The research project Startups, Survivals and Failures in the Portuguese Contemporary Press (PTDC/CCI-COM/122387/2010) its the co-organizer of the conference “Journalism in Transition: Crisis or Opportunity?” together with the Journalism Studies Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA), in Thessaloniki, Greece, 28 and 29 March 2014.

Journalism and the news are in transition – not only in Europe but around the world. This transformation has important ramifications for society and public discourse. News organizations face increased economic pressure, cutbacks in news gathering resources, and shrinking editorial autonomy. As a consequence, the quality of many news outlets is deteriorating, and audiences feel less confident in the news media. Furthermore, changes in media technologies have substantially shaken up long-held beliefs about the nature of news and well-pampered practices of journalism, while the industry still in search of viable business models for institutionalized journalism in the Internet era.

These and other developments have given rise to crisis narratives in journalism research and the public arena, with a few scholars and practitioners proclaiming the “death” or “end” of journalism. At the same time, the manifold challenges faced by journalism today – perhaps unprecedented in its history – can also be considered an historical opportunity. Hence, journalism as we know it is in transition, and journalism research should be able to play a constructive role in this process.

It is for this reason that the Journalism Studies Section of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA) devotes its 2014 conference on the transformation of journalism – its manifestations, causes, and consequences. The conference intends to provide a venue for the theoretical, critical and empirical engagement with these issues in both national and international contexts.