The first edition of the Interdisciplinary New Media Conference has been a great opportunity for national and international academics from fields such as journalism, media, communication, philosophy, sociology, psychology, economics and computer science and professionals from the audio-visual new media to get together and exchange ideas on the research and development of this emerging field. We would like to take this project further and in the future consider creating a group for new media research and education.

The participants found the presentations interesting and the debates stimulating.

The conference opened on May 21^st with the Official Welcome Address delivered by Senior Lecturer Ph.D. Elena Abrudan, Head of the Journalism Department (Babes-Bolyai University) and General Conference Chair, followed by the the Rector’s Address delivered by Professor Ph.D. Andrei Marga.

Four other keynote speeches followed: Web 2.0, Social Networks, and Media Students – Professor Ph.D. Melissa Lee Price (Staffordshire University), Researching the Blogosphere – Senior Lecturer Ph.D. Georgeta Drulă (Bucureşti University), Bare and Share – Culture of File Sharing in Romania - Szakáts István (Altart Foundation), Academic Websites and Web Rankings – Senior Lecturer Ph.D. Alina Andreica (Babes-Bolyai University).

The afternoon session of the conference started with a digital art exhibition featuring digital artworks provided by the Altart Foundation and several Journalism students. The participants were especially captivated by the works of first-year Journalism student Ovidiu Duţă.

Each of the two following panel sessions – Researching New Media Systems and E-business Management – was opened by two extremely interesting keynote presentations, one on Data Mining and Knowledge Representation by Lecturer Ph.D. Cristian Săcărea from Babeş-Bolyai University’s Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science and one on E-business Management delivered by Lecturer Ph.D. Robert Buchmann from Babeş-Bolyai University’s Faculty of Economical Studies and Business Management. Presentations in both panels started up debates on the role of e-marketing, studying virtual communities and their impact on consumer culture. Both panels also featured presentations from business professionals – Paul Lupoian and Cristian Popa from Alphasoft presented methods of digitizing print and using it for research and Sergiu Biriş, the General Director of Romania’s top website the Trilulilu video-sharing portal who presented ways and means of managing a business based on user generated content.

The first day of the Conference ended with a dinner at Piramida Restaurant where the participants had the opportunity to get to know each other better and discuss future projects.

The second day of the conference had a more heterogeneous approach to new media within the Digital Media and E-publishing, Online Society Dynamics panel. The participants proved interested both in presentations covering niche topics such as Studying Sexuality through the Internet (Sebastian Bartoş, M.A. student in Clinical Psychology) or In-Game Advertising (George Prundaru, M.A. student in Interactive Media) and the broad topic of blogs and the way they have shifted traditional socio-cultural paradigms. Assistant Horea Badau held an inciting presentation entitled Bloggers -  A New Community of Leaders. Also, presentations like the one by Lecturer Ph.D Radu Bîlbîie (“Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu) on a Narrowcasting System for Public Institution lead the way towards the final event of the conference, the Interactive Multimedia Student Presentations.

Two teams of Journalism students presented their projects. A team of first-year students (Andrei şi Cezar Candrea, Irina Breniuc şi Iulia Becheş) presented an online portal designed as a meeting place for student passionate about photography, a portal that will soon host photo galleries of Journalism students. The other team comprised of second-year Journalism students (Radu Morea, Andrei Leczfalvi, Claudiu Dănilă) presented a remarkable interactive visual guide of the Journalism Department, allowing navigation through different rooms, browsing equipment and interacting with professors.

This first edition of the conference was all in all a great opportunity for establishing common grounds between specialists from different fields, thus opening the way to a truly interdisciplinary approach to new media in Romanian scientific research with considerable market applications.

General Program Chair

Senior Lecturer Ph.D. Elena Abrudan – Head of Journalism Department

Program Chair

Assistant Radu Meza

University of Applied Sciences FH Joanneum şi Kunsthaus Graz au organizat în perioada 27-29 Noiembrie 2008 Conferinţa Internaţională EADiM Academic Network Conference 2008  şi gala premiilor Europrix Multimedia.

Programul conferinţei:eadim-academic-network-conference

Rezumate ale lucrărilor prezentate:

Visual Culture in New Interface Design

 conf. univ. dr. Elena Abrudan - şefa Departamentul de Jurnalism, FSPAC, UBB

 As technology develops, one cannot help notice the general tendency that media machines follow: simpler, slick designs with fewer colors, fewer buttons, with just a few multi-purpose controls. This is one of the effects of the convergence of technology that allows all media to be displayed on the same screen. As Lev Manovich puts it, we are witness to the advent of the universal media machine. Be it a universal media machine we keep at home on a desk, one we carry around in a bag, or one we keep in our pockets, we notice how they have changed over the last decades from bulky, difficult to operate machines, full of buttons and blinking LEDs to these comfortable and esthetic, monochrome, slick surfaces that only carry one or two once omnipresent buttons, sometimes even none.
In these new designs for digital media machines, both for hard and soft interfaces we find that technology is becoming transparent, completing the shift from digital technology control for IT specialists to digital media consumption for the masses.
Arthur C. Clarke once said “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”. Can it be that this is exactly what we are starting to achieve through simple, smart designs for smart multi-purpose interfaces?
This paper means to explore visual culture in the universal digital media machines’ both hard and soft interfaces designs with respect to the latent, fundamental desire of humans across history to practice magic. Discussing the design trend started by Apple with their iPods, iPhones and Macs, moving to the simple yet astounding Google and then to slick, transparent, visually rich, yet simple to use operating systems look and feel: from Mac OSX to Windows Vista, this article will try to encompass modern visual culture in digital media migrating towards magic in order to better fulfill the consumer’s need to be empowered.

