'Mapping Global Media Policy' at IAMCR Conference in Istanbul

The Mapping Global Media Policy project was presented and discussed at the annual conference of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) in Istanbul on July 14 2011. The IAMCR's Global Media Policy Working Group organized a session dedicated to the project to discuss questions of data collection, visual maps, and scenarios of use. Marc Raboy introduced the project, Arne Hintz outlined recent developments and presented new thematic sections and visualizations tools, and Claudia Padovani discussed the use of the project platform for training and education through the example of her emerging thematic section on gender policy. Project collaborator Christian Potschka presented the new section on Funding Public Service Broadcasting which he is creating, and Basyouni Hamada discussed the use of data collection in relation to the ongoing 'Arab Spring'. The Mapping Global Media Policy project team has recently created a section on policy change in North Africa and the Middle East. 

The session was embedded in a broader stream of sessions by the Global Media Policy Working Group which also included a panel on Glocal’ Media Policy 3C: Creativity, Connectivity and Comparative Approaches with presentations by Bilge Yesil (‘Turkey's Internet Regulatory Regime: Exploring the Tensions between Global Communications and State Control’); Bonnie Peng (‘Media's Co-Regulation System in Taiwan’); Daeho Kim (‘Consumer Electronics Firm's Role in the Global Digital TV Transition Policy’); and Seong Choul Hong (‘A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Predictor Variables for Media Content Regulations’).

The project team also participated in a further session – IAMCR in dialogue with the Open Society Media Programme: MAPPING DIGITAL MEDIA? - which was chaired by Marc Raboy, with comments by Claudia Padovani, Arne Hintz, and others. Members of the Open Society Foundation introduced their project on Mapping Digital Media as well as several country reports. The discussion fostered knowledge and better understanding of the different mapping projects, their goals, approaches and methodologies. Opportunities were identified for possible cooperation between both projects, to be further explored in the coming months.