*CFP* "DIGITAL MEDIA, PUBLIC POLICY AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE REVISED AVMSD", SPECIAL ISSUE, JOURNAL OF DIGITAL MEDIA AND POLICY

The Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) is the centrepiece of media policy in the European Union. It sets the foundations of regulating broadcast media without frontiers. Over multiple revisions in the last two decades it was gradually extended, first to on-demand audiovisual services and most recently to video sharing platforms dealing in user-generated content. This policy journey was a remarkable one, characterized by the careful balancing of economic and cultural policy objectives and various policy innovations. It has resulted in an enlightenment amongst member states with media markets suffering from oppressive and politically driven regulatory regimes, but it has also taken a heavy toll on smaller markets distressed by major transnational audiovisual content providers.

The revised AVMSD adopted in late 2018 promised to create a more level playing field for European media outlets competing with US-based tech giants and fighting for shrinking sources of income and increasingly fragmented audiences. The deadline for national transposition is 19 September 2020. Whether and how all member states meet this deadline given the COVID-19 related consequences on legislative processes raises several issues. Legal and policy scholars are dealing with challenging questions about the wide-reaching impact of entering a new phase of regulation and the next level of media governance, while old problems were still dragging along without due response.

This special issue of the Journal of Digital Media and Policy considers the numerous questions and challenges arising in the implementation of the AVMSD in the context of the role of European policy in a global digital media environment. It will bring together scholars of communication and media, law, economics, policy and technology to answer some of these questions and debate the limits and potential of the AVMSD’s novelties.

Therefore, contributors are invited to address issues such as: 

• the fate and function of the country of origin principle, particularly in light of some efforts to re-nationalize speech regulation and the implications of applying the principle to global platform-owning companies;
• the ‘level playing field’, both as a policy aim and as a condition of competition in the market for audiences and advertising, considering both societal and economic concerns;
• the allocation of responsibility to video sharing platforms without eroding exemption from liability and the wider consequences of this policy innovation;
• the design of co- and self-regulatory models for video-sharing platforms;
• the increased obligations on video-on-demand services in relation to European works, especially from the perspective of smaller national markets;
• the expectations of independence of audiovisual regulators and potential for regulatory cooperation, particularly given the challenges facing some ‘troubled’ national regulators;
• implications for future public policy, such as the impact of Brexit and interaction with the proposed for a Digital Single Act: overlapping competencies, competing policy objectives.

 

Deadlines

• abstracts of 400 words to be received by Friday 31 October 2020;
• full manuscripts of 6–8,000 words, including references, by Monday 15 March 2021 in order to be sent for peer review;
• peer-reviewed manuscripts will need to be with the Guest Editors by Monday 31 May 2021;
• final decisions/papers to be sent to the publisher by Wednesday 30 June 2021;
• we will also consider short reports/commentaries with a policy focus of between 1,500-2,000 words.

All submissions should be directed to the guest editors Sally Broughton Micova (University of East Anglia, s.broughton-micova@uea.ac.uk) and Krisztina Rozgonyi (University of Vienna, krisztina.rozgonyi@univie.ac.at).

To download the full CFP, click here.