30th EURICOM Colloquium on Communication and Culture in Honour of Professor Hanno Hardt The 2012 CCC colloquium will be focused on citizens’ participation and representation in the media in the context of global processes of media digitalisation, concentration, and convergence. We expect the participants to address issues of: • implications of contemporary global technological, economic and political changes for the fulfilment of fundamental democratic functions of journalism and the media to provide information, stimulate citizens' participation in public debate, and facilitate citizens to participate in the media in terms of content they produce and organisational participation; • alternative channels and forms of democratise communication in the public sphere, such as reforming the media from within based on the initiatives by professional media/news-workers; creating new 'alternative' media with autonomous publics by citizens' groups and non-governmental organisations seeking to participate more fully in public life while bypassing the corporate media; and promoting changes in media environments; • the relationships between journalists and their sources: between citizens-generated content and the mainstream media; between news and blogging, the role of televised audience discussion programmes, phone-ins or talk-radio, web publishing, 'grassroots' materials in the news production and i-journalism; and generally between citizen participation, main stakeholders' actions in media governance, media gatekeepers, and media audiences. Suggestions for papers with abstracts are invited until July 15, 2012: final papers are due by November 1, 2012. Send abstracts or any requests for further information to: Slavko Splichal ([email protected]).