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Just got this in my inbox (this is not the whole thing, just the essentials - the link was added by me):

Dear Henrik, We sincerely regret to inform you that your paper titled “Comparing European Journalisms” has not been accepted for presentation at ECREA’s 2nd European Communication Conference “Communication Policies and Culture in Europe” in Barcelona, 25 to 28 November 2008. We have received an overwhelming amount of proposals (1438 proposals, involving almost 3000 people), and we regret having to reject a considerable amount of quality proposals. Because of the enormous interest in the conference, we hope you understand we will not be able to answer any individual questions regarding proposals.

Bleh. Some clarifications, though: for ECREA (European Communication Research and Education Association), you don't send in full papers (like for the ICA, see previous post), only abstracts, so technically, it's my abstract that's been rejected, not my paper (the paper hasn't been written yet). I knew I should have spent more time on that abstract and not just cribbed and adjusted from another abstract I had submitted for another conference... . Interestingly, this year ICA (again, see my previous post) had taken concerns about the transparency of the peer review process seriously and so allowed paper submitters to actually read the reviewers' comments. Previously the ICA has been much like the ECREA, i.e. your paper gets rejected (or accepted) and you have no idea why. As ECREA grows, I'm guessing they will eventually have to do the same thing. For now, though, I will have to be satisfied with a no-reason rejection. Here's the abstract that was rejected, by the way:

Abstract (359 words) Comparative research on European journalism (particularly on journalism’s relationship – if any – with a European Public Sphere) is is an academic growth area: since the beginning of the 2000s, a number of large-scale, pan-European research projects examining various aspects of European journalism has taken place (some are still ongoing). Most of these are in one way or other financed by the EU in some way, and most deal with similar issues, journalistically mediated communication on Europe and European issues, broadly defined. Some projects deal more specifically with journalism than others, but most include at least some element of journalism research, be it content analysis of news coverage, analysis of EU public communication strategies and its targets, or interviews with journalists. Through a meta-analysis of key publications from four EU-funded projects that deal specifically with journalism and news media - AIM Project (Adequate Information Management in Europe, 04-07), EMEDIATE (Media and Ethics of a European Public Sphere from the Treaty of Rome to the “War on Terror”, 04-07), EURONAT (Representations of Europe and the Nation in Current and Prospective Member-States: Media, Élites and Civil Society, 01-04), and EUROPUB (The Transformation of Political Mobilisation and Communication in European Public Spheres, 01-03) – this paper asks: What are the core methodological and definitional issues in comparing European journalisms? How is journalism defined and operationalised, and what consequences does that have for the image of European journalisms presented by these research projects? The conclusion is that while these projects represent serious and comprehensive efforts to understand European journalism in a comparative perspective, comparative methodologies remain underdeveloped in some aspects. “Journalism” is often operationally defined as “quality journalism” or “serious journalism”, ignoring the importance of tabloid/popular journalism; and press journalism is over-represented and emerging genres of online journalism (news blogging, citizen journalism etc) are under-represented. This paper argues that while these methodological issues are difficult to overcome, ignoring them will serve to reify established definitions of journalism. Using operational definitions that are based on accepting the self-presentation of the object of study (i.e. using operational defintions based on how journalism views and defines itself) will also potentially cause problems of reflexivity and lack of critical research.

I thought it read pretty interesting, though I could have developed it more (on the other hand - it's an abstract, how much detail can you go into in 500 words?). What do you think? Any comments/suggestions? Posts in the near future will continue my reflections on the peer review process, rejections, feedback etc. Watch this space.