Working Group Public Opinion, Mass Media and the Military PDF Print E-mail

Co-ordinator: Prof. Dr. Marjan Malesic,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

 

AN ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS

 

Dear colleagues and friends,

 

I plan to organize an interim scientific meeting of the WG Public Opinion, Mass Media and the Military. The scientific meeting will be held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, April 8-11, 2010. I invite all scholars and experts who are interested in public opinion and mass media research in the field of security, and especially of the military, to participate to the event. The agenda of the scientific meeting will be:

 

1 - presentation of papers on recent public opinion data and trends at the national and cross-national levels,

2 - presentation of papers resulting from analyses of mass media reports on security and especially military topics,

3 - discussion on methodological issues in the field of public opinion surveys and mass media analyses,

 

4 - preparation for publication of monograph as the result of the scientific meeting,

5 - discussion on future cross-national survey.

 

I kindly invite all potential participants to propose their papers referring to points 1-3 of the above agenda no later than January 31, 2010. The proposals will enable me to create the detailed programme of the scientific meeting. The logistical information will follow up.

 

Many thanks and best wishes in 2010,

 

Marjan Malesic

Coordinator of the WG Public Opinion, Mass Media and the Military

 

 

Papers presented at the 10th ERGOMAS conference in Stockholm, June 22-26, 2009.
For more details, please contact the presenters directly.

  • Rene Moelker ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Netherlands Defence Academy, The Netherlands). From Dutch Approach to Comprehensive Approach: A Change in the Political Narrative Explaining the Mission
  • Barbara Jankowski ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Centre d'études en sciences sociales de la defense, France). French Military facing non military challenges
  • Silvia Würmli ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Swiss Military Academy at the ETH, Zurich, Switzerland). The Public Attitude towards the Military: Shift from ambivalent to indifferent?
  • Book presentation, Rebecca Schiff ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Harvard Law School, USA). The Military and Domestic Politics: A Concordance Theory of Civil-Military Relations
  • Sabine Collmer ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Germany). Latest Developments in Afghanistan: Some Considerations about the Influence of Public Opinion on Security Policy Decision-Making in Germany
  • Helen McCartney ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (King's College, London, UK). The changing civil-military contract in Britain: the impact of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
  • Eva Pollakova ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) & Karol Čukan ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Ministerstvo obrany SR, Bratislava, Slovakia). Slovak Armed Forces Activity in Iraq & Afghanistan: public opinion
  • Marjan Malešič ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) (Faculty of Social Sciences, Slovenia). Declining public support for (military) missions abroad? The case of Slovenia

Working group Public Opinion, Mass Media and the Military organized an interim meeting in April 2002 in Madrid, we also had fruitful debates in Portorož (September 2002) and Paris (December 2004) during the biennial ERGOMAS conferences. We haven't met recently but we were connected online.

There is a lot of research of public opinion and mass media carried out in different countries, however, the research is not based upon common theory and methodology, but is rather national specific. It means that we still strive to accomplish a common cross-national research project of public opinion and/or mass media. Nevertheless, there has been one cross-national project accomplished in Slovakia , Czech Republic and Hungary : it's on the attitude of the military and the general public towards the process of introducing the AVF in those countries. There are countries where public opinion research is quite regularly practiced as in Switzerland , Sweden , Slovenia , The Netherlands, Czech Republic , France , Belgium , Austria , Germany , Slovakia , Hungary , and so on, and our WG is a forum to exchange findings and to occasionally publish them.

Selected books, chapters in the books and articles published by the working group members in last five years, and related to public opinion, mass media and security are as follows:

  • Marie Vlachova (ed.): The Public Image of Defence and the Military in Central and Eastern Europe ( Belgrade : CCMR, 2003).
  • Marjan Malešic (ed.), Conscription vs. All-Volunteer Forces in Europe (Baden Baden: NOMOS Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003) - there is a section on public opinion in each of nine cases presented in the book.
  • Sociologia (Sociology), Vol. 35, 5/2003 (some WG members' articles about public opinion and security were published).
  • Tibor Szvircsev Tresch, Andreas Wenger: Sicherheit 2009. Aussen-, Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitische Meinungsbildung im Trend, Forschungsstelle für Sicherheitspolitik der ETH Zürich und Militärakademie an der ETH Zürich
  • Goran Stutz (ed.), Opinion 2003 ( Stockholm : SPF).
  • Jean-Luc Marret, Terrorisme: Les Strategies de Communication ( Paris : Ministere de la Defense, 2003).
  • Jean Callaghan and Franz Kernic (eds.), Armed Forces and International Security. Global Trends and Issues ( Munster : LIT Verlag, 2003); there are two chapters devoted to public opinion; the book was also translated in Romanian language: Securitatea Internationala si Fortele Armate.
  • Miroslav Hadžic. 2006. Vojska i javnost (Military and the Public). Belgrade: Centre for Civil-Military Relations.
  • Marjan Malesic and Vinko Vegic. Javno mnenje o varnostnih temah: splet nakljucij ali doselden vzorec? (Public Opinion on Security Issues: A Coincidence or a Consistent Pattern? Teorija in praksa (Theory and Practice), Vol. 44, 1-2/2007, pp. 49-66.