May 21-22, 2009

 

Organizers: European Humanities University, Center for Advanced Studies and Education (CASE), Visual and Cultural Studies Laboratory at EHU

 

Eligibility: Media researchers & analysts focusing on the role of media in EE countries; media practitioners and activists.

 

 

For the countries of the former socialist bloc, the shaping of a new media-landscape as well as the advent of the new communication technologies went hand-in-hand with the similar processes in all other spheres and, in a certain, sense have become a leading force and the very basis for those processes. Given that historical and societal junctures, such newly emerged media in some countries have been effectively employed in the pursuit of democratization of the society while in others (as in the case of Belarus, for instance), on the contrary, the same means and instruments were used with no less effect to support and promote authoritarian political systems. A recent history of Eastern Europe was being created, archived and rendered intelligible in many ways due to that worldview as it was created by the visual media. 

The dissection of the information space in the countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as redistribution of the share in the media-market that began soon after 1991 have led to the situation when in what used to be a homogenous media space diverse national media systems came to existence, new social and political actors came into scene,new economic and political factors emerged, new forms of cooperation between local and global mass-media were shaped. The accession of a number of the former socialist’ countries into European Union (2004-2007) has been another significant event, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union collapse, which has played a crucial role in the transformation of the media-landscape in the region. Due to the development and spread of the satellite television and Internet many people from EE countries, formerly being cut off from the rest of the world by the ‘Iron Curtain’and being carefully given dozed information about the internal and the external events, under the changed conditions were able to perceive themselves as belonging to one ‘global village’, and importance of this factor has a decisive impact for the analysis of the political and cultural processes in the region.

A special focus will be placed on the interaction of the ‘old’ (paper press, television, web 1.0) media and the new media (electronic press, digital video, web 2.0) which quite often turns into the ideological opposition, since, on the one hand, television was and still remains to be a decisive instrument of the political influence on the masses (it is television that created the whole generation of the political leaders, so called ‘tele-presidents’, whose ‘charisma’ is in the first place a product of the mass-media) has played the major role in the establishment of the neopopulist model of politics), while on the other hand, forming of the alternative or counter-public sphere becomes possible in the first place thanks to the Internet and other forms of media activism related to it.

 

It is in that context that we are presently face the task of researching and assessing the full effects and consequences, of a ‘communicative revolution’ which happened after 1989 in the former socialist countries.

 

Moreover, the aim of the conference is not only to provide mapping of a new media and mediatized space in the countries of the Eastern Europe over the last 20 years but also to provide grounds for a critical reflection with regard to research strategies and methodologies which are being applied to the analysis of new cultural practices and forms of interaction between media, politics and culture. In other words, we hope that in the framework of common discussion of the aforementioned problems, it will be possible to come up with an answer to the question about the analytical models and conceptual apparatus with which the given set of problems is being researched in social sciences and humanities in the countries of Eastern Europe.

 

For discussion at the conference, the following provisional list of issues and question can be further extended and complemented:

 

The deadline for submitting applications for presentations and panel discussions (3-4 participants presenting on the similar subject) is March, 15, 2009 and needs to be sent to the following address: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it (please, specify “conference’ in the subject). The application should include: a short CV (the sample is attached, lastname_CV.doc) and the abstract of presentation in one of the working languages of the conference (up to 300 words).

Applicants will be notified about the decision of the organizing committee by April, 10, 2009. Organizing committee includes: Vladimir Dounaev, Pavel Tereshkovich, Svetlana Naumova, Almira Ousmanova, Elena Matusevich (coordinator), Dzmitry Karenka (coordinator).

Participants will be sent the invitation letter in order to obtain a Lithuanian visa. Accommodation in the hotel (breakfasts included) will be covered by organizers. The organizing committee has some (limited) funds to cover the trip. Participants who would need the travel grants for their visit, shall inform organizers in the application specifying the place of departure and indicating the possible (minimal) cost of the trip to Vilnius. The participants, who pass the first round of selection, are also eligible for travel grants.