Media in the Enlarged Europe

Alec Charles

Description

The EU is in a constant state of flux: its constitution, its institutions and especially its political, economic and regulatory borders. Media in the Enlarged Europe deals with the complexity and instability of the European Union and its relationship with the mass media, looking beyond national and cultural boundaries. This compilation also views the mass media not only in its more traditional senses, but looks at newer media technologies and their applications.The recurring theme that binds the diverse papers in this collection is the relationship between European media industries and their social, political, economic and legislative contexts. The first part of the collection offers a snapshot of media politics, policies, industries and cultures in the European Union as a whole; the second part presents comprehensive case studies of the history and current state of the mass media in specific European nations, making Media in the Enlarged Europe an essential resource for media academics and students.

Sujets

• International Relations
• Media Studies
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Película fotográfica
• General officer
• Television
• European Union
• General
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 février 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781841502946
• Langue: English

Extrait

Media in the Enlarged Europe
In memory of Jim Hall, a great friend, a great mind, a great loss.
Media in the Enlarged Europe Politics, Policy and Industry
Edited by Alec Charles
First Published in the UK in 2009 by Intellect Books, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2009 by Intellect Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2009 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Cover Design: Holly Rose Copy Editor: Laura Booth Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
ISBN 978-1-84150-998-3 EISBN 978-1-84150-294-6
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
C ONTENTS
Introduction: States of Transition
Alec Charles
Part One: State of the Union
The Enlarged Audio-visual Europe: The Many Faces of Europeanization
Hedwig de Smaele
Trends in Television Programming: Commercialization, Transnationalization, Convergence
Andrea Esser
Pluralist over Profitable: The Audio-visual Transformation Dilemma in Central and Eastern Europe
Gabriela E. Chira
A New European Information Order
Jim Hall
The European Union and the Press
David Hutchison
An Elusive European Public Sphere: The Role of Shared Journalistic Cultures
Monika Metykova and Paschal Preston
Domesticating Europe: Communicative Spaces of the East of West
Inka Salovaara-Moring
The European Union and its Promotions Deficit : Political Communication and the Global Warming Issue
Neil T. Gavin
The Other Frontier: Media Assistance by International Organizations
Friederike von Franqu
Brand Europe: Moves Towards a Pan-European Identity
Rudiger Theilmann
Religious Identities in the European Media: A Legal Perspective
Russell Sandberg
The Mediated Ummah in Europe: The Islamic Audience in the Digital Age
Yasmin Ibrahim
Part Two: States of the Union
Vernacular Geopolitics and Media Economies in an Enlarged Europe
Mark Hayward
New Labour and the Reinvention of British and European History
Oliver Daddow
Influences on the Editorial Opinions of the British Press Towards the European Union
Julie Firmstone
News from Brussels, in Brussels: EU Reporting as Part of a Glocalized and Market-driven Journalism: A Case Study of the Belgian Newspaper De Morgen
Kristel Vandenbrande and Davy Geens
Challenges of Media Concentration: The Case of Regional Press Ownership in the Czech Republic
Monika Metykov and Lenka Waschkov C sa ov
Public Interest Speech and Investigative Journalism: Latvia, the Diena Case and the European Court of Human Rights
Richard Caddell
Challenges for Romanian Investigative Journalism
Valentina Marinescu
Media Development in Moldova and European Integration
Liliana Vitu
Maintaining Old Traditions of Media Diversity in Europe: The Non-Muslim Minority Media in Turkey
Eylem Yanardagoglu
New Media, New Europe: Estonia s E-mediated State
Alec Charles
Contributors
I NTRODUCTION: S TATES OF T RANSITION
Alec Charles
The first problem one encounters when compiling a book about the European Union is that organization s apparently interminable transitionality. The EU is in a constant state of flux: its constitution, its institutions and even (indeed, especially) its borders are as inherently unstable as its political, economic and regulatory complexion.
The draft manuscript for this collection was completed in the immediate wake of the Treaty of Lisbon, and, although this agreement appeared at the time to represent an end, or a climax, to years of international wrangling over the European Union s proposals for constitutional reform, and a unanimous commitment to the future of the Union itself, the events of 2008 cast that future back into controversy, doubt and heated dispute.
