Project 4: Europe in Motion
This project examines migrant media and cultural transformations in the particular context of an enlarging Europe.
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Our core premise is that media and cultural policies in Europe (including at the pan-European level) are driven by a nation-based understanding and agenda and that this is in contrast with demographic, cultural and economic developments in Europe.
Research, including an extensive analysis of policy documents, conducted for the project supports this thesis. Interviews with policymakers at the European Commission highlight the mechanisms by which nation-driven media policy agenda develops at the pan-European level.
Producing case studies, the project has demonstrated that the national prism, driving pan-European media and cultural policies, leads to shortcomings in the way media is theorized as creating a sense of belonging and identity. Our research suggests that cosmopolitanism and transnationalism provide better conceptual frameworks in this respect.
The national prism also leads to the creation of media policies that ignore significant numbers of Europeans – including migrants and Europe’s Roma. Roma media are particularly vulnerable and under-researched. Transnational migrants do not necessarily find the nation focussed media helpful in building a sense of belonging or identification with the country of their residence. In a number of European countries, we have found city media or religious media are more readily embraced in this respect.
Shifting media geographies and European borders have also informed our case studies. One case study, of a television station that broadcasts in a number of countries of former Yugoslavia, illustrates that previously shared and disrupted European media spaces are reconstituted - a fact that is not reflected, acknowledged or supported in European media policies. The case of the Pink TV, a privately owned media company, maps this development in former Yugoslavia and questions the dominant reliance on public service broadcasters in European countries in their role of creating a shared public sphere.
January 2014
Monika Metykova, Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association annual conference Media and the Margins, Bournemouth University, keynote: “Alternatives to Nation-Centric Approaches to Media” 10 January 2014
May 2013
Monika Metkova, Media, Mobility and Europe conference, Dubrovnik, Croatia, invited talk: “European Media and Diversity: Lessons from the Balkans” 14 May 2013
February 2013
Monika Metkova, Changes in Community Broadcasting conference, Radio Proglas, Brno, Czech Republic, key note: “Media Policy and Community Media” 1 February 2013
March 2010
Kevin Robins will act as a discussant at a conference on ethnic media at the University of Poitiers.
Capitals of Culture (ECOC)
Istanbul is one of the Capitals of Culture in 2010. Asu Aksoy acted as a member of the board advising the ECOC 2010 organizing committee.
The team of project four is organizing a one-day symposium on 28 November
2009 on the topic of cosmopolitanism and diversity in Europe.
Kevin Robins, July 2009
He convened a 'plenary conversation' with Charlie Gillett (BBC World
Service) and Robin Denselow (Guardian and BBC) at the "Migrating music:
Media, politics and style" conference at the SOAS
Interviews with media policymakers have been conducted in Brussels at the various European Commission directorates.
In the second half of June, Monika Metykova will present a paper at the ‘Beyond East and West: Two Decades of Media Transformation after the Fall of Communism’ conference in Budapest, Hungary.
March 2009: Kevin Robins gave a lecture entitled ‘European Culture in Transition: The Possibility Space of Transnationalism’ at the Institute for the Study of European Transformations, London Metropolitan University.
Interviews with media policy makers have been conducted in Brussels at the various European Commission directorates. In the second half of June, Monika Metykova will present a paper at the ‘Beyond East and West: Two Decades of Media Transformation after the Fall of Communism’ conference in Budapest, Hungary.
Monika Metykova has co-written two chapters in: 'Media in the Enlarged Europe', titled:'Challenges of Media Concentration: The Case of Regional Press Ownership in the Czech Republic.' and 'An Elusive ‘European’ Public Sphere?: The Role of Shared Journalistic Cultures.') .The book edited by Alec Charles and Jason Wilson has been published recently by Intellect.
Conference call for papers
A two-day workshop entitled Diasporas, Migration and Media: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions will be held at Utrecht University on November 6-7 2009
Czech radio programme about the project
In late February the Research Associate Monika Metykova gave an interview about the project for a radio station in Brno, Czech Republic.
Kevin Robins has recently attended a conference entitled Transformations in Art and Culture Annual Conference: Politics of Convergence at VU University in Amsterdam where he spoke about transnational communications and transcultural studies.
He also presented a paper on transnationalism at the Seminar on Migration, Languages and Television which was held at the University of Glasgow.
ECREA conference
ECREA's Diaspora, Migration and the Media section has a new chair: Olga Guedes-Bailey.
Work on two case studies (PINK TV and media in Wolverhampton) has just commenced.
Forthcoming conference
At the end of November Monika and Kevin are presenting a paper at the European Communication Research and Education Association conference in Barcelona entitled “Challenging European Media Policy: Insights from Transcultural Media Practices.”
Roma media fieldwork Monika conducted interviews at Roma media in the Czech Republic. She talked to the editors of Romano hangos, O Roma vakeren, Radio Rota and Romano vo?i.
For more on these media see:
www.romea.cz
www.dzeno.cz/?r_id=32
www.srnm.cz
http://romove.radio.cz/cz/rubrika/1164
Europe in Motion team is delighted to be welcoming Jowan Mahmod a doctoral student funded by the "Spaces, Connections, Control" initiative, to their team in September 2008
Monika has presented a paper entitled ‘At home in enlarged Europe?: Eastern European migrants in the UK’ at the Seventh European Urban and Regional Studies conference in Istanbul in September 2008.
Monika Metykova, "Culture in the hands of nationalist populist governments: Observations from new European Union member states," Global Media and Communication (forthcoming 2014.
Kevin Robins, ‘European Culture in Transition: The Possibility Space of Transnationalism’, Institute for the Study of European Transformations, London Metropolitan University, 23 March 2009.
Kevin Robins, 'Transnational Communications and Transcultural Studies', Paper presented at Seminar on Migration, Languages and Television, Centre for Cultural Policy Research, University of Glasgow, 23 January 2009.
Kevin Robins, 'Transnational Communications and Transcultural Studies', Paper presented at Transformations in Art and Culture Annual Conference: Politics of Convergence, VU University, Amsterdam, 20-21 January 2009.
Monika Metykova, “Individual Influences : Journalists’ Values and Norms” and “From News Nets to House Rules: Organisational Contexts.” In Paschal Preston, Making the News: Contemporary Journalism Practices and News Cultures in Europe. London: Routledge, 2009 (both chapters together with Paschal Preston).
Monika Metykova, “A Key Relation: Journalists and their Publics.” In Paschal Preston, Making the News: Contemporary Journalism Practices and News Cultures in Europe. London: Routledge, 2009.
Paschal Preston and Monika Metykova, ‘Re-Framing Political Public Spheres: Media, Political Communication and Crises in Europe.’ In Michał Krzyżanowski, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Ruth Wodak (eds.) Europe in Crisis? The European Public Sphere and the National Media in the Post-War Period. London: Palgrave, 2009.
Monika Metykova and Lenka Waschková Císařová, ‘Challenges of Media Concentration: The Case of Regional Press Ownership in the Czech Republic.’ In Alec Charles and Jason Wilson (eds.) Media in the Enlarged Europe. Bristol: Intellect, 2009.