Extracting and Representing Knowledge from Popular New Media Systems
Analyzing Online Social Networking Systems in Web 2.0

 Radu Meza

This paper explores the academic research relevance of online social networking systems such as Hi5 or Facebook using state-of-the-art data collection and analysis methods.
Although it is a widely-known fact that online social networking systems hold immense amounts of data (there are over 2 billion registered users in the popular online social networking systems), there is still little academic interest towards exploiting this resource for knowledge, but more importantly, we have yet to develop the tools for such research. This attempt is meant to open new paths for future research of complex new media systems by combining data mining methods with alternative representation models.
The main goal of this study is to extract a large sample of user data (name, age, sex, location, favorite musical genre etc.) from the Hi5 social networking system (which is very popular in Romania, having about 2.5 million registered users) and use formal concept analysis, a data analysis method theorized by Rudolf Wille that has not yet reached its full potential especially in social studies. The conceptual clustering and conceptual hierarchies that this data analysis method can provide are relevant for extracting meaning out of Web 2.0 data content tags. Statistical tools are also used to complement this new approach and offer a full, clear picture of the data in question. Another objective of this paper is to provide a map of the virtual social links in the system. This web of interconnected nodes, can provide information on the structure of virtual social networks (whether or not they follow the model of scale-free networks like Albert Barabasi proved real social networks or the Web do; whether their structure is “continental” or “insular” and to what extent we can consider these popular emerging systems to be “small worlds”).

Christian Roy (Concordia University, Montreal)

« James Cameron’s The Abyss : Digital Communication as Apocalypse »

Paper for the workshop on Science Fiction and Symbolic Communication, chaired by Elena Abrudan, of the11^th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas at the University of Helsinki, 28/7-2/8 2008.

Abstract

James Cameron’s science-fiction blockbusters often suggestively problematize mankind’s relation to technology. The Terminator films were thus based on the idea of the nascent Internet as a nervous system that could become self-aware as the subject of technology and promptly dispose of its human parasites. These dystopian visions have also had their utopian counterpart in The Abyss, the first film to use digital special effects for “morphing”, significantly used as a metaphor of the new mode of being made possible by global electronic communications. For the advent of this technical revolution is part of the Christian imagery of eschatology and conversion, translated to different states of matter, that functions to suggest the shift in human consciousness accompanying the transition from the rigidity of analog technology to the fluidity of digital technology. It thus symbolically locates salvation for an embattled mankind in the self-revelation of a liquid realm of instant communication overcoming all outward divisions in a unified global consciousness field. It thereby manages to transfigure its historical moment as a kairos bringing the Heavenly Kingdom within reach of earthly realization: 1989 as the meltdown of  Cold War blocks, on the eve of the emergence of the borderless global cyberspace of the Internet. Marshall McLuhan saw the creative artist as an “early warning system”, grasping and portraying such shifts in the economy of the sensorium even ahead of their full unfolding in technology, history and culture. Cameron’s The Abyss can illustrate this view, being a mythic epiphany of mutations then still around the corner that became discernible in it retrospectively. It thus uses Christian motifs to give narrative expression to world-historical shifts best conceived in McLuhanian terms. For instance, this is a film about beings dying to themselves and painfully learning to live in a new element to save others, and particularly about humans breathing a liquid instead of air to reach a new “heaven” in reverse in the depths of the ocean, inhabited by angelic creatures whose technology gives any form to water, like CGI does to screen contents. The dark sea stands for the fluid, all-encompassing acoustic space of electronic technology, as opposed to the visual space at the surface, where solid states and their steel vessels are poised on the brink of nuclear war; it is the overcoming of their sharp opposition of homogenizing units that is signalled at the end by the literal emergence from underneath them of the marine “Heavenly Jerusalem,» like the “global village” brushing aside the Gutenberg logic of territorial nation-states and industrial ideologies.

Symbols of Change in a Shattered World

 Jules Verne, Begum’s Millions (Les 500 millions de la Bégum)

Paper for the workshop on Science Fiction and Symbolic Communication, chaired by Elena Abrudan, of the11^th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas at the University of Helsinki, 28/7-2/8 2008.

