Abstract

The on-going constitutionalization of Europe has led to various changes in media and communications, opening up areas of debate regarding the role of traditional and new media in developing a specific European public sphere as part of the wider European Project. This timely volume addresses the little understood relationship between old and new media, communications policy at the European level, issues of regulation and competition within the EU, the role of the European Parliament in media policymaking, and the questions emerging about the sustainability of traditional public service broadcasting. To understand the concrete significance of these debates two contributions address specific practical areas, i.e. the potential of online environments and specific developments in European media contexts, such as channel strategies, web-related services, iDTV and community networks. Consequently, Mediating Europe provides an original and important contribution to understanding the role of the media in shaping a European public sphere.

Jackie Harrison is Professor of Public Communication at The University of Sheffield. She has written extensively on European media policy and news. Her most recent works are News (Routledge, 2006) and European Broadcasting Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2007). She is also Chair of the Centre for Freedom of the Media at The University of Sheffield.

Bridgette Wessels is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-Digital Worlds at The University of Sheffield. She has worked on several European projects that have addressed new media communication, technology and everyday life, inclusion and exclusion and practices of citizenship and has acted as expert for the Royal Society in their research on public perceptions of ICT, and on the DTI and OST programme on Cybertrust and Crime Prevention. She was an evaluator on the EU Fifth Framework IST programme. She has published books and papers in the field of new media technologies.