International Workshop
University of Groningen, the Netherlands
2-3 June 2005

Between 1880 and 1980, the form and style of European newspapers have undergone a fundamental transformation. The introduction of, for example, new genres, literary techniques, rhetoric strategies, story structures, headlines and reporting practices, changed the representation of news fundamentally. Some of these innovations were ‘invented’ in European countries, like Great Britain, Germany and France. But most of them were adopted from the United States. They spread around Europe at various moments and were adapted differently in various countries, as a result of the national contexts.

This workshop aims to explore 1. The development of form and style in European newspapers between 1880 and 1980, and 2. Its relationship with social change and modernisation. By introducing new forms and styles, journalists tried, on the one hand, to represent social changes (like urbanisation, increasing political participation, modernisation etc). in a adequate and attractive way. But these new conventions of form and style changed, on the other hand, the representation of reality in newspapers.

The workshop is hosted by the Groningen Research School for the Study of the Humanities and the Journalism Department of the University of Groningen. Accommodation will be provided. The language used in the workshop will be English. Papers will be published in a volume of the Groningen Studies in Cultural Change (Peeters Publishers, Leuven). They have to be submitted before the 15th of May, 2005.

Three keynote lectures will discuss the development of form and style in the British, French and German newspaper press. Eight to ten case-studies will explore this theme on a more specified level. Paper will be considered on any European country, and any theme on the subject of the workshop, f.e.:

• The introduction of new genres
• Newspaper design
• Photography
• New reporting practices, f.e. the rise of investigative reporting
• The use of literary techniques, f.e. new journalism

This is purely an indicative list. Papers are welcome on any related theme.
You are invited to submit a paper-proposal of max. 500 words by 1 February 2005.

You can send your paper proposal to dr. Marcel Broersma, at the following e-mail address.