Abstract

Peter Schulman, Old Dominion University, USA

         “Nous sommes malades, cela est bien certain, malades de progrès,” Zola announced in Mes haines. “Cette victoire des nerfs sur le sang a décidé de nos moeurs, de notre littérature, de notre époque toute entière.” Can Zola’s famous statement be applied to Jules Verne’s vision of the 19^th-century as well? Although Verne’s most famous works such as Le Tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours and Vingt-mille lieues sous les mers are considered by many to be encomia to technology and progress, the recently rediscovered manuscript of Verne’s dystopic vision of Paris in the 1960’s, Paris au Xxème siècle, so scathingly denounces the dehumanizing aspect of modernity that it also points to the latent uneasiness with his era that would resurface in full in the later 500 millions de la Bégum which has been traditionally seen as a “turning point” in Verne’s career in terms of his own ideological evolution from sunny optimist to guarded pessimist. Written shortly after the Franco-Prussian war, Les 500 millions de la Bégum paints a grim nationalistic picture of two scientists, a  benevolent Frenchman, and an evil, despotic German who each inherit millions from a long-lost relative. Whereas the Frenchman, le Dr Sarrasin, creates a utopia on the West Coast of the United-States called France-Ville, the German, Herr Schultze, builds Stahlstadt or “City of Steel,” a dystopic mining village bearing an uncanny resemblance to Verne’s hegemonic 1960 Paris: “la liberté, l’air manquaient dans cet étroit milieu” (100). Indeed, Stahlstadt is essentially a slave camp similar to  Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. While France-Ville is a socialist society appropriately situated along the Pacific Ocean, Stahlstadt is a war mongering proto-fascist state, an environmental disaster which produces cannons to bellicose nations in general and to Germany in particular: “L’opinion générale était d’ailleurs que Herr Schultze travaillait à l’achèvement d’un engin de guerre terrible, d’un effet sans précédent et destiné à assurer bientôt à l’Allemagne la domination universelle” (102).

               While Paris au Xxème Siècle was dismissed by Verne’s publisher, the venerable P-J. Hetzel, as an unpublishable  “erreur de jeunesse” in favor of his more cheerful tales of adventure and travels, Les 500 millions de la Bégum is the first of Verne’s novels to present both utopic and dystopic views of society. Moreover, it is also the first to feature a truly evil scientist, Herr Schultze,  who is obsessed with initiating a proto-nuclear war on France in an attempt at German world dominance. A product of a general post-war, anti-German sentiment in France,  Les 500 million is also a fulfillment of  Verne’s general fear of global annihilation that he had to stifle after Paris au Xxème Siècle’s failure. As Arthur B. Evans has explained, the nationalistic, thanatos-driven microcosm Verne depicts in Les 500 millions in fact mirrored  a more general trend in post-Industrial Revolution France in which the “utopian focus of the French bourgeoisie of the Second Empire and the Troisième République began to shift with the times. The traditional utopian ‘nowhere” was soon replaced by a potential ‘anywhere;’ the pastoral setting by the industrial; personal ethics by competitive expansionism.” As such, Les 500 millions can be seen as more than  a simple cautionary tale of what happens when science and technology fall into the hands of an evil leader: in many ways, Verne’s shift in concerns towards the fin de siècle went hand in hand with France’s as well.

God and the Machine: Gnosticism and science fiction

Paper for the workshop on Science Fiction and Symbolic Communication, chaired by Elena Abrudan, of the11^th Conference of the International Society for the Study of European Ideas at the University of Helsinki, 28/7-2/8 2008.

Abstract

Theo Malekin

Glasgow University’s Centre for Literature, Theology and the Arts

My work explores the paradoxical pursuit of religious/mystical vision in science fiction.  My particular focus would be on Philip K Dick, especially ‘The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch’ although other examples spring to mind: Gibson’s Neuromancer, the Matrix films, for instance.  What interests me is that they share a gnostic sense of the cosmos as fallen, and comprised of deceitful appearances – indeed Platonic as well as gnostic.  Science fiction is not alone in resorting to gnosticism as a response to the ‘disenchantment’ of the world, but it is ironic that the most purportedly materialistic of literary genres has in the last few decades produced some of the most intensely religious literature.

This paper addresses the persistence of the religious impulse in the scientific age by focusing on two novels by the seminal American science fiction writer Philip K. Dick.  These books respond to what Max Weber described as the “disenchantment of the world” with a Gnostic vision of a fallen cosmos.  In The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, Dick’s protagonists escape appalling drudgery by communing with quasi-divine presences in which individual identity dissolves, mediated in a parody of the Eucharist by the drug Can-D.  Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? similarly depicts the Earth after an ecological catastrophe.  Here empathy has become the spring of religious life as individuals subsume their identity in that of Mercer, a technologically mediated saviour-figure repeatedly attempting to escape the world of death.

Dick’s novels envision the world in bleak terms: a death-world where religious promises of salvation offer little hope of escape.  At the same time, it suggests that technology and science do not engage the basic issues of being human, and his dystopianism indeed suggests that technological mastery is bound to fail. Dick’s work is nevertheless profoundly, if paradoxically, religious.

Mirrors Voices: The Return from Solaris, Mars and Japetus

Fernando Kuhn

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo (Brazil)

swocean@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes a reflection involving science-fiction works such as Stanislaw Lem´s “Solaris”, Ray Bradbury’s “The Martian Chronicles” and Arthur C. Clarke’s “2001: a Space Odyssey”, among others, in context to issues as cyber society and biotechnology. Symbolical aspects of this convergence are also approached in this attempt of interpreting and figuring out such echoes of these different worlds, spaces – how many, and which ? – supposedly reserved for humans – how many, and which ? … and what kind of? 

We can hear Zarathustra shouting “behold, I teach you the Superman!”, but we can also hear Snow whispering that “we can observe, through a microscope, as it were, our own monstrous ugliness, our folly, our shame”. Yet it is still possible to find the discardable human leaving the gates of the millennium behind, and coming to bring us the isolation of the excluded. The “archetypal Fool”, insisting on existing despite representing nothing as a citizen – and soon, as a being – he is also there.

