ECREA Preconference - The "New Silk Road" - Flow and Counterflow of Information between Europe and China?

USI - Lugano
January 12, 2018

CMO - China Media Observatory

IMeG – Institute of Media and Journalism

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI)

Organizers

Gianluigi Negro and Zhan Zhang (Post doc researchers at China Media Observatory, Univeristà della Svizzera italiana)

Rationale

The “New Silk Road”, or in the Chinese official discourse, the “Belt & Road initiative” (formerly called One Belt One Road 一带一路) was launched in 2013 with a confirmed concrete interest from Beijing to reconnect China with Europe and to establish different levels of cooperation with European partners. It has been widely recognized by the West as the Chinese president Xi Jinping’s global ambition of centralizing China as the leading force for the World Economy and Globalization as well as China’s greater expansion of Soft Power. So far, discussions about the New Silk Road and its relationship with Europe (i.e. European Union) have been mainly conducted in the field of political (Casarini, 2015; var der Putten and all, 2016, Fardella, 2016) and economic (Aoyama, 2016; Chen, 2016, Lin, 2015) studies. Much less attention has been paid from the media and communication perspective, despite the increasing importance of a better mutual understanding between different European and Chinese stakeholders on different levels under the Belt & Road framework.

This preconference is designed to fill in this gap by bringing scholars in media, communication and culture studies to join the discussion about the “New Silk Road” from Europe and China. On one hand, it recalls to the ancient Silk Road that initiated the first flow of communication and exchange in goods and culture between the Roman and Chinese empires. On the other hand, it opens windows for discussions on the current flow of a mix of acceptance—resistance, cooperation—dispute, and agreement—disagreement related to the New Silk Road between the two continents. If in 120 BCE the flow of information was launched in the West (Europe), at the present stage it starts from the East (China). We believe that this specific topic will contribute to the main theme of ECREA 2018 by providing a contribution to frame Centers (from Europe focus to China focus) and Peripheries

Aims

This preconference has a triple aim. First, it contributes to studies exploring past and present flows of information/communication between Europe and China, for this reason it finds an ideal link with the ECREA communication History section.

The second aim of this preconference is to develop a more solid discussion on the up-to-date dynamics of the flows of narratives and images on an international level between Europe and China. Considerations of political, economic and technological backgrounds within which media organizations operate are becoming global (Thussu, 2006) will be offered. To this regard, this preconference is in line with ECREA international and intercultural communication section as well as journalism studies.

The third aim of this preconference is to de-westernize communication research in search of new theoretical framework that offers richer cultural context to the present research framework (Wang 2010; Waisboard and Mellado, 2014). For this reason, we believe this preconference could also give some insights from Chinese Media studies to ECREA sections on film studies, media industries and cultural production studies.

We encourage research submission from (and not limited to) European research centers with a specific interest on Chinese media and also Chinese institutions with a research interest on Europe. We are also open to evaluating studies with interdisciplinary approaches and developed by scholars at their first stage, with a particular reference to the YECREA network. We expect to host a total of 25-30 attendees including scholars and experts interested in the topic.

Since 2006 CMO has been active to improve the academic dialogue between Europe and China also at the PH.D. level thanks to its Europe-China Dialogue: Media and Communication Studies Summer School. We plan to publish a special issue based on the best paper presented at the conference on the journal Communication and the Public published both in English and Chinese.

We encourage submissions of topics include (but are not limited to):

Media infrastructure studies along the New Silk Road
News flow and narratives through/among Countries related to the New Silk Road
Media production exchange or co-production between European and Chinese media companies
Digital media markets and the future of the “Digital Silk Road”
New media and cybersecurity cooperation along the New Silk Road
Media governance and Media law across boarders

Keynote speaker

Yang Guobin ((Professor of University of Pennsylvania, co-editor of the journal Communication and the Public)

Key dates

31 March 2018 deadline for abstract (500 words)
15 April 2018 notice of acceptance / rejection to the submitters
1 September 2018 deadline for full paper (8000 words) or the extended abstract (1500 words)
31 October Day of the preconference

Submit your paper here.

Budget

In order to support the costs of the event we plan to ask a fee:

100 EUR for non ECREA members
50 EUR for scholars who will join ECREA main conference
40 EUR ECREA members
30 EUR for students