The National Conference for Media Reform, June 6 - 8, 2008 in Minneapolis is billed as a major event in a time that is seen as a tipping point for media reform - details here http://www.freepress.net/conference

Following is an announcement about an academic symposium to be held just before the main event:

This is a quick update and reminder about the symposium for scholars http://www.freepress.net/conference/academic08> which will take place in Minneapolis on June 5th, a day before the National Conference on Media Reform http://www.freepress.net/conference . The symposium is called “Academic Research for Media Reform,” and the program is now online <http://www.freepress.net/conference/academic08> <http://www.freepress.net/conference/academic08> . We urge you to register and join us there in this unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue between academics and media reform advocates.

We are very excited about this year’s program. It offers an expansive presentation of scholarship on the most pressing issues in the media reform community. The program committee—through a double-blind peer review process—generated 8 sessions of papers submitted by leading academics from the nation’s top schools. The sessions will focus on media ownership (and the FCC’s research effort), sustainability of independent media, access to dominant platforms, network neutrality, international media reform efforts, and the media reform movement itself.

The symposium also features three special sessions. There will be an opportunity for a roundtable discussion with members of the “future of American telecommunications working group” (<http://www.fact-wg.info/> <http://www.fact-wg.info/> ). This group is currently designing a new media and telecommunications policy framework for the new administration in 2009. In addition, there will be a session on “copyright and free speech” in which Neil Netanel will present his new book “Copyright’s Paradox” and Saskia Sassen, the Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University will deliver a key note speech.

All registrants to the symposium are eligible for the “early-bird” fare for the NCMR itself — we urge you to stay for both.

We hope the symposium will be an opportunity to strengthen the ongoing commitment to a fruitful cooperation between the academic and activist worlds as well as to find immediate, practical applications for this critical work.

We look forward to seeing all of you in Minneapolis!

Amit M. Schejter, Ph.D. Ben Scott
Assistant Professor of Telecommunications Policy Director
Pennsylvania State University Free Press