IAMCR 2013 – Public Service Media Policy Working Group - Call for Papers

alt The Public Service Media Policy Group invites submissions for its sessions at IAMCR annual conference, to be held in Dublin, Ireland from 25-29 June 2013. The section seeks research that balances theory and practice, and aims at assessing the public value dimension in a global communications context. We welcome contributions exploring how public service media are coping with both the current economic crisis and technological transformations in the media landscape, by challenging, changing or re-affirming the ‘public interest’ or ‘public service’ roles and orientations of the media.

This deep and double – economic and technological – crisis in the media might have severe consequences for the main public provisions in the media, being public service broadcasting and professional journalism. Three decades of deregulation and liberalizing policies in the Western world have created a much more competitive and commercial media ecology, especially in Europe where non-European global players such as Google, Facebook and Apple are taking over the mediating role in public communication from previously mainly national and European media players. Consequently this double crisis in the media in combination with global power shifts – from the West to the East and from the North to the South – might eventually create new cultural and value systems. An important question in this context is how the public interest in the media, both old and new, can be safeguarded in the future; by the present combination of an institutionalized public broadcasting service and a self-governing journalistic profession or – given the changing nature of communication – by entire new ways of conceptualizing and organizing media governance and accountability?

Although we welcome submissions on any topic involving public service media and communication, we encourage and will give special consideration to papers and panel proposals that examine connections to the conference theme (Crises, ‘Creative Destruction’, and the Global Power and Communication Orders). A list of possible topics have been suggested by conference organizers and can be found in the general call on the IAMCR website at http://iamcr.org/cfp. Possible themes include:

academic and policy debates on the value of public communication as a way to improve relations between users and media institutions from a cross-national,
longitudinal and/or comparative viewpoint;
public interest and public service media, coping with crisis and change;
the implications of the financial and economic crisis for practices of professional journalism, news media and other media of public communication;
building public value in the form of democratic, cultural and creative values, educational values, social and community values: case-studies;
economic growth/recession and implications for the ‘watchdog’ functions of public service media;
the public value concept as a tool for analysing the changing nature of communication and the changing relations between new and existing stakeholders, including regulators, industry, policy-makers and the public;
more fragmented and individualised media consumption affecting the broader public value of communications;
regulatory or governance frameworks that more adequately address the growing complexity of the media field.

We encourage the submission of individual papers as well as complete panel proposals.

Individuals may submit 1 abstract (paper) per Section or Working Group as lead author, and a maximum of 2 abstracts (papers) to a single IAMCR conference in general. Presenters are expected to bring fully developed work to the conference. Prior to the conference, it is expected that a completed paper will be submitted to the Working Group’s chair and co-chair.

Abstracts should be between 300 and 500 words, and should:

have a clear title;
include the name(s) of author(s) and professional title(s) (i.e. professor, postdoctoral fellow, independent researcher, graduate student, student, etc.);
outline the research objectives/questions/hypothesis;
outline the theoretical framework and methodology if relevant;
make clear the main argument proposed ;

Bibliographies and author profiles are not required.

All abstract submissions must be made centrally via the IAMCR Open Conference System (OCS) at http://iamcr-ocs.org.

The deadline for submission of abstracts is January 28, 2013. Please note that this deadline will not be extended. The OCS system at will open on November 15, 2012, and will close on January 28, 2013. Early submission is strongly encouraged.

Decisions on acceptance of abstracts will be communicated to individual applicants by a section chair no later than February 28, 2013.

For those whose abstracts are accepted, full conference papers are to be submitted via the IAMCR OCS by 28th May, 2013.