As part of the ReMed project, researchers from eight European countries are currently gathering, analysing, and comparing data on the practices of journalists and alternative media content producers, the influence of technology on their work, the perceptions and media consumption practices of citizens, and the role of EU regulations, particularly with regard to online platforms and search engines. An innovative methodology is being used to conduct this large-scale cross-border study. In this interview, Vito Laterza from the University of Agder explains the details of the research and gives us initial results.
Can you introduce yourself and your role within the ReMeD project?
I am Vito Laterza. I’m an associate professor in the Department of Global Development and Planning at the University of Agder, Norway. Regarding my role in the project, I lead ReMeD’s Methodology Coordination Group, which is developing and implementing the project methodology across the eight countries under study – Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Norway, Spain and UK. I am also a work package leader for WP6 (I share this role with my colleague Kenneth Andresen), focusing on exploitation, impact scenarios and policy recommendations.
The methodology has five phases, and we are now in Phase 3, where we are analysing data from Phase 2, which consisted of carrying out mini-ethnographies with professional journalists, alternative media content producers and citizens. During Phase 3, which lasts until the end of December this year, we will use the findings from Phase 2 to develop the semi-structured interview templates for the next stage of data collection. This will be in Phase 4, which starts in January 2025 and ends in June 2025. After this, we will enter the final phase (Phase 5), where we will use the consolidated academic findings to roll out practical interventions to address some of the challenges to democracy in the media system.
What is a mini-ethnography and why did you choose to use this method in the ReMeD project?
We take inspiration from ethnography, which is the core method of anthropology, but also used in sociology, geography, and other disciplines. Ethnography involves the study of a specific group of people over an extended period of time (usually several months, sometimes years). For ReMeD, we are adapting this into a more flexible design that can be delivered in a shorter period – that’s what we mean by “mini”. But the ethnographic orientation remains central: we got close to participants, interacted with them in their everyday work settings, and engaged in open-ended unstructured interviews that are led by participants’ concerns.
Alongside the unstructured interviews, we also carried out participant observation sessions of their production and consumption of media – for example, one of our researchers followed the production of a podcast, others went into journalistic newsrooms or were shown by citizens how they used their digital devices and digital platforms to consume media in practice.
These ethnographic methods are not so widely used in media and communication studies, even less so in journalism studies. Our focus on studying up close alternative media content producers is particularly innovative, as there is very little academic work done on this group using these methods. Using an exploratory and participatory design is particularly important when there are intractable societal challenges such as disinformation, polarisation, excessive concentration of power by tech giants, and other threats to a healthy relationship between media and democracy. We wanted to use a method that would have given us different insights from what we already know from the academic literature, going into the field with an open mind to observe and engage with these issues with fresh eyes.
Once we are done with the analysis from the mini-ethnographies, we will build on these to scale up and further structure our work. The mini-ethnographies are giving us insights that are granular and emerge from quite specific conversations in specific settings – as they are largely participant-led, different participants emphasised certain aspects of concern to them. The semi-structured interviews in Phase 4 will help us to expand these findings through a more structured comparison, so that we can understand the extent to which the innovative knowledge from the mini-ethnographies applies throughout the national media systems under study, and European society as a whole.
Can you share some results ?
It is important to remember that, at this stage, we can only talk of provisional findings – we are conducting the analysis as we speak.
One important emerging finding is that our participants are not particularly aware of what the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) entails. They might have heard of it, but most of them don’t know the details. This includes professional journalists as well – in fact, some of the journalists we interviewed felt that, as they don’t deal directly with online distribution of the news they produce, it is not so important for them to know much about the DSA. Some participants have suggested that the EU Commission should do more work to disseminate accessible material that explains what the DSA is and how it affects them. These are important findings because the DSA regulates online platforms, with particularly wide-ranging obligations for very large online platforms and search engines – Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, Google and Bing, to name some. So if we hear from key actors in the media system that they don’t know much about it, then there’s a gap there for important policy and media literacy interventions.
However, regardless of their knowledge of the DSA, most participants have shown an interest in the topic of regulation of social media platforms and search engines. While some participants see regulation itself as a threat to freedom of speech, others agree that regulation is needed to counter harm caused by hate speech or other types of media content. This is an important area where we are learning a lot from the mini-ethnographies, and that we will develop further in the next phase of data collection.
Another provisional finding relates to the interaction between participants on one hand and social media platforms and search engines on the other. Many participants are not alert to how algorithms work, or they are not interested in the topic, even as concerns about algorithms invading privacy or fuelling fake news are gaining ground in public debates. This is something we need to explore further, because algorithms have a significant influence on what people can do as producers, distributors or consumers of news and other media. This is why they are at the centre of EU regulatory efforts. What does this mean for effective regulation and democratic engagement and participation? How do we involve people on these crucial issues? We will pursue these questions in the next round of data collection.
What are the next steps?
We will produce a report with the findings from the mini-ethnographies in December. This will be the basis for a white paper that will focus on recommendations related to the implementation of the DSA. We will start disseminating the white paper in January next year. At that time, we will also start with the semi-structured interviews.
It’s a very busy period for the ReMeD crowd, but it’s always fun when we can come up with new and impactful knowledge. The collective processes of developing the methodology tools and discussing the data take effort, but they are also rewarding. It’s a privilege to have this opportunity within the structure and resources available through the Horizon Europe programme, and we are doing our best to make a significant contribution to academia and society.
Photo credit: Mikael Wallerstedt for SCAS