Come Together Webinars

Iva Nenadić: European Media Freedom Act – Achievements and Challenges Ahead. Organised by Voxfeminae. 

For a decade, the Media Pluralism Monitor has been regularly implemented in all EU member states and candidate countries to map and monitor the evolution of risks to media freedom and pluralism across the dimensions of fundamental rights and protections, market conditions, political independence, and social inclusiveness.

The Monitor, which informs the media pluralism section of the European Commission’s Rule of Law reports, indicates that many conditions for media and journalism have worsened over time across Europe. It is particularly problematic when ruling politicians, designated to provide and protect an enabling environment for journalism, create conditions that make work more difficult or even dangerous for journalists.

This has led to the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), a groundbreaking achievement considering that the EU traditionally has had no explicit competencies in this policy area. Media policies have traditionally been a matter of national policy. This lecture outlines the key elements of EMFA and discusses some challenges to its equal implementation across all EU countries.

Iva Nenadić: European Media Freedom Act – Achievements and Challenges Ahead from Vox Feminae on Vimeo.

Tomáš Bella: Technology in the service of independent media. Organised by Krytyka Polityczna and its partners.

How can technology be used in the service of independent journalism? How to study audiences, use data consciously and build an effective strategy based on it, so that independent web portals do not have to rely only on social media algorithms?

Krytyka Polityczna and it partners invite publishers, journalists and editors to a free webinar “Technology in the service of independent media”. The special guest is Tomáš Bella.

Tomáš Bella is Chief Digital Officer at Denník N, an independent daily newspaper published in Slovak, Czech and Hungarian. Denník N is focused on high-quality and long-form journalism and also develops open-source subscription software for publishers.

Prior to co-founding Denník N, Bella was editor-in-chief of the most popular Slovak news site and CEO of subscription software provider Piano. He was listed among the world’s 50 leading innovators in journalism and media and won several journalism prizes, most recently the Slovak Best Reportage award for his coverage of the European refugee crisis.

Paula Cardoso: Manufacturing hate – how the media fuels anti-black racism. Organised by Gerador.

In this webinar, led by journalist Paula Cardoso, we confronted the undeniable reality that media representations of Black people and coverage of issues related to race can be tremendously problematic and exclusionary. But are we aware of how exactly the media are fueling anti-black racism? In this webinar, key aspects within news outlets that are manufacturing hate were discussed, while good practices to tackle them were shared, alongside a reflection on the power of storytelling to reduce racial stigmas and question official narratives.

Some of the aspects highlighted were that it is difficult to point out media coverage that positively represents Black People, as the first content to emerge from internet searches are usually negative images and stories. At the same time, Black Europeans are often considered African and disregarded as Europeans, which denies them the possibility of contributing to the construction of a European identity and narrative that are more inclusive. 

During the webinar, Paula Cardoso showed Baratunde Thurston’s TED Talk, “How to Deconstruct Racism, One Headline at a Time”, where Thurston introduces a method for breaking down headlines to expose underlying biases. He explains that by dissecting headlines into their basic components—identifying the subject, action, and target—we can uncover the subtle ways in which language can frame stories to perpetuate stereotypes. He uses real-world examples to illustrate his points, showing how different wording can lead to very different interpretations of the same event. He advocates for a proactive approach to deconstructing and reconstructing narratives around race, suggesting that individuals have the power to effect change through conscious effort. Despite the challenges, in this talk, Thurston expresses optimism about the potential for progress. He believes that by changing the way we talk about race, we can begin to change the way we think about it. 

Paula Cardoso highlighted that commitment to change is essential to humanizing the system in which we live. Each of us can be a change-maker if we are committed in our own contexts through various actions. These actions include promoting and participating in trainings, starting conversations, diversifying teams and collaborators, bringing topics to the newsrooms that matter to Black communities, and ensuring diverse perspectives enrich our overall narrative.

Book suggestion: Manufacturing Hate – How Africa Was Demonized in Western Media by Milton Allimadi.

About Paola Cardoso

Founder of the digital community “Afrolink” which showcases African and Afro-descendant professionals residing in Portugal or with connections to the country, Paula Cardoso is also the author of the children’s book series “Força Africana“. These projects were developed to promote greater black representation in Portuguese society. With the same purpose, she is part of the online talk show “O Lado Negro da Força” and hosted the second season of the “Black Excellence Talk Series“, broadcasted on RTP África. On the same channel, she has been hosting the cultural magazine Rumos since October 2023. She is also a member of the Citizens’ Forum, aiming to contribute to revitalizing Portuguese democracy, as well as the HeforShe Lisboa and Bora Mulheres programs, focusing on mentoring and female entrepreneurship.

Originally from Mozambique, she graduated in International Relations and worked as a journalist for 17 years, starting her career at Visão magazine. She writes the column “Entre Meadas” in Diário de Notícias, is one of the contributors to Gerador, published the column “Mutuacção” in Setenta e Quatro and was part of the content production team for the television program Jantar Indiscreto. In March 2023, she was recognized by the business magazine “Success Pitchers” as one of the “10 Most Inspiring Women Leaders in Social Entrepreneurship.” This recognition followed her inclusion in 2022 by Euclid NetWork as one of the “Top 100 Women In Social Enterprise” in Europe for 2022.

Réka Kinga Papp and Gergő Pápai: What’s worth a video? Integrating audiovisual content in publishing. Organised by Eurozine.

Audiovisual material isn’t just a feature of social media. Written publishing is also increasingly reliant on audiovisual content. Videos, images, and sound recordings all contribute to a more immersive publishing experience. Here we focus primarily on video reportage, that is to say, video as independent content. However, we also talk about video as a promotion tool.

Gergő Pápai is a Hungarian applied anthropologist, documentarian and videographer working on human rights and environmental issues.

Réka Kinga Papp is editor-in-chief at Eurozine and hosts Eurozine’s talk show, Standard Time, and Gagarin, the Eurozine podcast.