'East of West' in Budapest
About two hundred scholarly presentations were offered at the huge international conference called “Beyond East and West: two decades of media transformation after the fall of communism”, held in Budapest 25 – 27 June, 2009.
By Dušan Reljić and Mark Thompson
Budapest, 27 June 2009
This event crowned a four-year academic project that aimed to establish a new Central and Eastern Europe media research agenda. Funded by the European Science Foundation through its collaborative COST (European Co-operation in Science and Technology) programme, this project brought together over 50 scholars from around Europe. A pivotal role was played by the Centre for Media and Communication Studies of the Central European University in Budapest, whose Professor Miklos Sükösd served as the chair of the COST Action, East of West.
The plethora of papers covered twelve main fields of mass communication scholarship, starting from the analysis of central and eastern European media systems after 20 years of transition, then moving over research subjects such as alternative media cultures and practices and ending with scholarly publishing in transition.
More than this, a special attraction for younger scholars was the presence of leading figures in the field, including Elihu Katz, James Curran and Barbie Zelizer, President of the International Communication Association.
The Open Society Foundation’s seminal study on Television across Europe was presented by Mark Thompson. Peggy Valcke (University of Leuven) introduced the Indicators for Media Pluralism in Europe, commissioned by the DG Information Society and Media at the European Commission. Chin-Chuan Lee (City University of Hong Kong) and Andrei Richter (Moscow Media Law and Policy Institute) offered insights into the condition of the media in China and Russia, countries whose social, economic and political fabric is not easily understood by outside observers.
A discussion of “Public Service Broadcasting between East and West” brought a fascinating exchange between senior figures from German and Hungarian TV. Klaus Prömpers of ZDF regretted the lack of investigative reporting by PSBs in the transition countries. For example, he was not aware of any serious effort by RT Kosovo to investigate the allegations against and around Ramush Haradinaj. Responding, György Balo of Magyar Television pointed out that MTV receives under 10 per cent of Hungary’s advertising spend; the station has no capital. Under communism, he said, MTV was politically captive, but it had real achievements in cultural, educational and children’s programming. This no longer happens. Quality output by Hungarians for Hungarians has, according to Mr Balo, collapsed. What is more, this collapse has occurred without public debate. “Political parties have totally invaded broadcasting.” It was revealing that Mr Prömpers obviously found it difficult even to imagine the constraints that undermine the work of the Hungarian PSB.
These and other contributions will be published in due course by the CEU. A list of the papers and the agenda of the meeting can be found on the conference website. Among the papers which deserve a wide readership are the following: Benjamin Peters (Columbia University): Why the Soviet Internet failed – and Why it Matters Today; Ana Hofman (Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts): Folk Stars: Popular Music, Gender and Subjectivity in Socialist Yugoslavia; Anne Gorsuch (University of British Columbia): Fighting the Cold War on the French Riviera; and Tarlach McGonagle (University of Amsterdam): Multidimensionality in the Council of Europe’s Approaches to “Hate Speech”: from East/West to Present/Future.
