FAVz082 Public service media's online strategies: Industry's concepts and critical investigations

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2019
Extent and Intensity
2/0/0. 5 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Mgr. Jitka Lanšperková (assistant)
Guaranteed by
Mgr. Šárka Jelínek Gmiterková, Ph.D.
Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Supplier department: Department of Film Studies and Audiovisual Culture – Faculty of Arts
Prerequisites
None.
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
Course objectives
At the end of the course students should be able to:
understand current online strategies of public service broadcasters and their possible transformations into a new kind of media services
Syllabus
  • The course consists of lectures, panels and discussions of the Eighth Annual Screen Industries in East-Central Europe Conference (SIECE). Final program of the conference will be published soon. The conference will take place on November 22nd and 23rd in Prague.
  • The Eighth SIECE is following up with the previous year's topic by providing a forum for discussing the online strategies of public service broadcasters and their possible transformations into a new kind of media services. While critical studies of television in the internet era and of online distribution of audiovisual content more generally have boomed in recent years, there has not been enough attention paid to the specific challenges and opportunities that the internet brings to public service media (PSM). This is even more the case in the small countries of Central and Eastern Europe where PSM have generally limited their online presence to catch-up services and are still looking for more complex solutions to keep up with commercial and global competition. They face enormous difficulties ranging from outdated legal frameworks and financing models, a lack of skills in digital curation or data analytics, unpredictable changes in consumer habits, the impact of social media platforms, and political attacks trying to take advantage of PSM's insecure position. At the same time, the convergence of television and the internet presents opportunities for new business models, modes of audience engagement, and conceptualisations of public value. The SIECE VIII will strive to bring together international scholars of online TV with media professionals and policymakers to draw a picture of the situation, its roots and contexts, and possible scenarios for future development within East-Central Europe and beyond.
  • The topics of papers and panels include:
  • · Public value: how the shift to online TV makes media professionals as well as policymakers and audiences reconsider the core values of public service media; possibilities for creating public value outside the designated institutional spaces of PSM
  • · Industry structures: shifts in the dual TV market and the place of PSM in the emerging online-TV/VOD market; competition/cooperation with the commercial and global digital services; strategies of overcoming the public/commercial divide (such as the "ecosystem approach") and their dangers
  • · Infrastructures: issues of access and digital divide, net neutrality, mobile data, smart TV
  • · Digital curation and big data: balancing linear schedules with nonlinear catalogues, archival material with new content, personalized recommendation algorithms with top-down editorial selections and curation
  • · Online content strategies: development of trans-platform narratives, new promotional content/strategies, novel media formats, and short-form, web-only, spreadable content as a measure to re-connect with under- served (younger) audience groups
  • · Online audiences: the place of PSM online viewing in "media ensembles" and "use genres" of today's TV audiences; PSM's own concepts and measurements of online audiences
  • · "Public social" media or "platformization" of PSM: consequences of interactions and hybridizations between social media and PSM
  • · National and supra-national policies/politics vis-à-vis online TV: the European Commission's Digital Single Market strategy and its potential impact on PSM online services; the place and role of the EBU; territoriality of copyright and geoblocking; new dangers PSBs face from their political opponents after transforming into PSM; PSM's open data policy
  • · Professional cultures: tensions between TV and internet cultures within the PSM institutional spaces; self-conceptions of PSM employees, independent producers and freelance talent up and down the professional hierarchy; "industry lores" of PSM decision-makers
  • · Transnational flows and globalization: co-production, format adaptation, cross-border circulation, and localization of public service content in the internet era, threats to local content and content diversity
  • The Screen Industries in East-Central Europe conference investigates the region's audiovisual media industries from all angles – local, transnational, economic, cultural, social, and political – and through a broad range of original scholarship delivered in the form of conceptual papers and empirical case-studies. A selection of the conference proceedings will be published in a special English-language issue of the Czech Film Studies journal Iluminace (www.iluminace.cz).
Literature
  • Iluminace 4/2012, 3/2013, 3/2014
Teaching methods
Distinct areas of inquiry will be presented on panels consisting of three to five speakers, accompanied by a keynote lecture. Attendance of at least 60% is obligatory.
Assessment methods
In order to pass this course each student has to write a report, summarizing individual panels and keynotes and offering critical assesement of both the indvidual presentations and the overall conference.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
Study Materials
The course is taught: in blocks.
Teacher's information
The final program of the conference will be uploaded no later than by the end of October.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2019/FAVz082