Accompanying Germany's EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2020, the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans Bredow Institute (HBI) has prepared several legal studies and research reports that will serve as a basis for discussion for the events of the EU Media Conference in the second half of 2020 and beyond. The aim of the HBI studies is to identify possibilities for improving the coherence of the European information and communication order in the medium and long term.
The current information and media order is – from a German perspective – a legal multi-level system consisting of EU, federal and state norms. In addition, there are international legal requirements, but also standards of self-regulation. In view of structural transformations of public and individual information and communication, the current regulation in this area, which in part follows decades-old path dependencies, is repeatedly the subject of fundamental debates about its coherence, congruence, timeliness and future viability.
Amélie Heldt, Stephan Dreyer, Wolfgang Schulz, Theresa Josephine Seipp (2021): Normative Leitbilder der Europäischen Medienordnung. Leitvorstellungen und rechtliche Anforderungen an die Governance für eine demokratische Öffentlichkeit [Normative Models of the European Media Order. Guiding Principles and Legal Requirements for Governance or a Democratic Public Sphere]. Hamburg: Verlag Hans-Bredow-Institut, Februar 2021 (Arbeitspapiere des Hans-Bredow-Instituts | Projektergebnisse Nr. 54). ISBN 978-3-87296-165-5.Open Access CC BY 4.0.
The analyses of the developments of recent years show two - interwoven - processes of delimitation that challenge the media orders in Europe:
- In modernising their media systems, the member states are confronted with the factual problem that communication is fundamentally changing on the side of offers, mediation and reception. One phenomenon - among others - is the increasing importance of intermediaries that fulfil hybrid functions, such as combining individual communication, new forms of supra-individual communication and mediation of media content on one platform. Against this background, securing media diversity - even if it remains important - is not enough to guarantee a functioning public sphere. Increasingly, the functions of the public sphere - for democracy, but also for social cohesion and other social processes - are thus moving into the centre of attention.
- Legal matters outside media law are increasingly influencing the media order. The General Data Protection Regulation can serve as an example. It is attributed great value in the protection of data and the privacy of EU citizens. However, the consequences for social communication and functioning public spheres (e.g. with regard to the rights of journalists) are enormous and were not fully foreseen in some cases. The same applies to other areas of law.
Since a European order - partially - coordinating the media regulation of the member states must also follow these developments, the complexity of the coordination task increases further. For this task, the fundamental rights framework has a central role of structuring and limiting.
Against this background, the present working paper aims to take a first step towards identifying and disclosing guiding principles of successful social communication or functioning public sphere in the European system of fundamental rights. This is an enormous task, so that only initial thoughts can be formulated here, which are based on the current interpretation of fundamental rights and do not yet go beyond it.
The project was funded by the Minister of State for Culture and the Media in the context of Germany's EU Council Presidency 2020.
