Do terms like Internet Governance, Data Protection, Mass Surveillance, Edward Snowden and Intellectual Property Rights sound like the recipe of an event for internet nerds who normally don’t manage to see the sun and live behind their computer? Maybe, but this event turned out to be not like this at all. During the New Media Summer School 2014 in Berlin, 34 young participants from all over Europe and from a variety of different organizations met to learn more about this weird thing called internet and how to control it.

Internet Governance is clearly more and more in the focus of many young people, international policy makers and of course international organisations such as AEGEE. That’s why the questions around NSA, Snowden, Facebook and Google selling private data, liquid democracy and many others are important and more and more discussed. Therefore, young people need to gain knowledge about how to handle and be involved in these topics. Together, organisations like Internet Governance Forum, JEF, Young Pirates, Wikimedia Berlin, AEGEE-Berlin, Collab Berlin and many others organised the New Media Summer School (NMSS), which was a five day training taking place in Berlin. The days were filled with brainstorming, discussions and workshops on topics of internet security, protection of your personal data and the dilemma of intellectual property rights.

Since 2011, one of the aims of the NMSS is to prepare the participants to be “active” in the European Dialoque on Internet Governance (EuroDIG). This event lasted two days and consisted of a series of conferences, workshops and flash sessions, where people could exchange ideas and reflections with the possibility to be directly involved in European projects related on different topics of the Internet Governance (data protection, privacy, net neutrality, copyright, big data. etc.). All together trying to contribute to a constructive dialogue.

An interesting flash session was the session about the Global Internet Policy Observator (GIPO), a very recent project that needs people and organizations to contribute. In detail, the project is lead by the European Commission and its aim is to provide technical tools to support internet policy and governance, making information easily and widely accessible in order to enable a more inclusive participation of all stakeholders. This project is encouraged by the IGF (the most important Internet Governance Forum at a worldwide level). Now the project is under prototypization, but nevertheless, different stakeholders from all over the world are interested to be involved in creating a GIPO community.

This is only one of the many projects related to the Internet Governance field, where different stakeholder try to discuss together, finding the best solution to develop and/or improve the existing policy, thanks to this “wide dialogue”. Participants had the chance to have experts on their respective field talk about the anatomy of the internet, internet governance, self governance, net neutrality, copyrights, human rights, the Snowden revelation, privacy, mass surveillance, data protection, anonymity, the future of the internet and several other terms that at first sounded unfamiliar to many of us but as days passed became part of our vocabulary. During the preparatory events the participants aquired some valuable information about the issues that would be discussed during the conference and exchanged knowledge and ideas with other participants, professionals and organizers. Through the conference participants were given the chance to actively participate in the ongoing dialogue that was taking place in the plenaries, workshops and flash presentations.

The most important element of the EuroDIG was the dicotomy where everyone was both a producer and recipient of thoughts, ideas, arguments and messages. In this conference you could both influence the people around you but also be influenced by them. It was the interactiveness that made the EuroDIG successful and productive, as the issues under discussion were approached by a lot of different viewpoints. During the conference, participants from all sort of different backgrounds had the chance to meet each other and communicate as equals. During lunch being approached by academic professors, young entrepreneurs, businessmen, policy makers, tech people etc. was the norm. There was no sense that certain people’s opinion mattered more and participants were actually interested in hearing what you had to say no matter who you were or what was your background. During the plenaries issues that were raised in the tweets posted on the twitterwall were addressed and not disregarded as trivial.

The organisers from AEGEE Berlin and collaboratory were nothing but enthusiastic, helpful, patient and understanding, especially during the days when the heat in Berlin was just too much. The New Media Summer school was an overall interesting and thought provoking event that had a lot to offer to those who took part in it. It is an ongoing event as it is the dialogue on internet governance, the issues raised and discussed in it were, are and will continue to be of great importance in our day to day lives as users of the internet. It is important for all internet users to actively participate in the dialogue about its governance and not let decisions that concern us being made without being openly discussed in public.

Written by Mara Poniros, AEGEE-Peiraias; Holger Schmitt, AEGEE-Berlin; Pavel Zbornik, Comité Directeur and Giancarlo Nicolò, AEGEE-Udine.

The pan-European news portal Presseurop.eu said goodbye on December 20th after the decision of the European Commission of ceasing the fundings addressed to this project. Presseurop has probably been the most relevant information point about the European Union, and by shutting it down, we are not only losing a brilliant media source, but a meeting point for us to read, share our concerns about the EU and build a true community of European citizens.

