Vlad Strukov

From Central to Digital: Television in Russia is an international conference I am organizing in collaboration with Vera Zvereva (RGGU). The conference will take place in Moscow on 10-11 March 2011 at the Russian State University for the Humanities.

As many other countries anticipating the digital television transition, Russia faces a few formidable challenges, including selecting technical standards, developing new digital content, regulating relationships between platforms and service providers, and balancing between public and commercial interests. The complexity of the process is exacerbated by the sheer size of the country and by uneven development of its regions.

The conference aims to explore social and cultural implications in the transition to digital television by providing an analysis of the regulatory framework, DTV markets, forms of signal delivery, configuration of DTV channels in Russia’s regions, and convergence of media platforms. The conference specifically endeavours to examine the role of digital technologies in transforming the political and cultural landscape of Russian television by looking at internet television channels, multi-regional channel Russia Today, and other delivery platforms. It plans to investigate social and cultural implications of DTV in Russia by focusing on new genres, hybrid forms of media texts, innovative content of DTV programming as well as on the changing role of DTV audiences.