TCDS Electronic Workshop "Media, Politics and Policy" (1997/98)

This workshop focuses 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/ TCDS 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 examines the situation of media in new democracies, and includes 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 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 also welcome your contributions: your discussion papers sent to us via e-mail can be presented here at our weekly sessions by ECEP/ TCDS fellows, and distributed to on-line participants.

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

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

• Thursday, October 31, 1996

Jonathan Schell, Writer, Political Commentator, and Fellow of the Media Studies Center.
"Political Ads in Presidential Elections" (Prepatory materials for this session is an essay by Mr. Schell entitled "The Uncertain Leviathan," published in The Atlantic Monthly.).
• Thursday, November 7, 1996

Elaine Zimmerman, Executive Director, Connecticut Commission on Children.
"Media, Politics and Democracy." (Prepatory materials for this session is one section of our Media As Democracy Workbook.).
• Thursday, November 14, 1996

Sam Husseini, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting).
"Corporate Influence in the Media and the Role of the Media Watchdog."
• Wednesday, November 20, 1996

Jay Rosen, Professor of Journalism, New York, University.
"Improving Journalism by Building Democracy."
• Thursday, December 5 , 1996

Victor Navasky, Publisher, The Nation.
"On The Nation, and the Historical Role of the Paper of Opinion."
• Thursday, December 12, 1996

Lawrence Weschler, journalist, and frequent contributor to the New Yorker.
"The Omnipotence and Impotence of Media in the Yugoslavian Experience." (Prepatory materials for this session is an essay by Mr. Weschler on Vermeer and Bosnia published in The New Yorker.)
• Thursday, December 19, 1996

Barry Sherman, Fellow, Media Studies Center
"Issues in Electronic Media: The Peabody Awards, the V-Chip, and Television Programming Practices."
• Thursday, January 30, 1997

Andrei Richter, Director, Moscow Media Law & Policy Institute,
"The State of the Russian Press in the Post-Soviet Era."
(Prepatory materials for the session is an article entitled "The Russian Press After Perestroika" in the Canadian Journal of Communication .)
• Thursday, February 6, 1997

Andras Szanto, Senior Research Fellow, Freedom Forum Media Studies Center,
"Voters and the Media: The 1996 US Presidential Elections"
• Tuesday, February 11, 1997

Ewa Letowska, Professor of Law, Polish Academy of Sciences,
"Media, Law, & Rights of Citizens"
• Thursday, Feb. 13, 1997

Tina Rosenberg, New York Times Editorial Page Editor and Award Winning Author of The Haunted Land
The New York Times: "All News That's Fit to Print"
• Thursday, Feb. 20, 1997

Howard M. Squadron, Founding Partner, Squadron, Elenoff, Plesent and Sheinfeld
"Representing Media Conglomerates"
• Thursday, Feb. 27, 1997

Arlene Morgan, Research Fellow, Media Studies Center
"Thinking as a Jounralist in a Multicultural World"
• Thursday, March 6, 1997

Kenneth Best, Journalist in Residence, American University
"Media, democracy and Development in West Africa"

Part 2: Case Studies, Country Studies

• Wednesday, October 2

Dmitry Strovsky, Professor of Journalism, Ural State University.
"The World Through the Russian Media."
• Monday, October 14

Zora Bútorová, FOCUS - Center for Social and Market Analysis, Slovakia,
and Martin BútoraWriter and Sociologist, Trnava University; President of Slovak P.E.N.
"Democracy and Media in Slovakia."
• Thursday, October 24, 1996

Adam Michnik, Writer, G-Tech 1996 Visiting Professor in Democracy and Editor-In-Chief, Gazeta Wyborcza.
"Gazeta Wyborcza: Democracy's Troublemaker": A Conversation on the Autonomy of the Media during Transitions to Democracy.
Please read his article, "Gazeta Wyborcza: Democracy's Troublemaker," as background material for this session.

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

• Thursday, March 27Stuart Palatnick, Cardozo School of Law.

"Current Legal, Political and Practical Obstacles to the Development of Independent Media in the Former Yugoslavia."
Presentation of the Belgrade Long-Distance Group. Contributor: Miroljub Radojkovic
• Thursday, April 3Michal Vasecka, Academia Istropolitana, Slovakia.

"Vladimir Meciar and the Media, or: How to Hold on to Power"
Andrew Klepikov, Kiev-Mohyla Academy, Ukraine.
"Political Discourse and Nation-Building in Ukraine"
• Friday, April 4Evelyn Messinger, Internews.

On the development of independent tv stations in Russia and the NIS, and changing policies of the US w/regard to Russian media.
Cardozo School of Law, Room 1023, 1:00 pm
• Thursday, April 10Boris Kostov and Rumyana Kolarova,University of Sofia, Bulgaria.

"Changes in the Structure of Ownership of the Bulgarian Media"
• Thursday, April 17Malgorzata Gajda, University of Warsaw, Poland.

"The Role of Advertising in the Shaping of Institutions, Society and Culture in Post-Communist Poland"
• Thursday, April 24Anna Laido, Tallinn Technical University, Estonia, and Marju Lauristin, Former Minister, Estonian Social Affairs.

"Professionalization of the Estonian Media: Historic and Ethnic Perspectives"
• Thursday, May 1Agnes Kende, ELTE, Hungary

"The Representation of Romanies in the Hungarian Media"
Shira Rosenfeld and Bernard Bene, Cardozo Law School
Presentation of the Budapest Long-Distance Groups -- Contributors: Prof. Istvan Hegedus and Thomas Bass

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) was coordinated in 1996-97 by Karen Underhill. Our Pew and Mellon Fellows served as invaluable liaisons with the study groups in their home countries.