As Bradbury’s Martian speeches, “what does it matter who of us is Past or Future if we are both alive, for what follows will follow, tomorrow or in ten thousand years. How do you know that those temples are not the temples of your own civilization one hundred centuries from now, tumbled and broken? You do not know. Then don’t ask. But the night is very short. There go the festival fires in the sky, and the birds”.

 And so Superman appears, and gets lost while spying among so many windows. But there is also a Kafkian K. on the mirrors, several of them, confused, paralyzed; and so many bored souls demanding for the invasion of the body snatchers; and there is still a man in the crowd, a Poe’s man, walking, walking, walking, walking, walking in search of the world, following and dictating the flow towards the dawn of a new man.

Will they be so many, or simply one? And how many will this world be for?

The mythologist’s voice echoes: “When you see the earth from the moon, you don’t see any divisions there of nations or states This might be the symbol, really, for the new mythology to come. That is the country that we are going to be celebrating. And those are the people that we are one with”. And from above, like a “fool on the hill”, a Russian cosmonaut in Andrei Ujica documentary “Out of present”reflects about the changes on Earth during the months he passed in the space: “Today is day, tomorrow is night”.

Maybe he is right.

in cooperation with

University of Helsinki, Language Centre

Helsinki, 28 July – 2 August 2008 

Language and the Scientific Imagination

It is rare nowadays to see any fruitful dialogue between the Humanities and Science.  In the first half of the twentieth century philosophers like Russell and Whitehead, following the Kantian tradition, were the main interlocutors in the debate about modern science.  By the end of the twentieth century, under the influence of Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, the dialogue of philosophy had switched from science to literature. This dialogue within the humanities eventually issued in Cultural Studies.  What is needed is a new approach of the Humanities to Science and Technology. The “two cultures” depend on each other, for human beings give sense to their lives both by doing (Science) and by telling stories (Language).

The 11^th conference of ISSEI, to be held at the University of Helsinki in 2008, invites scholars from various disciplines such as History, Politics, Literature, Art, Philosophy, Science, and Religion, to examine and redefine the scope of interdisciplinary dialogue. 

The conference is divided into five sections:

1) History, Geography, Science

2) Economics, Politics, Law

3) Education, Women’s Studies, Sociology

4) Art, Theater, Literature, Culture, Music

5) Language, Philosophy, Anthropology, Psychology, Religion

Section I: History, Geography, Science
and 
Section IV: Art, Theatre, Literature, Music, Culture

Workshop:

Chair: Elena Abrudan

The concern towards symbolical communication is related to the imaginary, as one of the most important features of contemporary sensibility. In a real world, that can only bring deception, the imaginary plays a compensatory role. It acts anytime and anywhere, but especially in crisis periods and it finds an important representation in science fiction works.

Armageddon, utopias, providential characters, occult ways are patterns belonging to an almost permanent background. The imaginary has its own structures and its own principles of evolution. The sensitive material manipulated by the imaginary is remodeled and preserved in a specific matrix. The persistence of structures, topics and patterns coexist with a process of permanent new elaboration, that adapts these themes and patterns to the historical reality by modifying, underlining or blurring them. Thus, the archetypes blended in dynamic structures that hold a universal significance point out to a certain structural immobility, which manifests itself anytime and anywhere. We relate thus to the belief in a reality superior that governs the material world and to hope in life after death. Additional reference is made to the astonishment and anxiety towards world diversity, to the urge to ensure a maximum of unity and coherence to the world, as well as to the attempt to decrypt the meaning of the world and history. Even further reference is made to strategies regarding the control over one’s faith, over history and future or, on the contrary, regarding the rejection of history and the attempt to find shelter in a harmonious and never changing time and space. Last, but not least, there is the reference to the miraculous -coincidentia oppositorum- the facing of opposite tendencies and their synthesis. The myth, symbols are used as structures of the imaginary, forming a basic net for further science fiction works. There presence in science fiction has a diversity of forms, reaching its peak with the elaboration in the 20th century of real methods for using motives, characters, and mythical images in combination with many scientific and technological knowledge.

Symbolical Communication as the phenomenon of contemporary modern poetics is a well-shaped process consisting not only in the use of mythological motifs, symbols, archetypes but also in constituting itself as a worldview, Science Fiction being an important domain for many representation of it.

Prof. Elena Abrudan

Babes-Bolyai University
Faculty of Political Sciences, Public Administration
and Communication Studies
Cluj-Napoca, Romania

abrudanelena@yahoo.com

www.polito.ubbcluj.ro

The 11^th International Conference of ISSEI

Helsinki, 28 July-03 August 2008

SCIENCE FICTION AND SYMBOLIC COMMUNICAION

Chair: Elena Abrudan

Elena Abrudan, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania

Symbolic Meaning of Science Fiction Images

Peter Schulman, Old Dominion University, USA

Symbols of Change in a Shattered World: Jules Verne’s Begum’s Millions (Les 500 millions de la Bégum) 

Christian Roy, Concordia University , Montreal , Canada

James Came ron ’s the Abyss: Digital Communication as Apocalypse

Mihaela Muresan, Babes-Bolyai University , Romania

Symbolic Features of the Journalistic Language

Ilie Rad, Babes-Bolyai University , Romania

Science Fiction as an Alternative for Reality, During the Communist Era

Doina Rad, “Ion Creanga” School , Romania

The Impact of Science Fiction Literature in Education

Fernando Kuhn, Universidade Metodista de São Paulo, Brazil

Mirrors Voices: The Return from Solaris, Mars and Japetus

Adriana Listes, Babes-Bolyai University , Romania

Sacred Symbols and Science Fiction in I. P. Culianu literature

Theo Malekin, Värmdö , Sweden

God and the Machine: Gnosticism and Science Fiction

Final program of  the workshop ʺ Communicational Interferences in Journalism, Public Relations and Advertising ʺ:

