Join decision-makers and experts at the EBU Brussels office on Wednesday, 1 March 2012 to discover how public service media (PSM) facilitate citizenship through media literacy.

During the morning session, a TV show will highlight how PSM and their partners connect with their audiences across Europe through a diverse range of projects involving key stakeholders. In the afternoon, PSM professionals, literacy experts, European policy makers, civil society representatives and programmemakers will have the opportunity for a hands-on debate during parallel workshops.

One workshop will focus on a discussion of media literacy and empowerment towards democracy. In the other, participants will work towards creating a ‘toolkit’ to promote the principles of media literacy across the broadcast media and facilitate further exchange and cooperation with potential partners.

Register

You can register by using this link or click here to download the programme (pdf).

Media Literacy

• Bridging the digital divide

Media literacy is an essential skill for everyday life. The digital agenda for Europe includes a range of measures to promote increased access to high-speed broadband. However, better access does not in itself ensure that EU citizens make use of broadband network applications. PSM drives the uptake of digital technologies by facilitating universal public access to online tools, supplemented by subtitling or audio description, and the confidence to use them. By bridging the digital divide, PSM promotes empowerment and cultural diversity.

• Informing and empowering citizens to democracy

In an environment where citizens are beset by information, PSM play an important role in identifying credible sources of online information. As a trusted media outlet, they foster democratic participation by helping people analyse and evaluate public opinion and media messages. PSM also contribute to active citizenship by providing a platform for people to participate in the public sphere.

• Creating a trusted space for creativity

PSM play an important role in empowering citizens to use evolving media technologies to stimulate creativity, audience participation and innovation. Public Service Media are particularly committed to creating a safe, creative online digital environment for children and young adults. Campaigns, online tools and cross-media programmes enable children and others to play an active role in the media world.

Agenda

10:00    Welcome coffee and registration
10:30    Welcome speech by Jean‐Paul Philippot, EBU President
10:40   Speech by Jan Truszczynski, Director‐General for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, European Commission

10:50 TV‐show featuring video footage of media literacy projects and short interviews   - Presenter: Thomas Vanderveken (VRT, Belgian Flemish Radio & Television). With a key note speech by Ragna Wallmark (Planning Director, UR, Sweden)  and including video footage and special guests from the BBC, Czech Television, WDR, RAI, Channel 4 and France Télévisions

12:30    Lunch

14:00    Workshops (in parallel)

• Workshop I: Developing media literacy in a practical way: towards a media literacy toolkit  - Moderator: Evelyne Bévort (CLEMI).  Rapporteur: José Manuel Pérez Tornero (UAB, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona).
• Workshop II: Media Literacy & empowerment towards democracy - Moderator: Thomas Vanderveken (presenter at VRT). Rapporteur: Paolo Celot (EAVI, European Association for Viewers Interests). With a presentation by Ulrika Arlert (UR) on the Swedish TV series Medialised  and  a presentation by Philippe van Meerbeeck (VRT) and Mathy Vanbuel (ATiT) on the EUscreen project.

Presentations are followed by a debate with the participation of Aviva Silver, Head of Unit, MEDIA programme and media literacy, European Commission and MEP Mary Honeyball, S&D Culture coordinator, European Parliament

15:30    Coffee break
16:00    Workshop feedback and closing session (in plenary), with a closing speech by  Zoran Stancic (DG INFSO, Deputy Director General).

The third annual Media & Learning Conference will take place in Brussels on 14-15 November 2012. Aimed at policy makers, service providers and practitioners, Media & Learning 2012 brings together a community of people interested in how media can be used to support learning across all sectors. It investigates topics such as media literacy and re-use of media based resources in education as well as broader issues related to innovation, creativity, ICT skills and digital competence.

Media & Learning 2012 is organised in collaboration with the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training and the European Commission Directorate-General for Education and Culture. The conference is held at the Flemish Ministry of Education and Training Headquarters in Brussels. The programme will consist of many new features, including debates, exchanges and online elements. It also includes the annual awards ceremony for the MEDEA Awards, as well as presentations and input from all finalists in the 2012 competition.

The conference builds on the success of Media & Learning 2011, where EUscreen demonstrated its portal to a target group of education professionals and took part in a discussion on business models. All this amidst a packed programme, full of talks, discussions and demonstrations. The 2011 conference attracted over 298 people from 39 countries.