The advantage of journalistic writing on the subject of the EU is its very ephemerality: a journalist s musings upon the topic are as contemporaneous and impermanent as the currency of the paper they re printed on - or of the web page onto which they re uploaded. The disadvantage of academic writing on this subject is that it is so quickly outdated, while at the same time so bibliographically permanent.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water. John Keats - an Englishman who in his own way toyed with the European project (and died toying: three months before that other great Europhile, Napoleon Bonaparte) - had those words engraved upon his tombstone, in the Protestant cemetery in Rome. The problem, of course, is that our words, like Keats s own, do not in fact flow towards the ocean, but - preserved on paper or on stone - may return to haunt us. The best, therefore, that we can hope is that our texts will at least survive as documents of their times, and not cause too much embarrassment to future readers or to our future selves.
The uncertainty principle that governs the European Union also, inevitably, determines the mass media as a whole. The unpredictability of technological, economic and aesthetic trends has led media studies perpetually to reinvent itself: it is a discipline of indiscipline. However, in the field of media studies, as in the European Union itself, there remains one constant and one certainty: inconstancy and uncertainty. This collection therefore offers itself as a record of, and a meditation upon, one particular moment in the ever-evolving history of European media; but it may also, we hope, reflect European media s permanent condition of transitionality - and, as such, be of interest and value to readers in coming years, months and hours.
Aware of these inconstancies, this collection attempts to see European media in their broadest sense. Europe does not stop at the borders of the European Union - indeed, it might be argued that the European Union does not stop at its own borders - and therefore this collection in part looks beyond those national and cultural boundaries. This collection also views the mass media not only in its more traditional senses, but also looks at newer media technologies and their applications.
The recurring theme that binds all of the diverse papers in this collection is the relationship between European media industries and their social, economic, political and legislative contexts. Crucially, this collection examines not only the impacts of national and supranational policy and ownership upon European media, but also the influences of those media upon their sociopolitical environments - advancing the notion of a defining and constantly evolving dialogical relationship between the diverse and often antagonistic factors and players involved.
The first part of this collection offers a snapshot of media politics, policies, industries and cultures in the European Union as a whole; the second part presents individual case studies of the history and current state of the mass media in specific European nations - older, newer and prospective members of the European Union.
This collection has evolved out of a conference on Media in the Enlarged Europe , which took place at the University of Bedfordshire on 5-6 May 2006. Our thanks are due to all those who participated in that conference, to Professor Les Ebdon, Professor Andrew Slade, Professor Luke Hockley, Professor Garry Whannel, Dr Jim Franklin, Dr Moira Hampson, Peter Dean and John Stephens, and in particular to Professor Alexis Weedon, Director of the University of Bedfordshire s Research Institute for Media, Art and Design, and Professor James Crabbe, Dean of the University of Bedfordshire s Faculty of Creative Arts, Technologies and Science, for their unstinting encouragement and support. Special thanks are also due to May Yao and Laura Booth of Intellect Publishing, and to Dr Jason Wilson of Queensland University of Technology with whom I co-organized the 2006 conference and evolved the concept of this collection.
P ART O NE: S TATE OF THE U NION
T HE E NLARGED A UDIO - VISUAL E UROPE: T HE M ANY F ACES OF E UROPEANIZATION
Hedwig de Smaele
The transition from Communism to post-Communism in the 1990s was accompanied in central and eastern European countries by the emergence of new nation states, new political and economic systems and subsequently new media systems. At the same time, collaboration among eastern European countries, based on a shared ideology and Soviet hegemony, largely disappeared and was replaced by new alliances, mainly with the West. Membership of (western) European institutions such as the Council of Europe and especially the European Union became for many central and eastern European countries a priority to which they geared their reforms. As of writing, ten central and eastern European countries have joined the EU - the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia in May 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania in January 2007. The European Union represents, with 27 Member States and several more candidate Member States, indeed an enlarged Europe.
A commonly used concept to discuss the impact of EU membership on the domestic policies and practices of old and new Member States is that of Europeanization . But can we speak of Europeanization in connection with the audio-visual field in the enlarged Europe - and, if so, in what sense?
A return to Europe?
In the period 1945-1989 Europe became identified with western Europe . The Berlin wall was de facto the eastern border of Europe. Behind it lay the eastern bloc, the Other in political, economic, ideological and military terms. Researchers studying the European audio-visual field automatically limited themselves to western Europe and the European Union in particular. Eastern Europe was involved, at the most,