EXPLORATORY WORKSHOP 10-12 of July 2008

Communicational Interferences in Journalism, PR and Advertising 

 ”Babeş-Bolyai” University Cluj-Napoca

Faculty of Political Sciences, Public Administration and Communication Studies,

Department of Jurnalism, Department of Communication and Public Relations

 First day 10 07 08 – Journalism, PR and Advertising – Communicational Interferences

Opening Session:                

 10,00 – 11,00

conf. dr. Elena Abrudan, Head of Journalism Department, Director of Media Centre UBB

conf. dr. Salat Levente, vice-dean Faculty of Political Sciences, Public Administration and Communication Studies

11,00-13,00 Journalism, PR, Advertising- communicational  interferences                

drd. Nicolae Melinescu, TVR

13,00-15,00 Lunch 

AFTERNOON SESSION

15,00 – 16, 30 Press   Conference  

conf. dr. Cristina Coman, FJSC, University of Bucarest 

17,00 – 18,00

Political Blog/Product placement               

lect. dr. Ioan Hosu /asist.drd. Mihai Deac, Department of Communication and Public Relations, UBB

18,00-19,00 Debate: New Media – Framework and Content.

Jozef Gmuca (univ. Kosice), Radu Meza UBB, Andrei Costina UBB, George Prundaru UBB, Ancuta Tarta UBB

Second day 11 07 08 – The relation between journalism and advertising

MORNING SESSION

9,00 – 10,30 Journalism / advertising      

conf. dr. Elena Abrudan, Department of Journalism, UBB

10,00 – 11,00 Advertising Breaks in Television

Asist. Drd. Constantin Trofin, Department of Journalism, UBB

 COFFE BREAK

 11,00 – 11,30 Photojournalism and Advertising

Asist. Drd. Andreea Mogoş, Department of Journalism, UBB

11,30 – 12,00 Entertainment press

Asit dr. Mihaela Mureşan, Department of Journalism, UBB

12,00-13,00 Radio Advertising 

lect. dr. Raduţ Bîlbîie, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu                  

13,00-15,00 Lunch

 Afternoon Session

 15,00-16,00 PR  / advertising          

prof. dr. Serra Goerpe, University of Istanbul,

conf. dr. Delia Balaban (Bălaş), asist.drd. Mirela Abrudan, 

 Department of Communication and Public Relations, UBB

17,00-18,00 PR and Advertising Campaigns

prof. dr. Nilufer P. Ocel, State University of Istanbul

dr. Adem Aytem, State University of Istanbul

18,00-19,00 Media Plan – training

lect. Dr. Kadar Magor Catedra de Comunicare si Relaţii Publice, UBB

 Third day 12 07 08 – The relation between journalism and PR

MORNING SESSION

9,00-10,00 Media Society  

prof. dr. Andrei Marga – rector of Babeş-Bolyai University        

10,00-10,30 Journalism / PR

conf. dr. Dumitru Borţun, SNSPA Bucharest

10,30 – 11,00 New media

Olivier Feix, University of Paris 1 Sorbonne                          

COFFEE BREAK              

11,30-13,00 

 Press  Conference – training  

conf.dr. Flaviu Călin Rus, Departament of Communication and Public Relations, UBB

 Succesfull PR depends of detailles

Laura Petrehuş, Senior PR Officer Banca Transilvania

 13,00-15,00 Lunch

 15,00 – 16,30 Mihaela Danga, Director of the Center for Independent Journalism, Bucarest

