SMIT - Studies on Media, Information and Telecommunication

MEDIA POLICY
The media policy cluster specialises in research on content and competition policies in particular. Its research can be situated within the political economy research paradigm combining insights from communication sciences, political sciences, economy and law. The cluster studies several policy domains at the local, national, European and international level. Its methods comprise document analysis, expert interviews and focus groups with stakeholders in policy. The cluster has been increasingly engaged in policy preparing and consensus building research efforts. Several research topics are included in the cluster’s expertise. - Film policies: results of film (support) policies; digitisation of the film sector; relations between stakeholders in the (digitised) value network; reconfiguration of film (support) policies in a digital context. - Public broadcasting policies and strategies: the evolution from public service broadcasting to public service media; re-negotiation of management contracts between public broadcasters and governments in various Member States; partnerships between public broadcasters and third parties. - Flemish media policies: analysis and evaluation of different aspects of Flemish media policies (innovation policy in the media sector; support of children’s programming); transposition of European regulation into Flemish media regulation. - European media policies: analysis and evaluation of sector-specific regulation of the audiovisual sector (content quota, commercial communication rules, protection of minors, etc.); evolution and results of audiovisual support programmes MEDIA and Eurimages. - European competition policies: State aid control by the European Commission of Member States’ subsidies to public broadcasters; enforcement of anti-trust rules in the media and telecommunications sectors (with a specific focus on abuse of dominant position, market foreclosure and premium content rights). - International trade policies: World Trade Organisation and trade in audiovisual goods and services; impact of international trade agreements on the Flemish audiovisual sector; cultural diversity instruments like the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity and cultural protocols between the European Union and third countries. At present, the cluster consists of 8 researchers involved in a PhD and/or externally funded research projects


	Future Media


	Policy Studies


	Stakeholderbevraging VRT, EPStudy, VSBB, PhDLoisen, VRT Medialab Project


	20 years of television, Television Beyond Frontiers, SMIT LECTURE SERIES 2010: Media Policy


	The thin line between culture and distortion of competition


	Digitale inhoud en auteursrechten in de Wereldhandelsorganisatie (2011) The EU-Korea Protocol on Cultural Cooperation: Toward Cultural Diversity or Cultural Deficit? (2011) Actorposities inzake cultuur en handel in internationale fora (2010) Culturele samenwerkingsprotocollen van de Europese Unie met derde landen. Stand van zaken en uitdagingen voor Vlaanderen (2010) De toekomstige plaats en rol van de openbare omroep in Vlaanderen: een stakeholderbevraging. (2010) Implementing the UNESCO Convention of 2005 in the European Union (2010) The European Commission and the EU-Korea Protocol on Cultural Cooperation: An Example of Agency Slack? (2010) From High Hopes to High Deficit and Back: A Historic Overview of Europe's HDTV Policy and Reflections Towards the Future of HDTV. Paper accepted to the EuroITV 2009 Conference (2009) Building a theoretical framework based on Douglass North's New Institutionalism to understand the audiovisual dossier in the WTO (2009) ... [Another 21 publications]