Is there any hope for European media? This is something I have been wondering and reflecting about for the past few months. I have been working hard on my Bachelor’s final project, which consists on designing the concept and creating a business plan for a new media product. In my case, I am currently working on an ‘imaginary’ digital magazine about the EU and its current affairs in the fields of politics, economics, culture, and lifestyle. Therefore, a magazine for European citizens addressed to a Spanish target.

In the past months, I have made a wide research of our potential target audience, our possible competitors and the business model that would fit best for our project. Truth is that there are barely no media in Spanish related to the European Union as such… except for very few portals and some blogs (there is luckily a strong EU blogosphere in Spanish).

This has made me wonder for a long time: why is there no alternative in our media sphere for Spanish citizens to be well-informed about the EU?

“Presseurop.eu to shut down on December 20th”

And then, this news came like a bombshell and gave a not-very-optimistic answer to my question. My worries aren’t only concerning Spain: there doesn’t seem to be any relevant media in Europe that is strong enough to cope with the wind and offer an independent information of the decisions that affect us.

Presseurop.eu is (was?) a multilingual news portal that selected and published daily European-related news from the main newspapers in Europe translated into ten languages. It has probably become the most influential media in EU-related affairs, with 600,000 unique users per month and 17,500 Twitter followers. It offered interesting reports not only related to European politics and economics, but also about arts, culture, society, and more. What is more, it managed to build a virtual community of European citizens by the daily exchange of comments and feedback among its users.

As Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, says  in his address to the Presseurop audience, the shutdown of Presseurop comes in the worst timing possible: the European Parliament elections coming in May are crucial for the future of the European Union. Besides, with euroscepticism widely spreading in Europe, only a strong European media can communicate the EU as being the “Europe of citizens” and give a europtimistic point of view what the EU really is. After all, the reason why citizens feel the EU so ‘far away’ from them doesn’t come only for questions of legitimacy or the so-called “democratic gap”: it comes mainly from the deep lack of knowledge and interest from the citizens, even though the EU affects them on a daily basis.

Failing to communicate Europe

It is no secret that communicating the European Union is not an easy task. The amount and complexity of European institutions make it hard to understand for the general audience, and journalists find it difficult to keep the message simple and understandable, giving the appropriate contextual information at the same time. The information given by the national media is basically focused on their own issues rather than a true European debate; furthermore, it is sometimes full of the neverending clichés about Eurocrats that the blog Kosmopolito described on its brilliant Short guide to lazy EU journalism.

As a European citizen, but also as a soon-to-be journalist, I strongly believe that national media doesn’t give enough efforts in order to communicate Europe properly and that this is extremely dangerous for our public opinion. Now, after Presseurop’s goodbye, we realize that not even our own European institutions are concerned of these dangers.

We, as AEGEEans, live the European project day by day by contributing our grain of sand in the association. But there are 500 millions of EU citizens whose perception of the European Union comes basically by what they read on the media. Therefore, journalists are responsible for shaping our views on Europe. And failing to communicate what the EU is really about is contributing to the misperception that the EU consists only of few highly-paid, Brussels-based bureaucrats, that there is always a ‘good’ and an ‘evil’ character on every news, and that MEP (‘Member of the European Parliament’) is the second name of a British guy from the European Liberals (…yes, it happened).

There are, of course, some exceptions that contribute to a common space for European media. EurActiv is a brilliant source of information about EU politics and policies, as well as the aggregator Bloggingportal.eu which contains a strong EU ‘blogosphere’. Also Europe & Me deserves a big praise for showing Europe in another way, far from its ‘bureaucratic’ side. Not to mention the great job to build a strong network of the future of journalism in Europe  by the European Youth Press.

We need a strong media sphere which informs properly about the European Union because only this way we can make sure that we, as European citizens, can develop our own perception and opinion of what the EU is about. Just to mention an example, only this way we can really be aware of what our vote in the next EP elections will mean and we will finally stop talking about that ‘democratic gap’.

After all, how can we pretend to build European citizenship without a common ground for the public opinion?

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

More information on the subject:

-Presseurop.eu’s last editorial: “Until we meet again” (20/12/2013)
-Change.org petition: “Save Presseurop.eu”

Before Agora Rhein-Neckar started, AEGEE-Utrecht organized a pre-event. The main topic was reliability of the media, which was also the event title. Twelve lucky participants from all over the Europe took part and had a lot of fun. They partied, went sightseeing, they had a European night and many other activities that every other AEGEE event has… But what were the factors that made this event unforgettable and typically Dutch?