Closing session

 17,00-19,00 Round Table: evaluation and future projects                      

Location: media Center UBB, Str. Universitatii 7-9, et II, Room 31

12 iulie 2008

Ultima zi de dezbateri a inceput cu prezentarea domnului prof. dr. Andrei Marga, rectorul UBB. In debut, domnul prof. Marga a remarcat efortul Catedrei de Jurnalism şi a Catedrei de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice de a demara realizarea unei şcoli de comunicare.
Temele dezbătute au fost situaţia societăţii mediatice, răspunderea personală. Există mai multe încercări de diagnoză a societăţii contemporane, dar mulţi autori o definesc în calitate de societate mediatică. Caracteristica centrală a acestui tip de societate este, parafrazându-l pe Descartes: eşti mediatizat, deci exişti, nu eşti mediatizat, deci nu exişti. Andrei Marga face referire la celebra carte a lui Horkheimer şi Adorno, reprezentanţii Şcolii de la Frankfurt Dialekthik der Aufklaerung, carte în care sunt pentru prima oară definite industriile culturii ca industrii de producţie a adevrărului. Cu toate că volumul a fost amplu dezbătut, după câteva secole însuşi Joseph Razinger, celebrul teolog, devenit Papa Benedict al XIV-lea, recunoaşte într-o lucrare publicată în anul 1992 faptul că cei doi filosofi germani au avut dreptate în evaluările şi proiecţiile lor.
În societatea mediatică interogaţiile devin contextuale, cultura contemporană restrânge valorile şi are ca atare un rezultat paradoxal la nivel global.
Michael Foucault realizează în opera sa o descriere a mecanismelor puterii şi în acest mod tematizează la rândul său societatea contemporană. Gianni Vattimo vorbeşte în lucrările sale despre efectul neaşteptat al societăţii mediatice, acela că omul contemporan nu mai înţelege lumea în totalitate, fapt pe care filosoful italian îl consideră pozitiv, un tablou unitar al lumii fiind apanajul sistemelor totalitare. Filosoful german Reinhardt merge chiar mai departe şi numeşte lumea în care trăim o lume a minciunilor. Juergen Habermas şi Niklas Luhmann sunt cei doi filosofi germani care prin teoriile lor despre filosofia comunicării au impus două curente majore. Habermas este adeptul unui interacţionism riguros, iar Luhman este funcţionalistul prin excelenţă. Virtuţile filosofiei lui Habermas sunt faptul că a radicalizat discursul în favoarea democraţiei. Acest lucru nu merge însă în lipsa înţelegerii conştiinţei de sine.
Prof. Andrei Marga a vorbit despre performanţă în societatea mediatică. Orice instituţie, organizaţie are nevoie de indivizi performanţi. Conştiinţa de sine a individualităţii contează şi de asemenea contează indivizii care aduc cu sine un set bine definit de valori asumate.
Schimbarea de paradigmă în asumarea conştinetă a limbajului a fost de asemeni discutată. Întrebarea formulată de asist.dr. Mihaela Mureşan a fost legată de acest subiect. Raymond Boudon, fiind sociologul francez care tematizează, sub influenţa lui Rorty democraţia covârşită de relativism. Conf.dr. Delia Balaban a formulat o întrebare legată de efectele new media asupra societăţii contemporane. Exemple concrete au venit însă să consolideze locul şi rolul media clasice. Prof. Andrei Marga s-a exprimat ca promotor al cititului, al frecventării bibliotecilor. Conf.dr. Elena Abrudan a ridicat problemele reconstructiei realitatii de catre media, responsabilitatii jurnalistului si reinterpretarii in momentul receptarii mesajului. Dialogul dinamic a fost continuat de întrebarea Laurei Petrehuş, senior PR Officer Banca Transilvania legată de relaţia dintre jurnalism şi PR. Răsunsul lui Andrei Marga a fost unul cât se poate de pertinent, jurnaliştii şi oamenii de PR au profesii care se intersectează, dar care sunt diferite. Ceea ce trebuie dezbătut este ideea interesului public. Acest interes trebuie definit. Prof. dr. Olivier Feix de la Universitatea Paris 1, Sorbona a vorbit despre alţi teoreticieni francezi relevanţi pentru domeniul media cum este Jean Baudrillard si despre impactul noilor media.
Conf. dr. Flaviu Călin Rus a vorbit despre comunicatul de presă atât prin prisma teoreticianului cât şi a practicianului. Laura Petrehuş a realizat o amplă prezentare despre comunicatele de presă pe baza unor exemple concrete nu doar din domeniul bancar, dar şi din alte domenii.
Conf.dr. Dumitru Borţun de la SNSPA Bucureşti a vorbit despre relaţia dintre jurnalism şi PR. Este necesară o etică şi o colaborare între curriculele programelor de PR şi a celor de jurnalism pentru o colaborare mai bună în viaţa profesională.
Ultima zi de dezbateri s-a încheiat cu prezentarea doamnei Mihaela Danga, directorul Centrului pentru Jurnalism Independent, despre activitatea acestui centru şi despre proiectele în derulare.
Concluziile workshopului au fost formulate de conf.dr. Elena Abrudan. Ideile extrem de importante dezbatute in cadrul manifestării vor fi concretizate în poiecte de cercetare comune.

11 iulie 2008

Expoziţia de fotografie “Texturi urbane”

Cea de-a doua zi a workshopului a debutat cu prezentarea doamnei conf.dr. Elena Abrudan despre impactul publicitatii asupra produsului mediatic. Influenta publicitatii asupra jurnalismului economic a constituit unul dintre aspectele caruia i s-a acordat o atentie speciala. Lect.dr. Ioan Hosu de la UBB, lect.dr. Radut Bilbiie de la Universitatea Lucian Blaga din Sibiu, Paul Niculescu, redactorul sef de la Monitorul de Cluj, conf.dr. Dumitru Bortun de la SNSPA Bucuresti au avut interventii pe aceasta tema.

Despre rolul fotografiei, respectiv a fotojurnalismului in publicitate a vorbit asist.drd. Andreea Mogos, referindu-se in principal la cunoscutul caz Benetton-Oliviero Toscani. Relevanta sociala a publicitatii, precum si functia artistica a publicitatii au fost puse in discutie prin interventiile Deliei Balaban si ale Veronicai Campian.

Prezentarea cunoscutului realizator TV Constantin Trofin despre pauza publicitara in televiziune a constituit o ocazie pentru participantii la workshop sa cunoasca opinia unui practician despre publicitate. Dezbaterea s-a concentrat in jurul publicitatii mascate si din nou asupra instrumentului product placement. Andrei Palatkas, redactor la Cluj Express (editia on-line), Adrian Chirca, redactor sef la Infosatelit au participat de asemeni la dezbatere.

