Political Economies of the Media

Political Economies of the Media.

Theories and Methods.

Summer School in Šibenik (Croatia)

Next edition in 2027

An Advanced Post-Graduate Course

Next edition of the biennial summer school is planned to take place in September 2027 in Šibenik (Croatia). Deadline for the application will be announced in due course.

Supported by the NextGenEU CULTMED project at the Institute for Development and International Relations, Zagreb. ECTS programme awarded by Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana.

The book of abstracts and schedule for the 2025 summer school in Šibenik is now live. You can view them here.

This course is open to PhD and advanced MA students. Applications for our third summer school in Šibenik, which will take place in 2027, will open soon, so keep an eye out!

Days Left for the Application

Applications are now closed. We will let you know of our future summer schools in due time.

Course description

This biennial course aims to explore traditional (e.g. ownership, production, content, consumption, labour, regulation) and contemporary (e.g. algorithms, platforms, data, artificial intelligence) perspectives on the media from the lens of critical political economy. The course will explore how capital and the state(s) control, regulate and form the media (broadly conceived as ranging from traditional printed press to algorithms and software) in societies shaped by persistent social inequalities. The level of analysis can vary from macro phenomena of geopolitics, transnational, national and institutional dynamics, through mid-range phenomena of the structure(s) of the public sphere(s) to micro-phenomena of class-based conditions shaping inequalities of access and skill for using the media in everyday life and for work.

Keynote Speakers

Keynote speakers for the 2027 edition of the summer school will be announced in due course

Course Directors

Thomas Allmer

Thomas is a social scientist, based at Paderborn University in Germany. His research and teaching focuses on critical social theory, political economy of media and communication, digital media and society, digital labour and capitalism, as well as universities and academic labour.

Personal Website

Jernej Amon Prodnik

Jernej is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, and a Researcher at the Social Communication Research Centre based at the same institution. He served as the head of the Department of Journalism between 2018 and 2021. Between 2014 and 2015, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of Communication Studies and Journalism at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University (Czechia).

Faculty Website

Paško Bilić

Paško is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Development and International Relations in Zagreb, Croatia. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Zagreb. He is the author (with Toni Prug and Mislav Žitko) of The Political Economy of Digital Monopolies (Bristol University Press, 2021), Sociology of Media (Jesenski and Turk, 2020 – in Croatian), and editor (with Jaka Primorac and Bjarki Valtysson) of Technologies of Labour and the Politics of Contradiction (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).

ResearchGate

Benjamin Birkinbine

Benjamin is the Director of Graduate Studies and an Associate Professor of Media Studies at the Reynolds School of Journalism and Center for Advanced Media Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno. He also serves as Co-Chair of the Political Economy Section of the International Association for Media and Communication Research. His research is grounded in the political economy of communication tradition, with a specific focus on free and open-source software and the digital commons. He is the author of Incorporating the Digital Commons (University of Westminster Press, 2020) and co-editor of Global Media Giants (Routledge, 2017).

Faculty Website

Jaka Primorac

Jaka works as a Scientific Advisor at the Department for Culture and Communication, Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO), Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interests intersect the fields of sociology of culture, sociology of media and communications and sociology of work. Her work is centred on the relationship between culture and economy, with the particular focus on cultural and creative labour issues and implications for cultural and media policies.

Institute Website

Toni Prug

Toni is Assistant professor of sociology at Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Rijeka. He is the author (with P. Bilić and M.Žitko) of "The Political Economy of Digital Monopolies: Contradictions and Alternatives to Data Commodification" (Bristol University Press, 2021). His primary research interest is production of wealth beyond commodities, with the focus on egalitarian determinations of wealth. He is a former Free Software engineer of networks and infrastructure.

ResearchGate

Sašo Slaček Brlek

Sašo is Research Associate at the Social Communication Research Centre of the University of Ljubljana. Main research interests include critical political economy of communication, labour process in news organizations and working conditions of newsworkers, as well as the history of the New International Information and Communication Order. Socialist and union man.

ResearchGate

Deadlines

Submitting your CV (maximum two pages), title and an extended abstract of your presentation (maximum two pages with references) by 1 April 2025 to political.economies.of.the.media@gmail.com

Course directors will review applications, and final decisions on acceptance will be sent by 1 May 2025.

Accepted applicants will be invited to submit 6 to 9,000-word research papers by 1 July 2025, with an option of future publication of the paper.

Relevant information

Summer school takes place between 9-12 September (business meetings of the course directors on 13 September).

Participants pay a registration fee of 60 EUR. A limited number of partial stipends and registration waivers will be available. If you are interested in participation support, please indicate in your application.

After the course, the applicants will be encouraged to submit their papers for review in an international peer-reviewed journal in the field of political economy.

Only PhD students can receive 10 ECTS points upon course completion, which entails a submitted research paper, paper presentation and full-week active participation in the course.

The summer school is supported by the NextGenEU CULTMED project at the Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO), Zagreb, Croatia.

ECTS programme is carried out in cooperation with Faculty of Social Sciences (FDV), University of Ljubljana.