Media & Democracy goes live with project for journalism and civil dialog

Media & Democracy is a national research and innovation program in the interface between media and its role in democracy. The background to this is the historically rapid transformation in opportunities to produce, publish and consume media content.

What effects – both positive and negative – does this paradigm shift have on journalism, media, citizens and on democracy? The aim is to contribute to the development of tomorrow’s journalism and public debate and thereby strengthen democracy.

Media & Democracy is run by Lindholmen Science Park. With its neutral and world-leading development environment, the company offers the business community, academia and public institutions meetings and collaboration in leading research and innovation. In particular, connected with profound opportunities and challenges that no single player is capable of embracing.

Players are ready to begin
What is clear, is that the program will be led by Martin Holmberg and that Jonathan Falck, former editor in chief of Göteborgs-Posten and currently senior advisor, will become chairman of the steering group.

The immediate focus will be to kick-start Media & Democracy’s core task – which is to initiate, finance and run research and innovation projects that provide new knowledge and new tools for journalism and civil dialog. Furthermore, the steering group, as well as reference groups, must be recruited and begin their respective duties.

-When it comes to concrete projects, we have already been invited to follow and participate in several highly topical, ongoing ventures. There are also plans for project ideas that players are ready to start, says Martin Holmberg.

Alongside this, it is important for the program to utilize the strengths gained from pooling a broader palette of participants to analyze and define the common challenges that are most important to capture.

Why the program is unique
The basic funding for Media & Democracy is from Region Västra Götaland. The initiative is also supported by commercial media in Sweden via Tidningsutgivarna (TU), public service companies (Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio) and key media players in the Swedish academic community.

What makes the program unique can be summarized as:

• The form of the collaboration. No other arena assembles media players, researchers and public institutions to conduct joint research and innovation within the relevant interface.
• Projects are to be run in live and incubator environments with the aim that the results will provide practical benefits to participants.
• Faster and more accessible dissemination of new knowledge in media development. In addition to the program’s own projects, Media & Democracy will, in this respect, benefit greatly from its established international network.

- Already this autumn, we are planning to play an active role in conferences. Our ambition is also to organize our own first Round Table, says Martin Holmberg.