Bayerischer Forschungsverbund “Zukunft der Demokratie” (ForDemocracy)

Projekt 09
Media Future Lab

Blog: https://medialabs.hypotheses.org/

Issue

This project is about what we, as a society, expect from the media, what we mean by good journalism and what we are willing to pay for it. In “Media Future Labs” interested people collectively develop answers to these questions and make them into a citizen’s report.

Project Description

Media as public communication channels are an essential element of democracy. But currently they are in a crisis: the range, acceptance and interpretational sovereignty of traditional mass media are on the decline. Against this background, our project asks about the future of the media: What do we as society expect from media offers, what do we mean by good journalism and what are we willing to pay for it?

By the “Media Future Labs” we offer a space for interested people to deal with these questions together with media critics and media practitioners. The labs will take place all over Bavaria in the upcoming three years. The participants of Media Future Labs abandon the passive role of the audience and get actively involved in developing a new vision for a media system that will be collectively recorded for a citizens’ report. Therein they are going to make suggestions for the future constitution of a communication order, for quality criteria in journalism and for shaping alternatives to traditional media – all in terms of Erik Olin Wright’s “real utopia”. The citizens’ report will be presented to the broad public at a big Media Future Summit in 2022.

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Projekt 09 Prof. Dr. Michael Meyen, Dr. Alexis Mirbach

Michael Meyen (left)
Alexis Mirbach (right)