What are the structures of the Action?

The management structure of the Action is briefly described in the COST Newsletter of April 2012, at: http://www.cost.eu/library/newsroom/Media_and_Society.

The task of the management and decision making structure of an Action is to organize activities, stimulate and monitor the scientific outcomes (such as publications, joint grant proposals among members, website, and connections to non-academic target groups) and allocate the grant to these individual activities.

Several organizational structures have been established to manage this Action (which is, for COST standards, relatively large compared to other Actions, with its 31 participating countries and 260 participants):

1. The Management Committee (MC) is the main decisional body of the Action. It decides about any major financial issues (e.g. usage of the annual budget) or the scientific activities (conferences,workshops) and elects officers for defined tasks (e.g., chair and vice chair of the Action). The MC meets at least once a year, preferably in connection with a scientific meeting. Each country participating in the Action delegates up to two effective members, and substitute members.
For a list of MC members, use this link: http://w3.cost.esf.org/index.php?id=234&action_number=IS0906.

2. Action chair & vice chair are responsible for the Action as a whole, for coordinating the scientific activities, and overseeing outcomes and ensuring visibility of the network.

Action chair: Geoffroy Patriarche (Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis (FUSL), Belgium, patriarche @ fusl.ac.be)
Action vice chair: Helena Bilandzic (Augsburg University, Germany, helena.bilandzic @ phil.uni-augsburg.de)

3. The Working Groups (WG) are thematically defined clusters of scholars within the Action that carry out and coordinate the actual scientific work. More on WG-s at their pages.

WG 1 “New Media Genres, Media Literacy, and Trust in the Media”
WG 1 chair: Kim Schrøder (Roskilde University, Denmark, kimsc @ ruc.dk)
WG 1 vice chairs: Jakob Bjur (University of Gothenborg, Sweden, jakob.bjur @ jmg.gu.se) and Sonia Livingstone (London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom, s.livingstone @ lse.ac.uk.)
Liaison officer academia/professionals: Uwe Hasebrink (Germany)
Task force 1. Cross-media challenges: coord. Jakob Bjur (Sweden)
Task force 2. New media genres as text and practices: coord. Göran Bolin (Sweden)
Task force 3. Trust and the media: coord. Lars Nyre (Denmark)
Task force 4. Media literacy: ambitions, policies and measures: coord. Sonia Livingstone (UK)

WG 2 “Audience interactivity and participation”
WG 2 chair: Nico Carpentier (Vrije Universiteit of Brussel VUB), Belgium, nico.carpentier @ vub.ac.be)
WG 2 vice chairs: Manuel José Damásio Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias , Portugal, mjdamasio @ ulusofona.pt) and Miroljub Radojkovic (University of Belgrade, Serbia, miroljub.radojkovic @ fpn.bg.ac.rs).
Liaison officers for the industry (including PBS): Bozena Mierzejewska (Switzerland) and Birgit Stark (Austria)
Liaison officer for the policy makers: Lucia Vesnic-Alujevic (Belgium).
Liaison officer for the civil society (including audience NGOs and alternative media): Mélanie Bourdaa (France)
Liaison officer for journalists: Ana Milojevic (Serbia)
Liaison for the other academic (EU) projects and networks: José Manuel Noguera Vivo (Spain)
Liaison officer for WG2 young scholars: Igor Vobic (Slovenia)
Task force 1. Interrogating audiences: theoretical horizons of participation: coord. Nico Carpentier (Belgium) and Peter Dahlgren (Sweden)
Task force 2. Public voice and mediated participation: coord. Birgit Stark (Austria) and Peter Lunt (UK)
Task force 3. Networked belonging and networks of belonging: coord. Manuel José Damásio (Portugal) and Paula Cordeiro (Portugal)
Task force 4. Cross-media production and audience involvement: coord. José Manuel Noguera (Spain), Mélanie Bourdaa (France) and Francesca Pasquali (Italy)

WG 3 “The role of media and ICT use for evolving social relationships”
WG 3 chair: Frauke Zeller (Ilmenau University of Technology, Germany, frauke.zeller @ tu-ilmenau.de)
WG 3 vice chairs: Nicoletta Vittadini (Catholic University of Milan, Italy, nicoletta.vittadini @ unicatt.it) and Jakob Linaa Jensen (Aarhus University, Denmark, linaa @ imv.au.dk).
Research foci coordinators: Jakob Linaa Jensen (Denmark) and Stanislaw Jedrzejewski (Poland)
Publication coordinators: Nicoletta Vittadini (Italy) and Irena Reifova (Czech Republic)
Website coordinators: Boris Mance (Slovenia) and Frauke Zeller (Germany)
Liaison officer for the non-academic target groups: Stanislaw Jedrzejewski (Poland)
Task force 1. "Old" and "New" Media. Theoretical and Technological Perspectives: J. Ignacio Gallego & Brian O'Neill
Task force 2. Methodological horizons of social relationships and ICT: Jakob Linaa Jensen & Klaus Bredl
Task force 3. Generations and Mediated Relationships: Andra Siibak & Nicoletta Vittadini

WG 4 “Audience transformations and social integration”
WG 4 chair: Cristina Ponte (Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal, cristina.ponte @ fcsh.unl.pt)
WG 4 vice chairs: Marta Cola (University of Lugano, colam @ lu.unisi.ch) and Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink (University of Salzburg, Austria, Ingrid.Paus-Hasebrink @ sbg.ac.at).
Liaison officer for the non-academic groups: Piermarco Aroldi (Italy)
Task force 1. Transforming families, transforming societies: coord. Sascha Trülzsch (Austria)
Task force 2. Media, Citizenship and social diversity: coord. Alexander Dhoest (Belgium)

4. The Liaison Committee in charge of liaising with the non-academic target groups of the Action is composed of François Heinderyckx (Belgium) and Uwe Hasebrink (Germany) as coordinators, and of the liaison officers of the four WGs.

5. The Steering Group (SG) carries out the day-to-day managerial work and prepares decisions to be made in the MC. The SG consists of the Action chair and vice chair, and the four WG chairs.

6. Several coordinators complement and support this structure:
a. STSM coordinator: Nóra Nyíro (University of Budapest, Hungary, nora.nyiro @ uni-corvinus.hu)
b. Website & essays coordinator: Pille Pruulmann-Vengerfeldt (University of Tartu, Estonia, pille.vengerfeldt @ ut.ee)
c. Newsletter coordinator: Cédric Courtois (Ghent University, Belgium, cedric.courtois @ ugent.be)
d. Project Applications Coordinator: Anne Kaun (Sodertorn University, Stockholm, anne.kaun @ sh.se)
e. ECREA Doctoral Summer School Coordinator: Nico Carpentier

7. The Grant Holder is responsible for the execution of the financial and scientific administration of the Action, in line with the COST rules. It helps organising the meetings, keeps the contact lists updated, helps managing the memberships, provides assistance for the dissemination activities, and takes care of the financial aspects of the Action (budgets, reimbursements, etc.).

Grant Holder: Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis (FUSL), Belgium
Grant Holder Officer: Emilie Vossen, grantholder @ fusl.ac.be

8. The COST Office is responsible for the monitoring of the Action and provides advices on administrative and financial procedures and rules.
- COST Science Officer: Giuseppe Lugano, giuseppe.lugano @ cost.eu
- COST Administrative Officer: Leo Guilfoyle, leo.guilfoyle @ cost.eu
- Rapporteur for the ISCH Domain: Leopoldina Fortunati, fortunati.deluca @ tin.it