Media, Politics and Policy Workshop, 1996 - 1997

This year's policy workshop will focus on media -- exploring the wide range of relationships among media in all its forms, politics and public policy.

Through a series of weekly presentations, we hope to open up debate on important and complex problems surrounding media, now being faced in post-Communist societies (and still urgent in developed democracies): the development of independent media and guarantees of free speech; the role of the media in the democratic election process; access to information; privatization and ownership of media outlets; and questions of journalistic integrity and responsibility, to name a few.

Our invited speakers are leading specialists in media studies, policy-makers and representatives of news and media organizations in New York City and beyond. Participants in the Policy Workshops here in New York City are ECEP fellows, doctoral students and faculty from New York universities. In addition, regional study groups of scholars and policy analysts throughout Central Europe, Eurasia and South Africa make up the on-line component of the workshops. Many of you were with us last year, and we hope you will join us for this second year.

Visiting us in the Fall will be Elaine Zimmerman, policy specialist for the State of Connecticut; Editor-in-Chief of Poland's Gazeta Wyborcza and well-known political writer Adam Michnik; journalist Jonathan Schell of the Media Studies Center in New York; Lawrence Weschler of the "New Yorker"; representatives of the media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting; Victor Navasky of The Nation, and many others.

In its second phase, the workshop will examine the situation of media in new democracies, and will include presentations on Slovakia, Poland, ex-Yugoslavia, Russia and Hungary.

During the last part of the workshop, in the Spring semester, our visiting fellows from the region will present papers addressing the specific problems of media and media policy in their respective countries - including Estonia, Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Russia and Ukraine. This is when we would also welcome your contributions: your discussion papers sent to us via e-mail will be presented here at our weekly sessions by ECEP fellows, and distributed to on-line participants.

Workshop seminars will meet regularly on Thursdays from 12:00 to 2:00 pm, in Room 211 at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, 65 Fifth Ave. at the corner of 14th Street.

Media, Policy and Politics Workshop Fall 1996/Winter 1997 Seminar Schedule

Part 1: Topics and Problems of the Media in Democratic Societies

Part 2: Case Studies, Country Studies

Part 3: Presentations by the ECEP Fellows & Area On-Line Participants

A special feature of this Workshop is that the presentations and discussions are shared via E-Mail with interested scholars in a total of fifteen institutes of higher education in eleven countries - Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. The contents of the discussions of the respective study groups in each of these countries will be shared with other groups, including, of course, the New York participants and presenters. The electronic logistics of the Workshop (including the preparation of the transcripts) is coordinated by Karen Underhill. Our Pew and Mellon Fellows serve as invaluable liaisons with the study groups in their home countries.

Those interested in participating in the Media, Politics and Policy Workshop should contact us via e-mail at WEERAMUN@NEWSCHOOL.EDU or UNDERHIK@NEWSCHOOL.EDU.

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