Asist.dr. Mihaela Muresan a abordat tema presei de entertainment din Romania. S-a discutat despre pozitionarea distincta a revistelor pentru femei din Romania cat si despre profilul cititoarelor. Lect.dr. Radut Bilbiie a vorbit despre functia de orientare a media, functie tematizata in lucrarile profesorului Mihai Coman de la FJSC, Universitatea Bucuresti.

Lect.dr. Magor Kadar a accentuat diferentele entice in comportamentul de consum media a populatiei de etnie maghiara din Romania in comparatie cu populatia majoritara. Televiziunea romana, a concluzionat colegul de la linia maghiara a Catedrei de Comunicare si Relatii Publice, se bucura de aceeasi credibilitate in ceea ce priveste formatul de stiri atat pentru romani, cat si pentru maghiari. Campaniile mari de publicitate necisita initierea la nivel de televiziune, permitand abia ulterior utilizarea modelelor BTL.

Despre specificul presei locale cat si despre importanta comunitatilor locale si respectiv a informatiilor cu caracter local intr-o lume globala a vorbit lect.dr. Gyorffy Gabor.

Conf.dr. Delia Balaban (argumentand pentru publicitate) si asist.drd. Mirela Abrudan (argumentand pentru PR) au avut o prezentare comuna sub forma unui dialog menit sa ilustreze relatia dintre publicitate si PR. Conf.dr. Dumitru Bortun si lect.dr. Radut Bilbiie au adus greutate taberei relatiilor publice, alti participanti exprimand insa si avantajul publicitatii. Din perspectiva paradigmei dominante in stiintele comunicarii, cea functionalista, este cat se poate de evident faptul ca relatiile publice si publicitatea nu sunt domenii dihotomice, rolul comunicarii integrate fiind evidentiat de cele doua colege de la Catedra de Comunicare si Relatii Publice a UBB.

Lect.dr. Radut Bilbiie a prezentat nu doar din perspectiva teoreticianul, ci in primul rand prin prisma vastei sale experinete in presa scrisa si in radio genurile si formatele moderne. Mihaela Danga, directorul Centrului pentru Jurnalism Independent din Bucuresti a fost in acest punct un participant activ la dezbatere.

A doua zi de workshop s-a incheiat cu prezentarile doamnei prof.dr. Nilufer Pembecioglu, a doamnei prof.dr. Serra Goerpe si a lui Aytem Adem de la Universitatea de Stat din Istambul despre campaniile de PR si publicitate.

10 iulie 2008

Cuvântul de deschidere a fost ţinut de conf. dr. Elena Abrudan, coordonatoarea workshop-ului punctând colaborarea excelentă dintre Catedra de Jurnalism şi cea de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice pe perioada ultimilor trei ani – care a făcut posibilă organizarea acestui workshop exploratoriu şi câştigarea grantului de finanţare a acestuia din fondurile CNCSIS.
Prodecanul Facultăţii de Ştiinţe Politice, Adminsitrative şi ale Comunicării, conf. dr. Levente Salat, prezent la deschiderea lucrărilor a punctat rolul mass media în crearea realităţii sociale. Cancelarul facultăţii, profersorul Ilie Rad a adresat de asemenea un cuvânt de bun venit participanţilor şi i-a felicitat pe organizatori pentru initiaţiva realizării acestui eveniment. Doamna conf. dr. Delia Cristina Balaban a scos în evidenţă principalele obiective ale workshopului şi anume explorarea zonei de intersecţie dintre jurnalism, relaţii publice şi publicitate. Este necesar ca discuţiile să fie concentrate asupra specificului dinamicii contemporane.
Workshopul a debutat cu prelegerea lui Nicolae Melinescu, cunoscut om de televiziune, care a prezentat principalele elemente ale dinamicii televiziunii contemporane: noua tehnologie şi hegemonia consumatorului. Publicitatea şi în special relaţiile publice au efecte positive asupra televiziunii, televiziunea publică învăţând practic să-şi promoveze propriile producţii, practica de promovare cross-media fiind de asemenea o tehnică des intâlnită. Posibilele efecte ale digitalizării asupra televiziunii au fost discutate graţie unei intrebări formulate de conf.dr. Delia Cristina Balaban, iar lect.dr.Ioan Hosu a discutat despre ideologizare în interpretarea locului şi a rolului TV.
Prezentarea doamnei conf. dr. Cristina Coman s-a dezvoltat în jurul interacţiunii dintre specialiştii în relaţii publice şi jurnalişti, în cazul specific al conferinţei de presă. Domna conf.dr. Cristina Coman a prezentat rezultatele unei cercetari realizate pe un eşantion reprezentativ de jurnalişti şi specialiştii în relaţii publice cu privire la felul în care interacţiunea dintre aceste grupuri profesionale este văzută de cele două categorii. Această relaţie este bazată pe o dublă negociere a schimburilor de resurse. Întrebarile formulate de asist. drd. Mirela Abrudan au vizat specificul relaţiei în situaţii de criză. Răspunsurile s-au bazat pe exemple concrete de crize mediatizate în ultimele luni. Patricia Abrudan, practician în domeniul publicităţii a întrebat despre posibilele instrumente alternative folosite la conferinţă de presă.
Asist. drd. Mihai Deac şi lect.dr. Ioan Hosu au vorbit despre forme alternative de promovare. Tema blogului politic a incitat publicul prezent, fiind o temă amplu dezbătută. Asist. drd. Mihai Deac a accentuat distincţia dintre publicitatea mascată şi product placement, dând exemple din literatură, film, emisiuni TV etc.
Workshopul a continuat cu trainingul Media Planul susţinut de lect. dr. Kadar Magor.
Prima zi a workshopului a fost incheiată de dezbaterea cu titlul Rolul new media, susţinută de Andrei Costina, Radu Meza, George Prundaru şi Ancuta Tarţa din cadrul UBB şi Jozef Gmuca (Univ. Kosice din Slovacia). Contribuţia doamnei lect.dr. Rodica Mocan de la Facultatea de Teatru şi Televiziune a UBB la această temă a fost apreciată de participanţi. Directoarea Centrului Cultural Italian, Doriana Unfer a subliniat tinuta academica si dinamismul dezbaterilor.

