News

Digitization of media and the resulting convergence of print, broadcasting and telecommunications have altered the media landscape significantly. The traditional mass media is thus confronted with a variety of new online competitors like social media sites or other user generated content. Under the headline "Media Accountability - Potentials and Pitfalls in the Era of Web 2.0" journalists, academics and media experts will discuss these developements in a public conference in the city of Lugano, Switzerland, on January 27/28, 2012.

Forward

A government-appointed inquiry team under the Lord Justice Leveson is to spend at least one year looking into UK press ethics and regulation following scandalous revelations about illicit phone hacking by journalists at the News of the World. The affair has been kept in the spotlight by investigative journalist Nick Davies and his colleagues at The Guardian. To date 11 people, including News International executives, journalists and their associates have been arrested as part of a criminal investigation into the scandal.

Forward

In addition to the publication of MediaAcT's national reports concerning innovative forms of media accountability, the research consortium conducted several online interviews with media experts and practitioners. Some excerpts from these interviews are now available on the MediaAcT website. Daniel C. Hallin, Paolo Mancini and Ognian Zlatev talked about the role of the Internet as a tool for supporting accountability and transparency in contemporary media structures at the last MediaAcT workshop in Wroclaw, Poland.

Forward

The Call for Papers for the upcoming international MediaAcT conference at the University of Lugano has been published. The call, edited by the Swiss team members Colin Porlezza and Stephan Russ-Mohl, is entitled "Media Accountability - Possibilities and Pitfalls in the Era of Web 2.0". It encourages submissions, both theoretical and empirical, focusing on media accountability, in particular with regard to new online technologies such as social media and innovative web-based accountability processes.

Forward