About us
Media & Democracy is a national collaboration platform for media innovation and social research. The goal is to strengthen the media's innovative power, journalism, public discourse, and democracy. Priority areas for the platform are experimental research projects, data and AI-related media development, media and information literacy as well as knowledge dissemination and networking.
Media & Democracy’s starting point is the historical conversion of the media landscape. Digitalization has revolutionized possibilities of producing, publishing, and consuming media content and traditional and publishing-driven media no longer have the same dominant and central role.
What effects – both positive and negative – will the changes in the media landscape have on journalism, media, people, and democracy? The interface between media and democracy development is an area in which Sweden already made progress about 250 years ago. Then with adopting the world's first freedom of the press regulation.
Media & Democracy is a neutral development environment where media actors, academies and other social institutions jointly initiate and drive research around competition-neutral opportunities and challenges – mainly in experimental projects. Other central activities are knowledge dissemination and management and facilitation of various networks.
Together with AI Sweden, Sweden's center for applied AI, Media & Democracy drives research and development in the data and AI area with a focus on news media. In collaboration with AI Sweden, the program also leads the national initiative Future of Democracy.
Here are some of Media & Democracy's milestones:
- 2014: The initiative is born. Current Swedish media research is mapped.
- 2015: Open workshops between the media sector and academics.
- 2016-2017: Preliminary study period financed by Region Västra Götaland
- 2017: Media & Democracy is established as a program at Lindholmen Science Park and Region Västra Götaland funds the platform.
- 2018: The first research and innovation projects are implemented.
- 2019: Media & Democracy becomes a platform for a national AI initiative financed by Vinnova and the media companies Hall Media, Stampen, and Sveriges Television.
- 2020: Borås Tidning has been appointed as the editorial office of the year and the Media & Democracy projects Beta Borås 1 and Beta Borås 2 are regarded as two contributing initiatives.
- 2020: Region Västra Götaland continues to fund the platform.
- 2021: International Youth Think Tank is added to Media & Democracy.
Media & Democracy held the first Future of Democracy Summit together with AI Sweden and other collaboration partners. - 2022: Media & Democracy initiates innovative research projects within Collaborative Journalism: Local democracy in a digital world and Strengthened local journalism in crises. The genre involves collaboration between two or more news and information organizations, which aims to complement the organization's resources and maximize the impact of the content produced.
- 2023: The world's largest conference in investigative journalism - Global Investigate Journalism Conference - was arranged in Gothenburg. Media & Democracy was responsible for the start day's pre-conference at Lindholmen Science Park. The theme was innovative methods, collaboration and AI as a journalistic tool.
Media & Democracy is managed by Lindholmen Science Park and financed by Region Västra Götaland and Riksbankens Jubileumsfond. The initiative is also supported by Sweden's commercial media within Tidningsutgivarna (TU), public services companies Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio, media academies such as University of Gothenburg, Jönköping University, Karlstad University, Linnaeus University, Mid Sweden University, and Södertörn University. In addition, international participants Nordicom, the global organization WAN-IFRA and in Norway by the development network NxtMedia, Norwegian Research Center for AI Innovation (NorwAI) and the industry association and publisher organization Mediebedriftenes Landsforening (MBL).
The managing group consists of:
Robert Olsson, chairman
Anna Careborg, Appointed news and sports director, Sveriges Television
Bengt Johansson, professor at the University of Gothenburg
Anette Novak, former CEO, Swedish Film Institute
Martin Svensson, co-director of AI Sweden
Johan Taubert, CEO TU Medier i Sverige
Jenny Wiik, Associate professor at University of Gothenburg and University of Malmö
Martin Holmberg, programme manager of Media & Democracy
Do you want to know more?
Our innovation projects
The media industry and AI
Audiovisual Days
2021
Beta Borås: Younger News Universe for Local Community Journalism and Debate
Beta Borås: Younger News Universe for Local Community Journalism and Debate, stage 2
Conflict Management, Dialogue and Reader Engagement in the New Media Landscape
Crossborder Journalism Campus, CJC
Crossborder Journalism Campus, CJC
Future of Democracy
International Youth Think Tank
Local democracy in a global world
Local editor 2.0
Media citizens not exposed to traditional news media
Strengthened local journalism in crises
The automation of journalism
The Digital Media Landscape and the 2018 Local Election
Young citizens and the quality of news Construals, Emotions and Strategies
Nyhetsflöde
"Several had not seen a battery-powered radio"
Record Number of Applicants for IYTT's Youth Conference
Record Interest in Global Media Conference at Lindholmen
Save the date to Audiovisual Days 2023
The M&D podcast is now available on Spotify
"It has never felt so relevant to talk about technology development and democracy"
Application open for IYTT's fifth youth conference
"Committed participants who are passionate about democracy"
This is how Aftonbladet and Sveriges Radio work with AI
”Journalists rarely meet young people”
Successful combination strengthens democracy
Open registration: IYTT's fourth youth conference
In November, the International Youth Think Tank (IYTT) organizes the fourth edition of the International Youth Conference. Participants are 18-24-year-olds who want to take on real societal challenges...
