Prague Media Point Nov 15-18, 2018
MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY: INNOVATIVE JOURNALISM IN A CONTESTED POLITICAL SPACE
CALL FOR CONFERENCE PAPERS
In an increasingly unstable world, independent media are facing unprecedented challenges. Journalism’s crucial role to represent the public interest is being actively undermined by declining audiences, upended business models, and the emergence of alternative sources of content. The net result is disturbingly low levels of trust among consumers who complain about political and business agendas, fake news, and low-quality media overall.
All these challenges are, in some form, connected to recent and rapid technological developments that have altered the way information is spread. Social media, in particular, has helped blur the lines between fact-based journalism, disinformation, and outright propaganda, as individuals sink deeper and deeper into their own echo-chambers.
Despite these challenges, digital technology still holds untapped potential and opportunities for the media. Across the world, media entrepreneurs are working on creative start-ups, innovative business models, and new ways of both reporting and delivering that content to their audiences.
- What are the leading examples of sustainable media strategies successfully incorporating digital technology?
- Is a more innovative use of digital technology combined with editorial diversity the answer to bridging the polarization of society?
- How can digital tools be used to help build trust and champion the public interest in this contested political space? Has technology been a boon or bane to journalism overall, and where does the future lie?
In this latest addition of the Prague Media Point, we will look at those questions in one of the few international conferences that bring together scholars, media professionals, and press freedom activists to discuss and debate the pressing issues of the day.
Possible topics include but are by no means limited to:
- Digitally aided journalism practicesand all the trends that affect content production. Proposed papers in this area may cover new forms of data journalism, experiments in virtual reality/immersive story-telling, mobile reporting investigation, reporting, and visualization, such as automation, augmentation, and AI in the newsroom. This area also includes the use of digital tools in overcoming the lack of gender diversity, political polarization, and other problems.
- Digitally aided entrepreneurial practices in media and audience engagement.This area will focus on innovative and disruptive business models and issues affecting revenue streams. This includes the role of big tech companies, membership/subscription strategies, and aggregation platforms. Additionally, this topic will explore, for example, the issues of personalized user experience, new ways of audience engagement and reaching neglected target groups, and tactics for overcoming the digital divide.
- Policy and governance issues in media and technology. This area will center on regulations affecting the work of digital media outlets such as legal norms, censorship, net neutrality, and policy responses to the avalanche of fake news and disinformation. This area could also address the role of public service media.
We welcome proposals from scholars from any discipline, inter-discipline, or scholarly field.
Please submit your 500-word abstracts and a short bio by May 15th, 2018 to: caspe@keynote.cz
Please follow instructions on the website.
For further information go to our website: http://www.keynote.cz/prague-media-point-2018/event/44/
Contact person: Dagmar Caspe, caspe@keynote.cz
Conference partners are: New York University in Prague, Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Prague, the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague, the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at Charles University, the Comparative Interdisciplinary Studies Section (CISS) of the International Studies Association (ISA), Endowment Fund for Independent Journalism, Syndicate of Journalists of the Czech Republic.