• Interested individuals, project teams, institutions and organisations are invited to submit proposals for presentations, demonstrations and workshops. The closing date for submissions is 1 June 2012. Also, if you would like to be involved in the development of the conference programme, you are welcome to contact the organisers.
• More information including the public call for input will be available from the Media & Learning Conference website shortly: http://www.media-and-learning.eu.
• Until that time, you can download the public report about the Media & Learning Conference 2011 from their online press and publications page.

Season’s greetings with some of the highlights (and lowlights) of the over 150 Christmas related items on the EUscreen portal:

• The elegant (1956 from Luce): Franco Morabito and Emma Danieli posing in front of their Christmas tree.
• The criminal (1962 from RTE): A report on Christmas tree theft from forests in the Dublin mountains. Includes a ‘re-enactment’ of a theft.
• The poignant (1987 from TVP): Two elderly people spending the holidays alone at home in the forest.
• The curious (HeNAA 1965): Distribution of New Year’s Eve’s presents to children of the countryside by parachutists.
• Bad taste (ORF 2007): Fashion-show: Christmas No-Goes.
• The all-in-one (TVC 2010): Christmas in Europe.

Now see for yourself what you can dig up and take your lucky festive dip at: www.euscreen.eu

Mirrored Video at the Cinema Museum, Turin, Italy. Image from Flickr by ezioman.

Contributions are welcome for Volume 2 of the Journal of European Television History and Culture, which is the first peer-reviewed multi-media e-journal in the field of television studies.

Call for Papers: Vol. 2 September 2012.
Deadlines:
500 word proposals: January 5th, 2012.
2-4,000 word articles: April 1st, 2012.

Offering an international platform for outstanding academic research on television, the journal has an interdisciplinary profile and acts both as a platform for critical reflection on the cultural, social and political role of television in Europe’s past and present as well as a multi-media platform for the circulation and use of digitized audiovisual material.

Our main aim is to function as a showcase for a creative and innovative use of digitised television material in scholarly work. At the same time, the journal intends to stimulate the fruitful discussion between audiovisual heritage institutions (especially television archives) and a broader community of television experts and amateurs. In offering a unique technical infrastructure for a multi-media presentation of critical reflections on European television, the journal aims at stimulating innovative narrative forms of online storytelling, making use of the digitized audiovisual collections of television archives around Europe.

The focus of Vol 2 of the journal, due for publication in September 2012, will be Europe on and Behind the Screens.

Proposals are invited on (but not limited to) the following topics:

Europe on the screen:

• Eurovision or Intervision programmes:
• Eurovision/ Intervision Song Contest
• European News Exchange
• Jeux Sans Frontières
• Sports
• National Programmes dealing with Europe:
• “With Europe in View” (BBC)
• European Journal
• European politics / public sphere
• History of European integration on television
• Europe television culture:
• Comparative studies on European television cultures
• Europeanization / Americanization / Sovietization of television
• Development of European television audiences

Europe behind the screen:

• The History of European broadcasting institutions (E.B.U. and O.I.R.T.) and bi-lateral cooperation between national broadcasters
• Hidden collaboration between East (OIRT) and West (EBU) during Cold War
• Political initiatives to promote television as a means for European understanding (TV without frontiers,…)
• The infrastructures of European live transmissions and programme exchange
• Transnational Actors and Personalities: programme makers, engineers, technicians, presenters
• Subversive cross-border viewing practices in totalitarian regimes
• Commercial initiatives and programme trade in the European television landscape
• Legal frameworks of European television trade and exchange, especially copy right problems

For our “discovery”-section, a platform dedicated to present latest developments and initiatives in the field of audiovisual heritage institutions and television archives, we especially invite contributions dealing with past experiences and future challenges of collaborations between television scholars and audiovisual heritage institutions. These essays (2.500 words) should reflect on the practical challenges of doing television research in an archival or academic environment.

Please send your abstracts no later than 5h of January, 2012 to the managing editor of the journal, Dana Mustata: journal@euscreen.eu

Report by Sian Barber

Friday 2nd December 2011 saw the UK launch of the new EUscreen portal. This event took place at the British Universities Film & Video Council (BUFVC) Annual General Meeting at the Royal Geological Society in Piccadilly, London. Eve Oesterlen from BUFVC and Dr Sian Barber from Royal Holloway University of London presented the EUscreen project to an audience of 70 guests.

