Open Journalism Challenge Erasmus Project

Project Title

Open Journalism Challenge

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for youth

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Youth (Participation, Youth Work, Youth Policy) ; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Reaching the policy level/dialogue with decision makers

Project Summary

With a view to nowadays overflow of information, getting the most important news has become a challenge for every citizen. At the same time, we all need to have an in depth understanding of a number of policy areas in order to make sensible democratic choices. In this regard, the ‘Open Journalism Challenge’ by Our Common Future invites citizens all over Europe to cooperate in the field of news consumption. Inspired by Thomas Huxley’s quote “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something”, this strategic partnership has elaborated a mechanism by which citizens can mutually inform each other on issues of social concern. Every participant chooses one topic he or she feels passionate for and tries to analyse the most important news on this issue.

Participants continually upload media products they find most interesting in a database and once a month publish their own media product with the aim of summarizing the latest and most important findings on their topic. In this way, citizens can share the burden of staying informed, save time, and make sure the knowledge they gather is as relevant as possible. Everyone can continually consume those media products that are deemed most interesting by experts and also receives independent citizen media coverage on a number of social issues, while contributing their own knowledge in their field of expertise.

While submitting their own media products, participants indicate a number of decision-makers with whom they would like to exchange on their topic. The organisers of the Open Journalism Challenge gather these requests and organise meetings between participants iand decision-makers. These meetings shall allow participants to check their findings while also contributing to future policy making in their chosen areas.

The “Open Journalism Challenge” thus encourages citizens to report on issues of concern in their societies and provides them with guidelines on qualitative journalistic coverage. Participants will report through short videos, which will be shared online and can be found under specific key-words and topics. This pool of resources with reports on a variety of social issues can then be used in innovative, up-to-date, and immediate quality education as well as by the political decision-making structures.

In view of the European elections 2019, the Open Journalism Challenge will put a particular focus on the issues which will determine the future of the European Union. Citizen will thus contribute to the strengthening of the European public sphere and help each other to be informed on the most pressing issues. This accurate, immediate, and independent media coverage can help to prevent further conflicts from arising or populist tendencies from growing.

The leading partner Our Common Future Asbl. is an organisation with members all over Europe and focuses on strengthening the European Public Sphere and democratic procedures. The Faculty of Communication Sciences at Anadolu University in Eskisehir, Turkey, focused on the effectiveness of different digital media products. “Verein Kino5 – Plattform für unabhängige Filmschaffende” provided expertise in the area of collaborative video making which is an important tool for independent citizen media contributions.

Partners explored ways to communicate the video reports of young people to all relevant decision-makers on the local, national, and European levels. A first international project meeting with Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič in June 2017 in Brussels allowed participants to receive valuable feedback on their research topics.

While project partners consulted their communities in order to receive feedback on the planned Open Journalism Challenge, they met in Luxembourg from 6th to 11th December in order to compare first results, further develop the platform, engage in a public dialogue forum with local citizens in Luxembourg, and to plan ahead. The Public Dialogue Forum gave participants the chance to discuss the topic of democracy with people from a variety of social spheres living in the Greater Region. Given that all topics in the end depend on the structure of decision-making processes, democracy was chosen as the overarching topic for all Open Journalism Challenges.

Future participants will be able to analyse mainstream media with a critical mind, and make their own contributions towards accurate and in-depth media coverage. Their contributions will help every citizen to gain true and up-to-date knowledge on the most pressing issues our societies are facing, so that they can take an informed choice during democratic elections.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 19375 Eur

Project Coordinator

Our Common Future Asbl. & Country: LU

Project Partners

• ANADOLU UNIVERSITY
• Verein kino5 Plattform für unabhängige Filmschaffende