Promoting information integrity in the EU: the role of media and social actors’ against platform-dominated markets

Abstract

Recent developments in European Union regulation and policies launched to fight disinformation—most notably the DSA and the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA)—are a window of opportunity to conceive and frame information as a public good. EMFA creates the potential for the EU and its Member States to take a more proactive role of not merely protecting but promoting media freedom. Potentially this can entail supporting those media whose institutional significance exceeds their viability in advertisement-led and platform-dominated markets and whose loss would weaken the democratic public sphere. At the same time, it includes protections for actors in civil society, emphasizing their democratic role as participants in public debate and allies in the development of the new controls. The new comprehensive approach is reflected in the European Democracy Shield Briefing developed in the Joint Communication European Democracy Shield: Empowering Strong and Resilient Democracies and the Communication EU Strategy for Civil Society a new framework that tries to adapt to the new geopolitical context. A new framework that reacts to the geopolitical context and empowers media and social actors against dominant digital platforms The panel invites contributions examining how the recent EU policies can help identify structural media functions that are indispensable for democratic systems, as well as measures to cooperate with social actors (civic organizations, fact-checkers and academics) to fulfil them.

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