Critical Exploration of Media Related Risks and Opportunities for Deliberative Communication: Development Scenarios of the European Media Landscape

Project Information

MEDIADELCOM

Grant agreement ID: 101004811

DOI

10.3030/101004811

Project closed

EC signature date 10 November 2020

Start date 1 March 2021

End date 29 February 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 2 999 533,75

EU contribution

€ 2 999 533,75

Coordinated by

TARTU ULIKOOL
Estonia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MEDIADELCOM (Critical Exploration of Media Related Risks and Opportunities for Deliberative Communication: Development Scenarios of the European Media Landscape)

Reporting period: 2022-03-01 to 2024-02-29

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The detrimental effects of the absence of culture debate on democracy have been increasingly recognized in the context of the migration crisis, Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the information war fought in connection with the war in Ukraine. Deliberative communication evaluates listening and well-grounded argumentation, enables different groups in society to find compromises and co-operate. Academic knowledge of deliberative democracy is quite broad, although a deliberative communication culture in society has received little attention in communication research. The focus on deliberative communication is one innovative aspect of the MEDIADELCOM project.
Firstly, to provide a novel holistic approach to media related risks and opportunities (ROs) concerning deliberative communication. Current studies on the topic are dispersed and usually do not answer the question on how different structural aspects and conditions that influence different actors create ROs by amplifying each other. The holistic approach enables to understand the different trajectories of change. According to academic literature four domains can be identified: legal and ethical regulation of media; journalism; media usage patterns, and media related competencies. Secondly, to address the media-related monitoring capability of different European countries. Academic scholarship has been trying to catch the changes concerning media and media consumption; however, the research and knowledge acquisition needs a critical analysis of the existing data, sources and knowledge gaps concerning the media performance. Thirdly, to conduct scenario-building to enable the provision of policy recommendations.
MEDIADELCOM uses comparative analysis that takes into consideration many interrelated variables to find out the potential paths of development that facilitate the manipulation techniques used in the public information space and the opportunities that improve the quality of public communication. The overall objective is to develop a diagnostic tool which enables the provision of holistic assessment of ROs concerning deliberative communication.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The conceptual and operational variables of the four domains were formulated; the concept was tested empirically when improving the 28 country case studies which describe the sources of ROs in 14 selected EU countries. The concepts of capability of monitoring mediascapes (CMM), risks and opportunities of deliberative communication (ROs), and wisdom-based media governance were developed into a toolbox for identifying potential ROs. Theoretical approach, with the deliberative communication as a potential normative theoretical frame for proactive media policy, was further elaborated in two monographs and in a theoretical article. The CMM concept included the basic variables that guided the research and composition of case studies.
To carry out comparative analysis and provide assessment on the quality of the research on media related ROs the concept of monitoring was developed further, focussing on the knowledge which is necessary for identifying media related ROs. Configurations of RO indicators were developed that enabled to compare and group the countries. The improved concept is explained and the comparative analysis is described in monograph 1.
The aim of bibliographical database was to identify and collect relevant research and information sources for assessing CMM in each country. 14 country databases were compiled, and then assembled into one Excel table with 5 622 entries, searchable by 20 variables. The conclusion which is relevant for policy recommendations and scenario building was drawn on the basis of database analysis: the number of publications has been steadily growing, but also the fragmentation of knowledge has been growing and less longitudinal studies are being carried out.
Popular approach and didactics concerning the ROs of mediascapes and media monitoring capability were used to compile an e-book in English which was adapted for each country. And a small-scale methodological pilot study was carried out by 6 teams, using unstructured media use diaries.
Two approaches of scenario building were used to illuminate plausible future developments of media landscapes on national and European levels. The first scenarios used classical approach and focused on wisdom-based media governance. The second approach was an innovative motivational modelling and agent-based modelling (ABM) with NetLogo simulations. As a result of ABM modelling pilot study, it was concluded that the ABM models are helpful for modelling various aspects of media structures and agent interaction, enabling to model what might happen if certain features of the structures are changed. Policy recommendations were created, concerning wisdom-based media governance on the national level as well as on the EU level.
Results of the project were published in Special Issues of “Media and Communication” and “Media Literacy and Academic Research”, the Special Issue of “Central European Journal of Communication” is forthcoming.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Impact
1. The holistic approach on sufficiency of knowledge about the transformation of the European mediascapes provided society and policy makers with new information on what should be improved in the ways of collecting and assessing the media related data.
2. The data collection and assessment from the perspective of potential risks for deliberative communication should lead to a wisdom-based media governance.
3. The fuzzy-set analysis of the media environments revealed a high degree of complexity and variety among the countries, leading to the conclusion that there is no universal model possible for forecasting ROs; the success of media policy in reality depends on how well the countries’ peculiarities are taken into consideration.
4.Bibliographical database of over 5600 entries reflects the level of produced knowledge on the ROs for deliberative communication, enabling the comparison of 14 countries’ research in four domains (Journalism, Legal and ethical regulation, Media related competencies, and Media usage patterns) by their main topics, number and types of publications, languages, peer reviewing, indexing in databases, and several other variables. And the methodology chapters in both monographs present novel ways for critically analysing the quality of existing data and for detecting knowledge gaps.
5. The best- and worst-case scenario models were created for each participating country, focusing on risk factors. The scenario logic of the “Wisdom-based media governance“ is constructed along two axes: knowledge quality and cooperation + interaction between different agents. The scenarios enable researchers to assess possible risks for deliberative communication and democracy in each country and also draw more general conclusions.
The most substantial social impact is related to the concept of wisdom-based media governance and the holistic overview of circumstances that define the status of deliberative communication, providing guidance for decision makers to change the mindset from reactive media policy to proactive media governance. Providing national research agencies, policy makers, the governments and media industry with the information about the areas where knowledge gaps and lack of information appear, the results of this project help to coordinate information gathering to pay more attention to these gaps and missing information

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