1. Cycling: this term does not only mean that you have to keep moving on a bike in order not to lose your balance. Cycling is a quick (especially in city centres) and green way of transport, but it is even more… For Dutch people, cycling is a way of life.

2. Typical food: the organisers cooked the well-known winter dish called “andijvie-stamppot”, and “nasi”, which actually comes from the Indonesian culture, as Indonesia was colonised by the Kingdom of the Netherlands during the 17^th century. I know that you are wondering why I did not explain what this food is like, but you will just have to try it to understand.

 3. High quality conferences: from World War I to social networks, from Europe to Africa, from manipulating to advertising. In a world of technology, you cannot choose not to interact with media. You have to do it if you want to be informed. So it is pretty much a vicious circle. Information is power and the media wields this power, sometimes media shows you what they want you to see. So be smarter than them and always remain critical.

4. Weather: as the event was during spring, we all hoped for some sunny days, and the staff organized a nice game for the participants so that they could discover the city of Utrecht on their own… But then some grey and gloomy clouds thought: “Let’s give them some snow!” Conclusion: snowing and cycling = feeling like a real Dutch. As some people said, “Easter was colder than Christmas this year”.

5. Windmills: when people think of the Netherlands, they inevitably think about windmills (and fields of tulips, but tulips and cold weather do not get along very well). I always thought that windmills were used to turn cereal into corn or flour. Well, this one was used for woodcraft work.

6. Film night: the best way to finish the event was to watch a film entitled “Zwartboek”, also known as “Black book”. The film deals with the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during World War II, combining history and fun relaxation.

I would like to give special thanks to Tessa Speelman (AEGEE-Utrecht) for helping me with the Dutch words in this article.

Written by Cosmina Bisboaca, AEGEE-Torino

Photos by Annie Smailikova(AEGEE-Kyiv),Farid Amlal(AEGEE-Utrecht), Kamal Vasnani(AEGEE-Las Palmas), Marta Belda(AEGEE-Valencia).

The world develops constantly and causes the changes of values, that people have. Scientists call our modern society “information & media-oriented”, because information has recently become the most important value. But is all the information useful? AEGEE-Utrecht tries to find the answer to this difficult question.

The most important and valuable resource in our modern society is information. We receive it every day, in addition such an enormous amount, which we can hardly analyze. Information waits for us everywhere – on television and radio, in newspapers and magazines, in the internet and many other sources. Information has recently become a good, which can be sold and bought, has its precise price. But what is also very important, information now needs to fulfill certain requests to be interesting to the audience. For example the message should be up-to-date, devoted to the topics, which are important for the audience, and be reliable.
«Reliability of the Media» is the characteristic, which everybody knows, but can hardly explain how to prove it. With local sources it’s simpler. For example if one of the local newspapers wrote a story about a fire in the house in the center of your city, you can easily go there and see if it’s true. But what to do with messages devoted to other countries? Of course, for AEGEE-people it’s not such a big deal, they have so many friends all over the continent, that they can easily write an e-mail and ask, what is now happening in Spain or in Malta, in Serbia or in Russia. But there are still the countries, which are not in AEGEE-list, such as China, India, Philippine islands and many-many others. The only thing that we can do with the information about these places is to trust Media.
AEGEE-Utrecht is now deeply engaged in the topic, how to prove the reliability of the information that you hear or read. They asseverate that there exist millions of different reasons, why the information can be changed before being published. President of the AEGEE-Utrecht pre-event commission Maarten van de Kuilen says: “Even the most reliable sources of information have to simplify things to make it understandable or readable for the public. But there are also a lot of players that influence the information and can force journalists to change it”. In addition, every media has its own information policy, and it can happen that the editor refuses from the materials, which go against it.
But it is not the reason to be afraid and refuse from all kinds of information you receive. First of all, every valuable medium proves the information that is going to be published – especially facts and numbers. And there also exist some methods how the readers can understand, if the information is trustworthy or not, just being attentively. If you are really interested in these skills, AEGEE-Utrecht especially for you organizes an Agora Pre-event: «Reliability of the media», that will be held from March 28 to April 2. During the event specialists in mass media field will share with the participants all the information about such mysterious players in the process of media production as information suppliers. The participants will be also instructed, what basic factors they have to pay attention to while analyzing the media information. If you want to be an expert in reliability of the media and to be always able to distinguish true and false, go see for yourself.

Written by Aleksandra Antokhina, AEGEE-Moskva