Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: Research and practice on the international stage have repeatedly proved that freedom of expression is the most important life condition for democratic media in any country.Within the EU, media policy regulations and recommendations aim at guiding the way towards balanced and reliable media performance without applying rigid limitations.European Union media policy that would best support freedom of expression of the media remains topical, as developments across the EU's media systems are dynamic and wholly distinct.This Special Issue of the Central European Journal of Communication (CEJC) focuses on the outcomes of an EU-funded research project -Mediadelcom -that had the ambitious aim of proposing a change of the lenses when looking at the media policies in the member countries.The leading argument of Mediadelcom ("Critical Exploration of Media Related Risks and Opportunities for Deliberative Communication: Development Scenarios of the European Media Landscape") is that political and cultural spaces in democracies evolve best if specific policies enhance the conditions for deliberative communication (Lauk & Oller Alonso, 2024).Ideally, deliberative communication functions as an intrinsic component of democratic decision-making processes, where collective decisions result in the public discussions of citizens who participate on equal terms and are provided with trustworthy information (Bächtiger et al., 2018).In a mediated society, this depends on the news media's ability to provide truthful information and to carry out argumentative discussions aimed at solving problems and reaching (at least temporary) agreements.Also, a supporting factor for the feasibility of deliberative democracy is the extensive access of people to the new media platforms and social media enabling them to promulgate their opinions and choices.On the other
Authors: Epp Lauk, Michał Głowacki
Institution: University of Warsaw
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
Funder: European Commission
OpenAlex ID: W4411414512