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Media and Communication in and after the Global Capitalist Crisis: Renewal, Reform or Revolution? European Sociological Association - Research Network 18 (Sociology of Communications and Media Research) 2014 Conference University of Bucharest, Romania October 17-18, 2014Submission deadline: July 1, 2014Submission per e-mail to christian.fuchs@uti.at (Abstracts as txt or docfile including a title, contact email, affiliation, 250-500 word abstract)RN18 covers the conference fee and accomodation in Bucharest for 6participants (3 nights each, single room). If you want to apply for suchfinancial assistance (e.g. because you are a PhD student without travelfunds or because your university does not provide assistance forconference attendance), then please indicate this circumstance in yoursubmission. Please note that this support excludes travel costs.The world has experienced a global crisis of capitalism that started in2008 and is continuing until now. It has been accompanied by a crisis ofthe state and a general crisis of legitimation of dominant ideologiessuch as neoliberalism. Responses to the crisis have been variegated andhave included austerity measures of the state that have hit the weakest,an increased presence of progressive protests, revolutions and strikesthat have made use of digital, social and traditional media in variousways, the rise of far-right movements and parties in many parts ofEurope and other parts of the world, the Greek state¹s closing down ofpublic service broadcaster ERT and increased commercial pressure onpublic service broadcasting in general, new debates about how tostrengthen public service media, increased socio-economic and classinequality in many parts of the world and at a global level, precariousforms of work in general and in the media and cultural industries inparticular, the emergence of new mediareform movements, an extension and intensification of the crisis ofnewspapers and the print media, an increasing shift of advertisingbudgets to targeted ads on the Internet and along with this developmentthe rise of commercial ³social media² platforms, Edward Snowden¹srevelations about the existence of a global surveillance-industrialcomplex that operates a communications surveillance system called³Prism² that involves the NSA and media companies such as Google,Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Apple and Paltalk; discussionsabout the power and freedom of the press in light of the Levensoninquiry, shifting geographies of the political and media landscape thathave to do with the economic rise of countries such as China and India.Given this context, the main questions that ESA RN18¹s 2014 conferenceasks and to which it invites contributions are:How has the crisis affected the media and communication landscape inEurope and globally and what perspectives for the future of media andcommunications are there?What suggestions for media reforms are there?How feasible are they?What kind of media policies and reforms do we need today?Which ones should be avoided? Are we in this context likely toexperience a renewal of neoliberalism or something different?Plenary sessions:1) Keynote Talk: Prof. Peter Ludes (Jacobs University Bremen, Germany):Wanted: Critical Visual Theories!2) Special Session: Public Media and Alternative Journalism in RomaniaWith Dr. Raluca Petre (ŒOvidius¹ University Constanta, Romania): On theDistinction between State and Public Media: Re-Centering Public Options;Dr. Antonio Momoc (University of Bucharest, Romania): Alternative Mediaas Public Service Journalism; Costi Rogozanu (journalist and mediaactivist, criticatac.ro) ­ Is Alternative Media anAlternative?ESA RN18 welcomes submissions of abstracts for contributions. Questionsthat can for example be addressed include, but are not limited to thefollowing ones:* Media and capitalism:How have capitalism and the media changed in recent years? Are thereperspectives beyond capitalism and capitalist media? How can we best usecritical/Marxist political economy and other critical approaches forunderstanding the media and capitalism today? What is the role of mediaand communication technologies in the financialization, acceleration,and globalization of the capitalist economy? What are the conditions ofworking in the media, cultural and communication industries in thecontemporary times? What is the role of Marx today for understandingcrisis, change, capitalism, communication, and critique? * Media reform and media policy in times of crisis:How do the media need to be reformed and changed in order to contributeto the emergenceof a good society? Which media reform movements are there and what aretheir goals? What have been policy ideas of how to overcome the crisisand deal with contemporary changes in relation to European media andcommunication industries? What can we learn from recent discussionsabout the media¹s power and freedom, such as the Leveson inquiry? Whatare implications for media reforms? * Media and the public sphere:How should the concept of the public sphere best be conceived today andhow does it relate to the media? How has the public sphere changedduring the crisis in Europe and globally? What has been the relationbetween public and commercial broadcasting during and after the crisis?How have public service media changed, which threats and opportunitiesdoes it face? How