International conference “Comparative media studies in today’s world: social media in network societies”

　Description: The study of social media and their implications on the processes of social transformations is gaining growing importance within today’s media research, with big attention being paid to critical evaluation of the role of social media for social and political change and for the development of civil society. The study of ‘network societies’ today already goes beyond studying online/social media and their audiences, but relates Internet communicative milieus to the wider societal structures and political processes. 　　While Internet research today is focusing more on how online communication itself and its impact upon selected political, economic and cultural aspects of social life, media studies have developed several other discourses looking at the same communication phenomena but not yet very much connected to Internet-oriented studies. Among those, comparative media research and media hybridization research may be named; these areas, like some others, contribute to bringing us (Western and Eastern Europe in particular) closer to understanding of the interdependences between media and political systems and the process of technological and political hybridization of media systems in various contexts. 　　This year, the Third international conference ‘Comparative media studies in today’s world’ held annually in St.Petersburg, Russia, brings together the papers oriented to research upon online/offline communication cleavages, communication on social issues in online networks, inter-media agenda setting and other aspects that unite online communication and wider socio-political life.