Identifying user-focused solutions to support news media freedom

Expected Outcome:

Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Key data gaps affecting the news media sectors at European level are addressed and all relevant stakeholders dispose of an updated and comprehensive knowledge base.
• Users’ consumption patterns of news are identified (online and offline).
• News media organisations and journalists are equipped with better knowledge and tools to adapt to digital transformation, to reach new audiences and to ensure a more resilient public sphere, especially for news sectors that are of particular relevance for democracy.

Scope:

Free and independent news media are key tenets of our democracies as they keep citizens informed, facilitate civic engagement across all democratic processes, and keep under scrutiny those in power. At present, journalistic newsrooms are under severe economic pressure and they face increasing forms of political influence and threats against media pluralism and independence. Social media forces them to compete for citizens’ attention with other forms of infotainment, which sometimes entail unverified opinions and low-quality or malicious sources. This is particularly affecting forms of journalism relying on original content, which takes more time and resources to produce (e.g. local media, investigative journalism, public interest news, journalistic magazines, etc.). There is evidence of market failures affecting these sectors, with phenomena such as emerging news deserts, limited coverage of certain regions and/or societal groups and newsrooms closing. As a result, certain societal groups are underserved in the media landscape, so the proposed research will benefit from adopting an intersectional approach.

There are still important quantitative and qualitative data gaps at European level that can help the news media sectors address these concerns, including accurate diagnoses of the challenges and opportunities for the news sectors. The Commission’s 2023 European Media Industry Outlook^[1] signalled that “the future competitiveness of this sector will depend on its capacity to invest and innovate, as well as to manage and monetise content and data”. Applicants are invited to contribute to enhancing innovation across the news media sectors, in particular by addressing data gaps, researching inspirational examples of scalable models and testing industrial models that can advance financial independence as well as editorial independence. This should include areas and aspects such as:

a) providing comparable European consumer data, market data and models to analyse audience behaviour (including audience measurement tools) across societal groups and across Europe, so as to help news media improve their relevance, editorial quality, distribution channels and business models (including emerging formats, mediums, and technologies such as AI and XR);

b) identification of market failures in news sectors of specific relevance to democracy, such as local media and investigative journalism, mapping of priority regions and/or themes, identification and analysis of business models that can address them;

c) development, prototyping and testing of small-scale innovative user-centric business models that foster the involvement of citizens in high quality information production, monetisation, distribution and consumption (including community-based, local and accessible solutions, either physical or online);

d) mapping and development of audience measurement systems, concrete suggestions to increase interoperability of tools and systems around common standards, and proposals for metadata taxonomies, to federate the news sectors and improve their negotiation power vis-à-vis tech and advertising companies.

e) sharing of conclusions and concrete, hands-on action plans and practices for the industry and policy makers, through regular consultation, interactive sessions, active communication, etc.

Consortia should:

• bring together academia (including from SSH disciplines), civil society organisations and multiple news sectors representatives (including influencers and other content creators);
• where applicable, leverage the data and services available through European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), as well as data from relevant Data Spaces;
• ensure that the data produced in the context of this topic is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable);
• seek collaboration whenever possible with relevant projects selected under previous EU-funded calls, such as the Horizon 2020 call topic TRANSFORMATIONS-10-2020 – “Evolving European media landscapes and Europeanisation” or the Horizon Europe one HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-01-06 – “Media for democracy – democratic media”.

Clustering and cooperation among the selected projects under this topic and other relevant projects are strongly encouraged.

[1] The European Media Industry Outlook | Shaping Europe’s digital future