Geographic and symbolic boundaries are increasingly challenged by information and communication developments, as at present, more than ever before, media allow populations in local, national and transnational spaces to communicate in cheaper and quicker ways and while having the opportunity to get access to different media settings and communication flows. Emerging communication and information opportunities can allow minority communities to produce, distribute and consume alternative to the mainstream images and sounds; they can reconfirm co-presence and feed imagination of belonging in their shared media cultures. All these can have diverse consequences regarding minorities’ participation, inclusion, empowerment or even isolation.

The development and the implications of minority media cultures for ethnic communities, for social exclusion and participation and for the shaping of multicultural Europe are in the core of the two day European workshop Minority Media in Europe: A Revolution from Below? taking place on the 26-27 of September 2002. This workshop will be a unique opportunity for academics, minority media practitioners and NGOs to discuss key issues that relate to minority media cultures:

• how culture – and media in particular – relate to minorities’ cultural and social inclusion; this will be a discussion addressing policy, political and public debates about minorities’ belonging in European space and in member-states’ societies



• whether minority communities sustain separatist cultures or participate in an emerging European multi-ethnic culture (or diverse multi-ethnic cultures)



• how particular media cultures participate in creating new conditions for social inclusion and exclusion



• how minorities’ experience with the media reflects a particular relation to media and communication technologies; whether media technologies change conditions within minority media cultures and the broader media environment



• how national and EU policies about minorities and the media further or obstruct their social inclusion

Key Questions being Addressed

• Are media important for the emergence of distinct and self-distinguishing communities in local/national/European/global context?



• To what extent are media playing a role in maintaining cultural particularity?



• How do minority media cultures get involved in processes of minority inclusion in multi-ethnic, multi-national social spaces?



• How do the member-states and the EU allow/obstruct the emergence of particular and multiethnic (mediated) cultures?



• What can be learned from particular minority media experiences regarding participant and democratic communication across Europe?

The workshop is expected to attract academics, media practitioners and policy makers from all over Europe. It will bring together members of the academic and minority media network collaborating for the realisation of the EC-funded project Minorities and their Media in the EU: A Mapping, which is based at Media@LSE, the media programme at the London School of Economics. This event will also be an opportunity for the expansion of a broader network of academic and non-academic experts. The co-organising of the event with the European network OnLine/More Colour in the Media and the EC-funded COST Action A16 (‘ICT and Transnational Communities’) guarantees that this will be a forum of focused discussion and exchange of experience and knowledge among some of the key actors in this area across Europe.

The workshop’s aim is to initiate a Europe-wide debate both within the academy and between the academy, practitioners and those working in policy arenas, on the core theoretical and political issues that arise from minorities media(ted) cultural activity. It is intended that a series of working papers, arising from the workshop will be published on-line (http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/Media/EMTEL/Minorities/project_home.html) as well as in hard copy. Furthermore, many of the original contributions to the event will become the basis for developing an academic edited collection. At the same time, and during this workshop, the development of a Europe-wide database with academic and policy resources in this area of study will be announced by the new European Centre of Information and Expertise on Media, Diversity and Society.

For further details: M.Georgiou@lse.ac.uk.

Also see: http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/Media/EMTEL/Minorities/project_home.html

Programme and Introduction are also available in and

Thursday – 26 September

9:30 – 12:30 – Pre-conference working session (COST A16) (Room V1103, Tower II)

13:30 – 14:00 – Registration and Coffee (Room D 211, Clement House)

14:00 – 14:15 – Introduction by Prof. Roger Silverstone, Media@LSE (Room D 602, Clement House)

14:15 – 16:15 – Working Session I – EMTEL (Room D 602, Clement House)

Mapping Minority Media: The National and the Transnational Context

- Ralf Kauranen & Salla Tuori, Åbo Akademi University

Mapping Minorities and their Media: Finland

- Isabelle Rigoni, University of Warwick

The Muslim Media in Search for Social and Political Inclusion: a Comparison Britain-France

