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

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)>