PristupačnostComparative media systems: Implications for news media repertoires and democratic engagement across Europe (IUC-CMS 2016)
Postgraduate course & research conference
Inter University Center, Dubrovnik, 18-22 April 2016
Media systems analysis and cross-media news consumption research are two research areas currently characterized by ‘ferment in the field’. This course and conference brings together leading scholars in these fields in order to explore the opportunities for crossfertilizing them in comparative research projects across Europe. In media systems analysis, scholars like Brüggemann et al. (2014) and Perusko et al. (2013, 2015) are developing new tools for building better models to supplement or replace the enowned Hallin & Mancini model (2004), arguing that we need models which take account not just of politics and journalism culture, but which incorporate the complete mediascape.
Other scholars argue that from the audience point of view these mediascapes must be conceptualized as cross-media entities, and that we should understand better the ways in which audience preferences lead to the formation of distinctive media repertoires, with implications for citizens’ democratic engagement and participation. From the encounter of this dual endeavor to build empirically sound knowledge emerges the added value of bringing their findings into a heuristic dialogue about the possible interplay of relevant social institutions with media systems at the structural level and audience-generated media repertoires at the level of agency. As a result of this dialogue we can hope to obtain a better grasp of the nexus of media consumption and democratic engagement.
