[ecrea] CfP Local journalism practices, economic foundations, political implications

Call for Paper Abstracts—Local journalism around the world: professional 
practices, economic foundations, and political implications

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of 
Oxford is seeking abstracts of papers for possible presentation at its 
conference, “Local journalism around the world: professional practices, 
economic foundations, and political implications,” February 27-28, 2014.

Most journalism is practiced—and most news media organizations are 
based—at the local level. Yet journalism studies overwhelmingly focus on 
national and international journalism and most debates over the future 
of journalism remains oriented towards a limited number of exceptional 
and often nationally or internationally-oriented news media 
organizations. This focus threatens to undermine our ability to 
understand journalism and its role in society. The conference will focus 
on local journalism around the world, exploring professional practices, 
economic foundations, and the social and political implications of local 
journalism as it is actually practiced today.

We are particularly interested in analysis of how local journalism is 
impacted by current technological changes, changes in the media 
industries, and changed in local communities and local governments. We 
are also interested in comparative analysis, both within-country 
comparisons between different regions and cross-country comparisons 
between local journalism in different national contexts. The emphasis of 
the conference will be on empirically-based papers that advance our 
understanding of local journalism both within and across individual 
countries.

Abstracts of papers are sought on topics such as—

· Relations between local journalists and local business and political 
elites

· The role of local media as part of communities

· The journalistic, economic, and democratic track-record of 
locally-oriented online-only media

· The work conditions and everyday practices of local journalists

· The (in)ability of national media to cover local affairs

· The role of social networking sites and new mobile media in local news 
production and use

· How existing local and regional news organizations are dealing with 
current changes in the media business (whether growth as in many 
emerging economies or retrenchment as in many high-income countries)

· Local journalism as a business

· Local journalism as a part of social or political conflicts

· New alternatives to established forms of local journalism (hyperlocal 
websites, etc)

300-500 word abstracts outlining the topic, methodological and 
theoretical approach and empirical basis should be submitted by October 
13, 2013. Notification of selected abstracts will be made by October 31, 
2013.

The aim of the conference is to collect the best papers for a special 
issue or edited book on local journalism around the world.

Submissions should be sent electronically or by post to:

Prof. Robert G. Picard

Director of Research

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

University of Oxford

Oxford OX2 6PS United Kingdom

(robert.picard /at/ politics.ox.ac.uk)



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