Talk:European mediascape – How to (re)create a trusted public sphere? – FS 04 2021

Focus Session 4 European mediascape: how to (re)create a trusted public sphere?

1 June 14:45

First discussion 24 April 2021

Proposed description: (by Yrjö Länsipuro, amended by Nicola)

After a decade of turbulence in the media field caused by the rise of global platforms, the arbitrary decision to ban President Trump from Twitter and Facebook came as a telling example of the power of platforms, and served as a wake-up call for the rest of the world. In Europe, remedial policy to curb the excessive power of tech giants has gained new urgency, as has the search for alternative means of restoring a trusted public sphere. These efforts are reviewed and evaluated at Focus Session 4, with input from media- and content-related workshops held earlier during the 2021 EuroDIG. FS 4 will also examine media initiatives to counter disinformation and to (re)create a trusted public sphere in Europe. These initiatives address common standards and journalism ethics, cooperation among European public service media and reinvigorating grassroots media, among others.

Organisation of the focus session

We should aim at having some clear high-level messages as a result of the discussions. The Geneva Internet Platform or the EuroDig Secretariat will report from all the sessions.

A moderator should lead through the discussions of the input and the output sessions.

The session is organized in three parts:

Input session – 45 min

It was proposed to aim at knowledgeable and good speakers in the input session, four speakers max., covering academia, the media, and policy-makers and citizens. Speakers proposed and confirmed:

• Petra Kammerevert, Member of the European Parliament(confirmed): She give her view on a European Public Sphere to be reflected in a Report of the European Parliament
• Matthias Pfeffer, TV journalists and producer, co-author of ‘The Human Imperative, Power, Freedom and Democracy in the Age of AI’ (confirmed)
• Olle Zachrison, Head of Digital News Strategy, Swedish Television (confirmed): He will present the EBU's 'European Perspectives' project
• Cherine Chalaby, Board Trustee at Facebook's Oversight Board (tbc)
• Claes de Vreese, Chair of Political Communication at The Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam (tbc)
• Viktorya Muradyan, European Youth Press (confirmed): She will tell us what young people think about this.*

Breakout session – 45 min

A max of 4 breakout groups should be organized. Ideally, the groups should be structured, and their discussion supported by guiding questions; this would also avoid overlap in the output session. Results from following related workshops should be fed into the breakout discussion:

• WS 1: European Digital Service Act (DSA) and Digital Market Act (DMA) presentation and discussion
• WS 9 on Censorship and Content Regulation
• WS 12 acknowledges Self- and Co-regulation Initiatives by Platforms
• Other?

Output session - 45 min

Breakout groups will report back and high-level summarizing messages presented.

Next steps:

• Propose speakers
• Propose moderator
• Next meeting on 12 May at 15:00