Greta Gober and Michał Głowacki disseminated the project’s theorical framework during the European Media Management Association conference in Munich.

The European Media Management Association (EMMA) conference was organized in Munich on June 15–17, 2022. The event was titled “Reorganization of Media Industries: Digital Transformation, Entrepreneurship and Regulation” gathered more than 100 scholars and practitioners from Europe and beyond. The overall goal of the conference was to discuss change management in media industries in the aftermath of the digital and data-driven transformations. The conference organizers offered a wide range of formal and informal knowledge sharing events at the Macromedia University, Microsoft headquarters and Augustinekeller – one of the oldest beer gardens in Munich. 

The EMMA conference 2022 featured keynote speeches by Claudia Loebbecke (Cologne University, Germany), Tom Evens (Ghent University, Belgium), Eli Noam (Columbia University, USA) and Andy Beach (Microsoft Corporate). The sharing of scholarly and practical media industry knowledge was followed by over thirty thematic parallel sessions. 

Findings from the Norway-grants funded “Diversity management as innovation in journalism” research project were disseminated in the “Guidance and Diversity in Media” session organized on June 17, 2022. Our contribution was titled “Polyphony and Voice Plurality: How Newsrooms Innovate to Manage Diversity” and it aimed to evaluate examples of existing on and off-screen media industry diversity measures from the perspective of ‘polyphony’. 

We argued that cultural organizational approach can help advance the theory and methodology of managing newsroom diversity via the lens of polyphony and the plurality of voices (Trittin and Schoeneborn, 2017). Following Trittin and Schoeneborn, we argued this approach can help enrich existing works on diversity management in both the instrumental and critical traditions of research on diversity management. Stressing the link between diversity management and polyphony focuses on enabling communicative processes within the newsroom that allow marginalized and culturally different ‘voices’ to speak out, be respected and heard in the newsrooms (and hence the media). The organization can tap into the innovative and creative potential of bringing together diverse viewpoints, experiences, and knowledge. 

We thank session participants, who raised comments and questions to move our theoretical work forward. We also thank the organisers for inviting Michal to chair the session on Managing News in Ukraine, a subject which has naturally been incorporated into the project’s research objectives. 


The European Media Management Association (EMMA) conference in Munich gathered over 100 media scholars and practitioners.