Beyond East and West: Two Decades of Media Transformation After the Fall of Communism

Organised by the CEU/CMCS, the COST A30 Action "East of West: Setting a New Central and Eastern European Media Research Agenda" and the International Communication Association (ICA). Co-sponsored by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, the Open Society Institute (OSI), the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Friedrich Ebert Foundation and the Austrian Cultural Forum.

The three-day CMCS conference Beyond East And West: Two Decades Of Media Transformation After The Fall Of Communism brought together 250 leading and emerging media scholars in over fifty parallel sessions, with plenaries featuring Miklós Haraszti, Sonia Livingstone, Elihu Katz, Barbie Zelizer, Monroe Price, Slavko Splichal, Colin Sparks and James Curran.

Key questions the 250 participating scholars probed included: To what degree have free and independent media systems and an open public discourse emerged? What are the likely future trajectories of media development? How can comparative analysis help us better understand media development and the transition processes as a whole?

The conference website includes an overview of themes and speakers. Following up on the conference, the CMCS will publish two edited volumes, one around the conference theme, and another with selected papers from the freedom of speech sessions.