Programul final al workshop-ului Interferenţe comunicaţionale în Jurnalism, Relaţii Publice şi Publicitate:

WORKSHOP EXPLORATORIU- 10-12 iulie 2008

Interferenţe comunicaţionale

 în Jurnalism, Relatii publice şi Publicitate

Universitatea “Babeş-Bolyai” Cluj-Napoca

Facultatea de Ştiinte Politice, Administrative şi ale Comunicării,

Catedra de Jurnalism, Catedra de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice

Prima zi 10 07 08 – Jurnalism, PR și Publicitate – Interferențe comunicaționale

Deschidere:                

10,00 – 11,00

conf. dr. Elena Abrudan, director Centru Media UBB

conf. Univ. dr. Salat Levente, prodecanul Facultăţii de Ştiinţe Politice, Administrative şi ale Comunicării

11,00-13,00 Jurnalism, PR, Publicitate – interferenţe comunicaţinale                   

drd. Nicolae Melinescu, TVR

Doriana Unfer, Director Centru Cultural Italian

13,00-15,00 Masa de prânz

SESIUNEA DE DUPĂ-AMIAZĂ

15,00 – 16, 00 Conferinţa de Presă      

conf. dr.Cristina Coman, FJSC, Universitatea Bucureşti

16,00 – 17,30 Noi instrumente ale comunicării. Blogul politic/Product placement-ul               

lect. dr Ioan Hosu /asist.drd.Mihai Deac, Catedra de Comunicare si Relaţii Publice, UBB

18,00-19,00 Dezbatere New Media. Platforma si Continut.

Jozef Gmuca (univ. Kosice), Radu Meza UBB, Andrei Costina UBB, George Prundaru UBB, Ancuta Tarta UBB

A doua zi 11 07 08 – Relaţia dintre jurnalism  şi publicitate

SESIUNEA DE DIMINEAŢĂ

9,00 – 10  Impactul publicităţii asupra produselor media

conf. dr. Elena Abrudan, şef  Catedra de Jurnalism UBB

10-11 Pauza publicitară în televiziune

asist. drd.  Constantin Trofin, Catedra de Jurnalism, UBB

PAUZA DE CAFEA

11- 11,30 Publicitate şi Fotojurnalism

asist drd. Andreea Mogos, Catedra de Jurnalism

11,30 12 Presa de entertaiment

asist dr. Mihaela Mureşan, Catedra de Jurnalism

12,00-13,00 Genuri şi formate moderne în publicistica radio 

lect. dr. Radu Bilbie, Universitatea Lucian Blaga din Sibiu             

13,00-15,00 Masa de prânz

SESIUNEA DE DUPĂ-AMIAZĂ

15,00-16,30 Relaţia dintre PR  şi publicitate           

prof. dr. Serra Goerpe, Universitatea de Stat din Istambul,

conf. dr. Delia Balaban (Bălaş), Catedra de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice, Director Centrul Media UBB, asist.drd. Mirela Abrudan

17,00-18,00 Campanii de PR şi publicitate. Puncte comune, puncte divergente 

prof. dr. Nilufer P.Ocel, Universitatea de Stat din Istambul

Dr. Adem Aytem, Universitatea din Istambul

18,00-19,00 Media Planul – training

lect. Dr. Kadar Magor Catedra de Comunicare si Relaţii Publice, UBB

A treia zi 12 07 08 – Relaţia dintre jurnalism şi PR

SESIUNEA DE DIMINEAŢĂ

9,00-10,00 Societatea mediatică

prof. dr. Andrei Marga, rectorul Universităţii Babeş-Bolyai

10,00-10,30 Relaţia dintre jurnalism şi PR

conf. dr. Dumitru Borţun, SNSPA Bucureşti

10.30-11 Noile media

Olivier Feix, prof. asociat univ. Paris1 Sorbona

PAUZA DE CAFEA

11,30-12,00 Comunicatul de presa

 conf.dr. Flaviu Călin Rus, Catedra de Comunicare şi Relaţii Publice, UBB

12-13PR-ul tine de amanunte

Laura Petrehuş, Senior PR Officer Banca Transilvania

13,00-15,00 Masa de prânz

SESIUNEA DE DUPĂ-AMIAZĂ

15,00 – 16,30, Danga Mihaela, Directorul Centrului pentru Jurnalism Independent, Bucureşti

17,00-19,00 Masă rotundă: analiza rezultatelor  şi proiecte de viitor