Central European Journal of Communication

Unlocking the Media’s Future and Fostering Social Harmony: The Power of Deliberative Communication

Tanya Sakzewski — 2025-05-18

As I write this article, another conflict in the Middle East is forcing the media - once again – to grapple with how it portrays different actors, and how it maintains balance and objectivity. This is just the latest event to force the media to self-reflect on how it operates and how it faces the challenges ahead. And those challenges are plenty: falling audience and readership numbers, reduced income and budgets, polarization, increasing hate speech, misinformation, disinformation, fake news, propaganda, lying politicians, falling trust in the media, attacks on journalists, disappearing local news outlets creating ‘new deserts’, captured media, and in some cases crackdowns and increasing political pressure on media professionals.

As the MEDIAdelcom project comes to end, can it provide an option - deliberative communication or deliberative journalism - for the media to embrace that could help address these challenges?

In Memoriam: Lars Nord (1958–2024)

Epp Lauk — 2025-05-18

Epp Lauk, Martín Oller Alonso, Halliki Harro-loit (2024) (eds.). Monitoring Mediascapes. A Premise of Wisdom-based EU Media Governance

Mihai Coman — 2025-05-18

Living Media Diversity: The Media Diversity Institute’s Perspective on Deliberative Communication

Michał Głowacki — 2025-05-18

Research With(out) Values: Institutionalization and Impact of Media Accountability as an Academic Field

Tobias Eberwein — 2025-05-18

Research on media accountability regularly stresses the importance of free and responsible media for democratic societies. But how far can research itself contribute to holding the media accountable? The paper discusses the relevance of media accountability as an academic field and its impact on journalism practice, media self-regulation, and society. The analysis is based on a comparative evaluation of research infrastructures for media accountability in 14 European countries and a discussion of cases of bi-directional interplay between journalism and academia. The study enables a reflection of success factors for relevant media accountability research and develops perspectives for future studies.

Quality of Journalism and Media Freedom in Europe: The fsQCA Approach

Filip Trbojević — 2025-05-18

Media freedom is often seen as the main value against which the quality of media systems is judged. While the levels of media freedom in Europe are generally higher than the world average, there are yet significant variations in how certain European countries score on media freedom indices and scales. This paper uses comparative quantitative data and applies the fsQCA method to analyze how macro-, meso-, and micro-levels of journalism as a field relate to different levels of media freedom in Europe. The results suggest that media market structure, journalistic skills, and journalists adhering to the monitorial role of journalism constitute the “core” conditions for the implementation of media freedom.

Press Freedom and Freedom of Expression in Estonia and Latvia: The Role of Agents

Halliki Harro-Loit — 2025-05-18

Editorial independence and freedom of expression are not self-evident in 21st century European Union. Although the Press Freedom Index monitors the situation on a yearly basis, we ask in the context of two Baltic states – Estonia and Latvia, what the improvement of Latvia’s ranking and deterioration of Estonia’s tells us about freedom of press (FoP) and freedom of expression (FoE) in these two countries. As we differentiate between FoP and FoE in the current article, our aim is to evaluate who the agents are that play a key role in ensuring both. The main objective of this article is to propose an agent-oriented approach for the assessment of the trends concerning the practices of FoE and press freedom in Estonia and Latvia. We conclude that cases from Estonia and Latvia illustrate how the actions and non-actions from individual and institutional agents could have detrimental effect on both the FoE and of the press, even when the highest court instances and legal frameworks are generally supportive of these freedoms.

A values-based Union worthy of the name? Free speech and the trajectory of EU media law and policies

Evangelia Psychogiopoulou — 2025-05-18

Article 2 TEU lays down the values upon which the Union is founded: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality and the rule of law, along with respect for human rights. Although the EU does not have a general competence to legislate in the field of fundamental rights, it has been active since the Treaty of Lisbon in developing initiatives which touch upon freedom of expression, freedom of information and the role of the media in regard to both. This article studies the nature and evolution of the EU activity in question, exploring its characteristics and the ways in which it has developed. It examines the gradual expansion of the Union’s action, delving into the instruments adopted and the density and breadth of regulation in the field. The initiatives submitted under the framework of the Commission’s European Democracy Action Plan, and in particular the proposed European Media Freedom Act, hold the promise that core challenges relating to media freedom will be addressed. This marks a break from fragmented approaches of the past, whereby free speech considerations were embedded in EU media law and policies.

Monitoring Mediascapes for Democratic Communication in Europe

Jacek Mikucki — 2025-05-18

More than ‘Media Memory Lane’: Mediadelcom Researchers Explore Long-Term Effects of the 1990’s Transformations on Today’s Media in Estonia, Poland, Czech Republic and (reunited) Germany

Marcus Kreutler — 2025-05-18

Comparative Media Research and Monitoring in Europe: Lessons Learned and Ways Forward

Evangelia Psychogiopoulou — 2025-05-18

Breaking Down the Walls? Freedom of Expression as a Common Value

Ilva Skulte — 2025-05-18

The event held at the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Latvia was part of the MEDIAdelcom research project public activities.

Media Freedom and Deliberative Democracy: Europe in a Comparative Perspective

Epp Lauk — 2025-05-18