Skip to main content
search

MEDIATIZED EU holds policy round table with other projects and European Commission

By September 26, 2022June 20th, 2023Events, News

MEDIATIZED EU Project Coordinator Dr. Tanya Lokot and Dr. Sonia Boulos, co-lead of the Work Package “Cross-Country Comparisons & Policy Recommendations”, represented the consortium in a Policy Round Table jointly organised with EUMEPLAT, MEDIADELCOM and MediaFutures projects, together with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD). The event, titled “Evolving European media landscapes and Europeanisation: Emerging trends and key policy challenges”, was held on 26 September 2022, in Brussels.The round table was opened by Dr. Lucía Recalde Langarica, Head of Unit of Audiovisual Industry and Media Support  Programmes, and Dr. Katja Reppel, Head of Unit of Democracy and European Values, respectively in the European Commission’s DG for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CNECT), and the DG RTD.

The researchers presented their projects and preliminary results, focusing on key scoping policy updates. Among the event’s goals was to discuss how to understand and transform media, make it stronger, more transparent and democratic, tackling the main trends in the market, examining how technology is changing it, and to contribute policy suggestions regarding media and (dis)information in the EU.

Dr. Lokot presented MEDIATIZED EU, its expected contributions, theoretical framework, and impacts, major findings of the desk research phase and of media analysis in each target country, and follow-up inquiries such as how the media deal with challenges emerging from Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for instance, the transformation of discourses about migration and the renewed threat of Russian disinformation.

Dr. Boulos summarised preliminary insights for scholarship and policy, noting that anti-EU disinformation has been detected in media discourses in some states, but that in others it is the lack of sufficient information about the EU that could hinder constructive debates about the EU in the future, even in States that currently show strong support for Europeanization.

Dr. Alexandra  Garatzogianni and Dr. Gerrit Rosam presented MediaFutures: Data driven innovation hub for the media value chain, which is concerned with Big Data Innovation Hubs, and addressed the current challenges related to misinformation and disinformation, highlighting issues such as populism, conflitcs and dwindling public trust. The project inquires for instance how to distinguish critical discourse on the EU from misinformation.

Dr. Andrea Miconi and Dr. Stylianos Papathanassopoulos presented EUMEPLAT: European Media Platforms and discussed the project’s findings and implications regarding European media systems, tackling media production and consumption, in a period between 1990 and 2019, in all EU28 countries. The research project has found, for instance, that radio remains a resilient source accross Europe, although countries like Portugal and Spain represent the biggest drop in audiences.

Dr. Halliki Harro-Loit presented MediaDelCom, a consortium of 17 teams from 14 countries working to develop a diagnostic tool for the provision of holistic assessment of risks and opportunities for deliberative communication and social cohesion in Europe.

As the event’s call noted, media are “not only a key sector of the cultural and creative industries”, but are also “the bedrock of democracy”, and “play a vital socio-cultural and political role by shaping public and elite views and aspirations, opinions, political choices and identities.” Considering “populist and authoritarian challengers contesting democracy, it is critical to assist media in the creation of a vibrant European public sphere in which citizens can engage with one  another as members of a political community.”

Close Menu