Presented in collaboration with ECREA
(Audience and Reception Studies section), IAMCR (Audience section) and ICA
(Communication and Technology division & Mass Communication
division)
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, February 5-7,
2014
Deadline for submission: 1st
September 2013
Since March 2010, the COST Action
Transforming Audiences, Transforming Societies has been coordinating and
stimulating research efforts into the key transformations of European audiences
within a changing media and communication environment, identifying their complex
interrelationships with the social, cultural and political areas of European
societies.
The final conference of the COST Action will be held in
Ljubljana on February 5-7, 2014. This is an open conference and the COST Action
explicitly invites non-members to submit proposals.
The
contributions should reflect on the future of audience research from three
different but interrelated perspectives:
Research agenda. The
agenda of audience research has changed substantially along with social changes
and new media developments. Social changes are visible in phenomena such as
globalisation, transnationalisation, individualisation, commercialisation, or
mediatisation. Changes in the technical possibilities of the media system, for
example the development of the internet and subsequently of social media and
user-generated content, have brought about yet more conditions and opportunities
for audiences. Considering these transformations reception-related issues have
lost their centrality in audience research, and the topics of (prod)usage,
participation and social networking have gained much importance to a point where
they can now be considered as key components of a new mainstream agenda. The
conference provides a timely moment for a critical discussion of this new agenda
– which means interrogating merits and weaknesses of current research, and
defining new priorities for the future. Among other questions, one can ask:
· In what ways do the ongoing cultural, political and
technological transformations challenge the agenda of audience
research? · How can “traditional” aspects of audience and
reception research reconciled and integrated with recent lines of research? What
are the “old” questions that still need to be asked in the contemporary media
and communication environment? · What aspects of social
media and user-generated content are still unaddressed or unresolved, and what
are the means that need to be developed in order to move the field
forward? · How does the changing agenda of audience
research impact on the identity of the field (in relation to other fields and
disciplines within and outside media and communication
studies)?
Theoretical visions. The transformations of audience
practices have given rise to new theories or approaches where notions such as
user, collaboration, participation, convergence, crossmedia, transmedia and
(social) networks are seen as cornerstones. The conference aims to evaluate how
fruitful these theoretical shifts are, and to discuss further visions that could
pave the way for future audience research. Thus the conference invites paper
proposals that address conceptual issues and theoretical approaches in the light
of changing audience practices. The following questions, among others, can be
addressed: · What conceptual or theoretical developments
are needed in audience research in order to better account for and understand
contemporary audience practices? · What can be gained from
audience theory so far for developing frameworks based on concepts such as
collaboration, participation and social networking? · How
to make sense of people’s diversity of modes of engagement with/through media as
texts, genres, organizations and technologies? · How to
relate agency to structural changes in the contemporary media and communication
environment? · In what ways can other fields and
disciplines (e.g. education science, information science, performance studies,
museum studies, marketing) feed the conceptual and theoretical reflections in
audience research?
Societal significance. The significance of
academic audience research for stakeholders is an issue often overlooked or only
debated in relation to the industry and market research. Yet this issue touches
upon the social legitimacy of academic audience research and concerns a wide
range of stakeholders among the state (policy makers, regulatory bodies, etc.)
and civil society (general public, journalists, associations of viewers and
listeners, NGOs, community media, grassroots civic movements, etc.) as well. The
conference invites paper proposals that discuss whether and how academic
audience research should/could build bridges with stakeholders. The following
questions, among others, provide relevant starting points: · What factors
shape the relationship between audience research and social practice? · What
kinds of successful communication or collaboration between the academia and
specific groups of stakeholders can be implemented? · How could audience
research be useful for which stakeholders in the future? · How could the
knowledge, experience and competences of stakeholders feed audience research?
· How can audience research strengthen the position of media users in the
communication environment? · What is the role of audience research in forming
public discourses on media- and communication-related issues? · What are the
challenges and possible solutions for audience research with regard to the
Europeanization and globalization of media industry and media governance? ·
What pressures are exercised by public and private funding institutions on the
applied perspective and commercial usefulness of audience research, and what
consequences do these pressures have among audience
researchers?
The COST Action Transforming Audiences, Transforming
Societies invites paper proposals from within or outside of the Action that
address any aspect of the conference themes. Papers that connect with the topics
covered by the working groups of the Action are particularly welcome. The
working groups are: - New media genres, media literacy and trust in the
media - Audience interactivity and participation - The role of media and
ICT use for evolving social relationships - Audience transformations and
social integration
Apart from individual submissions, panel
proposals of 4-5 individual presentations in a coherent context are also
welcome.
Submission guidelines
- Abstracts should
highlight the original contribution to at least one of the conference themes.
Empirical research papers are welcome as long as the empirical study serves as
an impetus for discussion on research agenda, theoretical visions or societal
significance. - Word count: 250 words max. (excluding references). For panel
submissions, the panel abstract and the individual abstracts should have no more
than 250 words each. - Submissions should contain a title page with the title
of the presentation (in case of panel submissions: title of the panel and titles
of the presentations) and the names and email address of all authors. -
Please send the document containing title page and abstract in a Word file, and
be sure to remove all author identification from the abstract itself, as
proposals will be submitted into blind peer review. - The deadline for
submission is September 1st, 2013. Submissions should be sent via email to
[log in to unmask] and [log in to unmask].
The abstracts will be submitted to blind
peer review; participants will be notified about results by October 15,
2013.
Registration
will open on October 15, 2013. The deadline for early bird registration will be
November 15, 2013. The final deadline for registration will be January 7,
2014.
Organization
For the local
organizers:
Igor Vobič, Boris Mance and Irena Brinar University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia Email: [log in to unmask]
For the COST Action:
Geoffroy
Patriarche, Helena Bilandzic and the Steering Group of the Action Email:
[log in to unmask]
Dr.
Ranjana Das Lecturer Department of Media and Communications Bankfield
House 1.02 132 New Walk Leicester LE2 3EN E: [log in to unmask] W:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/media/people/dr-ranjana-das