2.5 days (from 12-14-5-2022), over 100 participants, 2 keynotes, 3 panel discussions and 44 lectures and workshops at the conference “Eigentum, Medien, Öffentlichkeit” (Property, Media, and the Public Sphere) of the Netzwerk Kritische Kommunikationswissenschaft (Critical Communication Studies Network) at WU Vienna at the invitation of Andrea Grisold and Hendrik Theine.

It started with the exciting evening event “Expropriating Facebook, Springer and Co.” with Sabine Nuss from Dietz Verlag, Leonhard Dobusch, the scientific director of the Momentum Institute and Nafisa Hasanova from the Media Ownership Monitor (see photo above).

Friday continued with the “double keynote” by Sabine Nuss and Andrea Grisold on democratic problems of concentrated private media but also of the process and potentials of socializing them.

Another highlight was the panel “Journalism as commons – Media ownership beyond capitalism” moderated by Sevda C. Arslan with representatives of European alternative media (Jacobin DE, Argia, Radio Orange, Baricada).

Finally, there was a panel in honour of Manfred Knoche, a decisive pioneer of the approach of a critique of the political economy of media and communication, with contributions by Martina Thiele, Sebastian Sevignani, Andrea Grisold and Christian Fuchs. It became clear that neglecting property question, as it was diagnosed by the organisers for media and communication studies, does not apply at least to this approach.

Afterwards, there was a celebration at Café Europa, where the noticeably special, solidary and lively atmosphere of this conference continued in an exuberant setting.