The focus of the event was ‘more access’ and a variety of presentations on different projects demonstrated how this issue informs and influences BUFVC activity and how the EUscreen project fits into this agenda.

Sian Barber outlined the aims of the EUscreen project and highlighted the innovative nature of the content selection policy, explaining how functionalities like the virtual exhibitions and the content provider special collections will offer different user experiences from the rest of the portal. The technical side of the project was also used to demonstrate the complexities of EUscreen with Eve Oesterlen offering a brief overview of the challenges of the metadata scheme and working with different partners, different languages and individual workflows. Sian then suggested how EUscreen content could be used and drew attention to this material as a useful resource for students, scholars, teachers and casual browsers. The presentation and portal launch focused on the objectives of the project, what has been achieved so far and how EUscreen content offers exciting research and teaching and learning possibilities. The presentation concluded with a showing of the EUscreen promotional video and a suggestion that the audience explore the EUscreen portal for themselves. Following the presentations, a number of people queried what would happen to the EUscreen site and its material once the project was completed. It was felt that such careful work and such rich content should remain available as a resource.

Launching the EUscreen portal at this event offered the site to a new audience of those who work with audiovisual resources within education. The enthusiastic response of many people to the EUscreen portal, its content selection policy and detailed metadata schema demonstrates that there is a great deal of interest in the project and that the material is viewed as a useful resource for both teaching and learning.

Other highlights

Other highlights of the day included a presentation by Hetty Malcolm-Smith on the BUFVC Shared Services project. This ambitious project is based on a feasibility study and aims to link up the BUFVC collections of TRILT and TVTip with BoB National and data feeds from broadcasters, Channel 4 press packs and Higher and Further Education Institutions. The project also aims to include access to VHS recordings to help create the richest source of data for education in the UK and will begin by evaluating the possibilities of such a service.

One of the key resources for the shared service project will be the Channel 4 Press packs which are currently being fully digitised as part of the 1980s project at the University of Portsmouth. Dr Justin Smith (Portsmouth) and Linda Kaye (BUFVC) introduced this four year project which began in April 2010 which will have academic outputs but will also offer a context to the digitisation process. Each page of the press packs will be created as a PDF file to ensure that it can be individually identified and to improve access for the end user. Digitising the material in this way also offers access to the related and contextual data which surrounds the core information.

The final presentation of the day focused on other projects which involve the BUFVC, notably the Chronicle project; a collaboration with JISC and the BBC which will provide restricted access to news material from BBC Northern Ireland from the 1960s and 1970s.

See also

• http://bufvc.ac.uk/2011/12/06/uk-launch-of-euscreen-portal
• http://blog.euscreen.eu/?p=2364
• Download the press release here: EUscreen launch Dec 2011 FINAL

EUscreen’s technical coordinator, Johan Oomen, gave the following presentation at Europeana’s CCPA AGM on the 6th December 2011 at the DISH Conference in Rotterdam:

– Book announcement (language of the book: French)

Katharina Niemeyer
De la chute du mur de Berlin au 11 septembre 2001.
Le journal télévisé, les mémoires collectives et l’écriture de l’histoire.
Antipodes, Lausanne (Switzerland)
2011, 342p.

English title: From the fall of the Berlin wall to September 11. Television news, collective memories and writing of history

This book discusses the importance of television and television news in contemporary history telling and making, and also asks the question of collective memories. Concepts developed by philosophers of memory and history are linked and discussed with media theory; pointing out the temporal and visual implication of television news and the eternal, audiovisual game of the past, the present and the future. Two major televised events are analyzed: the fall of the Berlin wall and September 11 (as well as their commemorations). The results of the study show that television is a special history maker and teller as well as a creator of collectives memories. It is also an indicator and accelerator of social, political and cultural changes (aesthetics of television news trailers, visual design etc.) and … television remains an eternal challenger of media studies.

Links

• http://www.antipodes.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=187&Itemid=1&Itemid=89
• http://iamhist.org/2011/11/new-book-de-la-chute-du-mur-de-berlin-au-11-septembre-2001/#more-446