UNESCO launches a new project to promote journalism as a public good in the digital age in South-East Europe with the support of the European Union

In today’s world, marked by digital transformation and media convergence, journalism and media are more fragile than ever, and the proliferation of digital platforms has created a decentralised set of communities and channels through which people and organisations share all forms of information. These issues are particularly relevant and pronounced in South-East Europe, where the media sectors are deeply polarised, struggle for viability, and where concerns about media independence and integrity continue to undermine the credibility of journalism.

In response to these challenges, UNESCO’s 2021 Windhoek+30 Declaration: information as a public good, endorsed by all its Member States, enshrined journalism as a public good and as indispensable to open dialogue within our societies. The Declaration contains concrete recommendations to take effective steps to nurture free, independent and pluralistic media, and ensure media viability. It calls on the mainstreaming of Media and Information Literacy (MIL), as well as working on ensuring the transparency of technological companies. 

In Europe, the EU has taken the lead with the adoption of a series of legislative acts, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA), with the aim of ensuring fairness, trust and safety in the digital environment. At global level, UNESCO has developed Guidelines for “Safeguarding Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in the Governance of Digital Platforms: A Multistakeholder Approach, through extensive consultations”. 
 

Within this overall framework, and based on the results achieved in the first two phases of the project ‘Building Trust in Media in South-East Europe and Turkey’, UNESCO, with the support of the EU, launches a new project titled ‘Building Trust in Media in South-East Europe: Support to Journalism as a Public Good’ (2023-2026). It advances and fosters freedom of expression in South-East Europe, by promoting free, independent and pluralistic media, recognising journalism as a public good and tackling disinformation, thereby contributing to achieving the SDG 5 and SDG Target 16.10. 

Specifically, the project will enhance the commitment to, and capacities of, the media and journalists to ensure that they abide by professional and ethical standards of journalism, including gender equality, and media accountability; to reinforce freedom of expression and the circulation of accurate information by the increasingly rights-based regulation of digital platforms and online media; and, to adopt Media and Information Literacy (MIL) policies and integrate them in formal education to support the MIL skills of women and men, notably youth, by encouraging them to think critically. 

This project, financed with 3 Million EUR, will also complement another recent UNESCO project funded by the EU, Social Media 4 Peace (2021-2023), which aims at strengthening the resilience of societies to potentially harmful content spread online in four pilot countries (of which Bosnia and Herzegovina is one). It focuses on hate speech as inciting violence, while protecting freedom of expression and enhancing the promotion of peace through digital technologies, notably social media.

The UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Tawfik Jelassi, said: “The principle of freedom of expression is the right to seek, receive and impart information. Although digital platforms have enhanced people’s access to information, there is an increasing spread, amplification and promotion, through human and automated systems, of potentially harmful content digitally, including disinformation and hate speech, that threatens this right, which is a pillar of democratic societies. These challenges are also very relevant in South-East Europe, marked by challenged media sectors, and divide narratives online. With this new project, UNESCO aims at continuing to support journalism as public good in the region and leveraging all relevant actors to foster free, independent, professional and pluralist media, as well as digital platforms’ multistakeholder governance, in line with the international human rights standards including on freedom of expression”. 

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Contact: 

Joshua Massarenti, Regional Project Coordinator

Email: [email protected]

Phone: +387 33 222 723