The EUMEPLAT project is organizing its first open conference “Have We (N)ever Been European? Reflections on European Culture and Media”. It will take place online on June 14th, 2021, 10:00 am to 6:30 pm CEST. You can register
here.
EUMEPLAT, a Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation project funded by the European Commission, aims at analyzing the role of media platforms in fostering or dismantling European identity.
According to some scholars, European media have never been European – or at least, they hardly fostered a common identity across the continent. In XIX century, at the rise of modern cultural industry, a few exchanges were given among European countries, with no more than two narrative forms – the English and French novel – struggling for the hegemony, and the latter eventually taking the lead position, as explained by Franco Moretti in his well-known
Atlas of the European Novel. One century later, the European movie market would be ruled by American exportations, with exchanges from an European country to another being an exception, rather than the rule – and the more so, one can say, for digital platforms.
The questions behind the EUMEPLAT project —
Is there an European media system?
Do the media construct Europe, and how? Are audiences European? — are driven by these fundamental debates about Europe, and connect them to media platforms. What is the place of Europe, when compared to the
national patterns of newspapers and broadcasting; to the
regional organization of media systems [as in Paolo Mancini and Dan Hallin’s model]; to the global hegemony held by American contents and services? For providing an answer, the three-year research – coordinated by IULM University and involving twelve partners in ten countries – called for the participation of high-level scholars in the field of Internet Studies, media history, economics, media systems, media law, data science, sociology, and cultural studies.
EUMEPLAT’s first Open Conference will be the occasion to present the initiative and, what is more relevant, to start discussing some key issues – transnational culture; power and regulation of platforms; funding policies; European public opinion/sphere; Europeanization and common identity – which will play a fundamental part in the EUMEPLAT research, and in the future of the EU and Europe.
International professors and experts will contribute to the discussion on June 14, 2021, and among them Charlotte Galpin, Donatella della Porta, Donald Sassoon, Paolo Mancini and Daniel Hallin.
Register
here.
Programme
10:00 am CEST
Institutional Welcome: Luca Barbarito [Dean of the Faculty of Communication, IULM University]
Introduction: An overview of EUMEPLAT Horizon 2020 Project
Andrea Miconi [IULM University, EUMEPLAT Principal Investigator]
11:00 am CEST: Europeanization from below
Charlotte Galpin [Lecturer in German and European Politics, University of Birmingham]:
Claiming EU citizenship: European identity, rights and pro-EU activism during Brexit
Donatella della Porta [Professor of Political Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa]:
Europeanization and new social movements
Respondent: Barbara Thomass [Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institut, Hamburg]
Chair: Nico Carpentier [Charles University]
3:00 pm CEST
Donald Sassoon [Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History, Queen’s College, London]:
The Globalization of Capitalism 1860-1914
Chair: Andrea Miconi [IULM University]
4:30 pm CEST
Putting the Media Systems Model to the Test
Paolo Mancini [Professor of Media Sociology, University of Perugia]
Daniel Hallin [Distinguished Professor of Communication, University of California San Diego]
Chair: Stylianos Papathanassopoulos [National & Kapodistrian University of Athens]
6:00 pm CEST
Final remarks
Nico Carpentier [Charles University] and Stylianos Papathanassopoulos [National & Kapodistrian University of Athens]
