk and Michal Glowacki


Synopsis

Media systems of Central and Eastern Europe have gone through political transformation and a lengthy development over the last years. The notion of journalistic professionalization in post-communist Europe has been mainly analyzed by emphasizing the role of media ownership, the high level of media-political integration, the quality of journalistic culture as well as its historical development. In addition to this, some of the existing studies have made attempts to study changing relationships, norms and practices of journalism in the period of the last twenty years. Yet, media research traditions in CEE countries are quite young, thus the scholars in these countries tend to follow prescribed research approaches, i.e. they try to apply foreign media and communications research models and methods which do not directly meet the research needs of different contextual situations. In other words – the arguments given in these books rely too strongly on models and schemas developed by Western scholars rather than disclose contextual particularities of CEE countries. Another obvious drawback of research studies is their descriptive character, and more focused and argumentative style of writing is missing. Finally, precious few attempts have been made to dig seriously into the development of journalistic professionalization in the era of convergence, concentration, the growing importance of media-like services and global changes in the profession. It is vital that further study is carried out in this field since development of independent and professional media organizations are among the essential tenets of democratic society.

Scope of the study

The chapters in this book do not focus on some selected CEE countries; in contrast – the main aim of this book is to concentrate on critical issues (all these issues here are indicated as “topics”) such as political parallelism, journalism professionalization, the role of public service broadcasting or development of new media and asses their impact and effects on democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. Briefly, this book takes a “topical” approach – it does not concentrate on particular countries, rather it thoroughly explores different issues which are treated as critical variables. Consequently, the chapters in this book aim to answer a number of critical questions – for example, why the media in Central and Eastern Europe is as it is, or why does it not meet media professionalization requirements as understood in the West?

In addition, one of the main goals of this book is to analyze the changes and challenges facing journalism in the era of technological developments and transformation undergone by the audiences. The publication will try to further connect models, concepts and theories with the new approaches to journalism both in traditional media organizations (radio, TV, newspapers), media-like services (blogs, social networks, search engines, content aggregators) and online performance of traditional media organizations (radio, TV, newspapers). In line with this, it is of special interest to identify the most relevant global changes in journalistic profession to further connect them with current developments of media systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Hence, it is expected that the book will first develop the theoretical approaches of journalistic professionalization. Attempts will be made to redefine concept of professionalization and journalistic culture with respect to educational changes in the practice of journalism and professional identity. A special particular section will focus on the level of editorial independence and relations with the audiences. To this end, special importance will be given to the changing relations in the newsrooms and the growing importance of instruments and practices maintaining accountability, transparency and responsiveness of media organizations today.

What does it mean to be a professional journalist today? How can the development of new technologies improve the level of journalistic professionalization and make journalist more accountable and transparent to the public? What changes need to be introduced to further meet the complex and challenging roles of journalistic profession today? Are the current developments in Central and Eastern different from those observed in mature democracies? And finally, what is the future of journalism working for the media organizations in the fast-changing information society?

Manuscript submission

We invite paper proposals that cover the main themes, as follows: 1. Media system and political system in Central and Eastern Europe 2. Political parallelism and media commercialization 3. News production, governance and management of Central and Eastern European media organizations today 4. The role of public service media 5. Professional journalism, its training and education 6. Journalism ethics, the level of responsiveness, media accountability and transparency 7. Technological development: the role of new media 8. Internet users` culture, social networks, and development of citizen journalism 9. The future of local journalism. We invite scholars and researchers interested in particular areas to submit full-length papers (max. 60000 characters, notes and reference list inclusive) by January 31, 2012 – according to the Style and Manuscript Guidelines laid out on the official website of “Central European Journal of Communication”: www.cejc.ptks.pl <http://www.cejc.ptks.pl>. The publication of the book is planned for the Fall of 2012.

Contact

All correspondence and submission should be addressed to:

(a.balcytiene /at/ adm.vdu.lt) <mailto:(a.balcytiene /at/ adm.vdu.lt)>, (dobek /at/ uni.wroc.pl) <mailto:(dobek /at/ uni.wroc.pl)>, (epp.lauk /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(epp.lauk /at/ gmail.com)> and (michal.glowacki /at/ uni.wroc.pl) <mailto:(michal.glowacki /at/ uni.wroc.pl)>


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