- Sari Hanafi, Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Centre

Palestinian Virtual Networks: Charting Diasporic Movements Across National Borders

- Connie Carøe Christiansen, Danish National Institute of Social Research

News Media Consumption Among Immigrants in Europe: The Relevance of Diaspora

16:15 – 16:45 – Coffee (Room D 211, Clement House)

16:45 – 18:45 – Working Session II – EMTEL (Room D 602, Clement House)

Transnationalism and Particularities: The Case Studies

- Eugenia Siapera, University of Amsterdam

Activism on the Web: The Internet, Minorities and Asylum Politics

- Dina Matar, LSE

Consumption of news - The Palestinians in Britain, one story, diverse media cultures

- Nicola Mai, Sussex Centre for Migration Research, University of Sussex

The Albanian Diaspora-on-the-Making: Media, Migration and Social Exclusion/Inclusion

- Leonor Camauër, Örebro University

New senses of place, new forms of participation, new challenges to policy: A Case Study of a Periodical in Castillian Published in Sweden

OL/MCM Parallel Sessions: Room D 703, Clement House (closed sessions, for more information please contact Esther Lubenau at eslube@miramedia.nl)

14:15 - 16:15 - Working Session I

Transnational Network of National Platforms In several European countries groups of ethnic minorities are making radio and television programmes. Each European country (and sometimes city) has an own structure to 'facilitate' radio and television initiatives. OL/MCM wants to explore in which way it can be supportive to these platform initiatives.

16:45 - 18:45 - Working Session II

A 'Manifesto' to Support and to Underline the Importance of the Migrant and Refugee Media Based on the results of this European Symposium a Manifesto will be developed, which can be used on local, national and European level to support the struggle for recognition and a better broadcasting environment. This workshop aims to reflect on the outline of the Manifesto and will look at strategies, which will have to be developed to use the Manifesto as a means to organise migrant and refugee initiatives in a national platform.

Friday – 27 September

9:30 – 10:00 – Coffee (Room D 211, Clement House)

10:00 – 12:00 – Plenary I (Room D 602)

Minority or Diaspora? Media and Exclusion in Multiethnic Europe

Chair: Myria Georgiou

• National, local, transnational media and diversity: are languages and codes an issue?
  Prof. Brigitta Busch, Klagenfurt University, title to be confirmed



• A Cross-national Perspective on Representing Cultural Diversity in the Media
  Dr Jessika ter Wal, Utrecht University



• Minority Media: The Counterpoint of Diaspora
  Roger Silverstone, Media@LSE

12:00 – 13:30 – Lunch (Café Pepe, Clement House)

13:30 – 15:30 – Plenary II(Room D 602)

The Future of Ethnic Media

Chair: Ed Klute

Participants:

• Rui Monteiro, IndvandrerTV, Denmark



• Sara Wajid, ex-editor of Black Media Journal; web editor, UK



• OnLine/More Colour in the Media participants



• Nachida Baba Aissa, EPRA (Échanges et Productions Radiophoniques), France



• Francesco Diasios, Zhong Yi Bao Chinese Newspaper, Italy

15:30 – 16:00 – Coffee (Room D 211)

16:00 – 17:30 – Parallel Strategy Workshops (Rooms D 602, D 311, D 703)

Ethnic Media: Directions, Problems, Visions
Facilitators: Amina Krüger; Bart Cammaerts; Myria Georgiou

17:30 – 18:30 – Concluding Plenary Session (Room D 602)

Participants:

• Prof. Roger Silverstone, Media@LSE



• Ed Klute, MiraMedia



• Workshop Facilitators

18:45 – Reception, LSE (Senior Dining Room, Old Building)

Travel information for Workshop participants

How to reach the LSE (general)

How to reach the LSE (train and Tube)

Find your way in the campus

Accommodation locations

• Royal National Hotel
• London Goodenough Club