can/should public service be renewed in the light ofcrisis, the Internet, and commercialisation? Can public service beextended from broadcasting to the online realm, digital and socialmedia? What has been the role of public service media in Europe? How hasthis role transformed? * Media and activism:How can media scholars best cooperate with activists in order tocontribute to a better media system and a better society? What are majortrends in media activism today and how do activists use and confront themedia and how do commercial, public and alternativemedia relate to contemporary social movements? What have been importantexperiences of media activists and media reform organisations in thepast couple of years? What are the opportunities, risks, limits andpossibilities of media activism today?For answering these questions, we also invite contributions andsubmissions by media activists, who want to talk about and share theirexperiences. * Media ownership:Who owns the media and ICTs? What are peculiar characteristics ofknowledge and the media as property? What conflicts and contradictionsare associated with it and how have they developed in times of crisis?How concentrated are the media and ICTs and how has this concentrationchanged since the start of the 2008 crisis? How has media and ICTownership, convergence, de-convergence and concentration developed sincethe start of the 2008 crisis? What reforms of media and ICT ownershipare needed in light of the crisis of capitalism and the crisis ofintellectual property rights? * Media and crisis:What have been the main consequences of the crisis for media andcommunication in various parts of the world and Europe from acomparative perspective? What role have the media played in theconstruction of the crisis? How have the media conveyed the social andeconomic crises of recent years to citizens and what are theconsequences of this flow of ideas and explanations? What role can theyplay in overcoming the crisis? What is the relationship of the media andclass during and after the crisis? What role have ideologies (such asracism, right-wing extremism, fascism, neoliberalism, anti-Semitism,etc) played in the media during the crisis and what can we learn from itfor reforming the media? How have audiences interpreted media contentsthat focus on austerity, crisis, neoliberalism, protests, revolutions,or media reforms? * The globalisation of the media and society:What are major trends in the globalisation of capitalism, society andthe media? Given the globalisation of media and society, what arechallenges for media and society today? What can we learn fromnon-Western media scholars and media cultures outside of Europe? Areconcepts such as cultural/media imperialism, transnational culturaldomination or the new imperialism feasible today and if so, in which ways? * Digital and social media:What is digital labour and how has class changed in the context ofsocial and digital media? What is the connection of value creation,knowledge labour and digital labour? How do the global dimension and theglobal division of digital labour look like, especially in respect toChina, India, Asia and Africa? How do new forms of exploitation andunremunerated labour (³free labour², ³crowdsourcing²) look like in themedia sector (e.g. in the context of Internet platforms such as Facebookor Google)? What is the relationship of the commons and commodificationon digital and social media? How do capital accumulation and targetedadvertising work on social media and what are their implications forusers and citizens? What are alternatives to capitalist digital andsocial media? How can alternative social and digital media best looklike and be organized? What can in this context be the roles of thedigital commons, civil society media and public service media? Whichideologies of the Internet and social media are there? How can we bestunderstand the surveillance-industrial Internet complex operated by theNSA together with Internet corporations such as Google and Facebook andwhat are the implications of Edward Snowden¹s revelations? How do powerand political economy work in the context of platforms such as Google,Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WikiLeaks, Wikipedia, Weibo, LinkedIn,Blogspot/Blogger, Wordpress, VK, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, etc? * Media and Critical Social Theory:What can we learn and use from critical sociology and the sociology ofcritique when studying the media? What do critique and critical theorymean in contemporary times?What are critical sociology and the sociology of critique and what areits roles for studying media and communication¹s role in society? Whichsocial theories do we need today for adequately understanding media &#38;society in a critical way? What is the role of political economy andMarx¹s theory for understanding media &#38; society today? * Communication and (Post-)Crisis:How has the crisis affected the communication landscape in Europe andglobally and what perspectives for the future are there? How do theworking conditions in communication industries look like after thecrisis? What are the challenges for communication industries in the nearfuture in the context of the crisis and post-crisis? What is the role ofpost-crisis-communication industries in a globalised economy?Conference Fee For members of ESA RN18: 40 Euros For non-members of ESA RN18: 60 Euros