Have We (N)ever Been European?
On June 14th EUMEPLAT’s first Open Conference: Have We (N)ever Been European? Reflections on European culture and media
According to some scholars, European media have never been European – or at least, they hardly fostered a common identity across the continent. In XIX century, at the rise of modern cultural industry, a few exchanges were given among European countries, with no more than two narrative forms – the English and French novel – struggling for the hegemony, and the latter eventually taking the lead position, as explained by Franco Moretti in his well-known Atlas of the European Novel. One century later, the European movie market would be ruled by American exportations, with exchanges from an European country to another being an exception, rather than the rule - and the more so, one can say, for digital platforms.
The questions behind the EUMEPLAT project -- Is there an European media system? Do the media construct Europe, and how? Are audiences European? -- are driven by these fundamental debates about Europe, and connect them to media platforms. What is the place of Europe, when compared to the national patterns of newspapers and broadcasting; to the regional organization of media systems [as in Paolo Mancini and Dan Hallin’s model]; to the global hegemony held by American contents and services? For providing an answer, the three-year research – coordinated by IULM University and involving twelve partners in ten countries – called for the participation of high-level scholars in the field of Internet Studies, media history, economics, media systems, media law, data science, sociology, and cultural studies.
EUMEPLAT’s first Open Conference will be the occasion for presenting the initiative and, what is more relevant, for starting the discussion around some key issues – transnational culture; power and regulation of platforms; funding policies; European public opinion/sphere; Europeanization and common identity – which will play a fundamental part in the EUMEPLAT research, and in the future of the EU and Europe.
Register here for the event
Programme
- 10:00 am CEST
Institutional Welcome: Luca Barbarito [Dean of the Faculty of Communication, IULM University]
Introduction:An overview of EUMEPLAT Horizon 2020 Project - Andrea Miconi [IULM University, EUMEPLAT Principal Investigator]-->
- 11:00 am CEST:Europeanization from below
Charlotte Galpin [Lecturer in German and European Politics, University of Birmingham]: Claiming EU citizenship: European identity, rights and pro-EU activism during Brexit
Donatella della Porta [Professor of Political Sciences and Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa]: Europeanization and new social movements
Respondent: Barbara Thomass [Hans-Bredow-Institute, Hamburg]
Chair: Nico Carpentier [Charles University]
- 3:00 pm CEST
Donald Sassoon [Emeritus Professor of Comparative European History, Queen’s College, London]: The Globalization of Capitalism 1860-1914
Chair: Andrea Miconi