You are currently browsing the monthly archive for October 2008.
By Pinelopi Troullinou
MA student in Communications Studies
JMECE Lab gave us the opportunity to discuss with the recently appointed Minister for Europe, Caroline Flint MP, issues such as “Communicating Europe”, immigration, communication policies, citizens’ mobility and the recent economic recession, during an event open for all Leeds University students. It was really interesting to explore her views on a core issue of our MA course: “Communicating European Union” to citizens.
"The audience of the event consisted mainly of young people; some of them might be the future leaders of EU."
She started her speech saying that her role is not to make people love EU as an institution. This would be worthless, according to her, since people do not love institutions in general.
Caroline Flint obviously knows what British citizens want to hear in order to gain their attention and finally make them understand that on a local lever (Yorkshire region) EU has brought real benefits. For that reason, she included in here speech comments and facts about jobs that have been created in the region by EU and local projects funded by Brussels.
The audience of the event consisted mainly of young people; some of them might be the future leaders of EU. Legal and economic criteria alone will not create a united Europe. What we expect from today’s politicians is to motivate young citizens to be involved not only economically with EU, but at the same time emotionally, in order to develop stronger cultural ties with other European citizens. This will be the vehicle to legitimise EU for present and future goals.
For a set of photos please click bellow:
Francisco Seoane Perez at the European Youth Media Days
Report by Francisco Seoane Perez, ICS, University of Leeds
Location: Brussels, Belgium.
Event hosts: European Youth Press, European Parliament.
Young Europeans are said to belong to the Erasmus generation. Thanks to this famous exchange programme, university students know how it feels to live and study in another European country. But will they vote in the next European elections? Do they understand how the European Union works? Do they know about the existence of the first transnational parliament in the world, the European Parliament, which represents the citizens of the Union’s 27 member states?
As it happens with many complex issues, citizens rely on professional media outlets to get a comprehensible and accurate account of public affairs. The journalists of tomorrow, themselves part of the same Erasmus generation, have a demanding task ahead: Making EU institutions meaningful for their young counterparts. The several high-quality media productions created at the European Youth Media Days offer hopeful signals. Selected from more than 1,700 applicants from all over the Union, 200 journalists of less than 30 years of age visited Brussels to participate in debates about the future of the European Union and to work with their peers from other European countries in the production of TV and radio shows, websites, and magazines.
In their introduction to European Parliament, attendees learned about some essential issues of great relevance for their present and future work as journalists: The rules for forming a political group in the chamber, the full legislative process (which involves the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council), and the role of the specialised parliamentary committees, where all future regulations are thoroughly debated before being taken to the plenary.
The European Parliament Vice-President Alejo Vidal-Quadras welcomed the young journalists and warned them about forging too close relationships with politicians: “One must never forget that we don’t play in the same team.” Representatives of the political groups in the parliament agreed the European project needed a new narrative. The European Dream is no longer about peace and post-war reconstruction, said Spanish MEP Ignasi Guardans. “The new generation has a new mentality; World War II is part of the past and has little resonance among today’s youth” he remarked. As an idea for a new European narrative, Guardans suggested “we should give the world our great values, such as our concern for human rights.” Asked from the public to describe how a picture of the European dream would look like, MEPs said they saw “a diverse group of people, of different regions and skin colours, all together, open-minded, ready to learn and to travel.”
During the European Youth Media Days, the European Parliament celebrated the awarding ceremony of the first edition of its Journalism Prize. The EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering chaired the event, which recognised journalists for their reporting of EU-related issues. In the category of written press, the winners were Wolfgang Böhm (from Die Presse, Austria, for a comment with the title “Between Schengen, fear and freedom”) and Kirsten Wörnle (from GEO Wissen, Germany, for a reportage about interpretation service in the European Parliament). On the Internet category, the winner was Pete Pakarinen (from Verkkouutiset, Finland, for a report about illegal immigration to the EU). The radio prize was shared by Micea Radu Lipovan and Andreea Manzat, from lasi, Romania, for a reportage about the implementation of EU agro policy in Romania. For the television category the winners were Lars Feldballe Petersen (from Film Og – TV Compagniet, Denmark, for a film about chemicals policy), and Shirin Wheeler (from the BBC, United Kingdom, for the weekly show “The Record: Europe”).
The materials produced by the young journalists during the European Youth Media Days are available at http://www.youthmediadays.eu/
Published: Tuesday 14 October 2008
Published by: EuroActive [edited in this post]
Published by: EuroActive [edited in this post]
It is high time European Parliament elections were “liberated from the straitjackets of domestic politics,” Professor Cees Van der Eijk of the University of Nottingham, an expert in European electoral research, told EurActiv in an interview. Van der Eijk expressed approval for the boldness of the idea, saying it could “bring a new and fresh dynamic to the elections”.
However, he was less enthusiastic about Duff’s idea of making the elections more “candidate-based,” saying that such systems tended to become “beauty contests” where voters are less knowledgeable about relevant policy issues.
Instead, he advocates a more classical party system: “In Europe, we mainly have systems which are oriented towards parties and therefore also much more towards policy, and I think it would be a shame if we turned out backs to that in European elections.”
Van der Eijk was very enthusiastic about another aspect of the reform proposal: to fix the minimum voting age at 16 and candidate age at 18. “A lowered voting age of 16 has been demonstrated to be more effective than 18 in giving young people the opportunity to learn the habit of voting,” he said, concluding that this was a “very sensible idea that evidently picks up on research from the past decade”.
Guests arrive at Experience Eurocrime
By Lynette Falconer, Europe Direct Leeds
An appreciative audience of around 100 people gathered in Leeds’ Carriageworks Theatre on Saturday 27th September, for a Europe Direct Leeds sponsored afternoon of Eurocrime.
The aim of the event was to enable readers to experience their favourite crime genre with a European flavour and encourage them to try authors from other countries as part of the celebrations for the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue.
On the panel were award winning English author, Sophie Hannah, Dagger-winning French author Dominique Manotti and her translator Ros Schwatrz, and Domingo Villar from Spain and his translator Martin Schifino. The general discussions were moderated by James Nash, local poet and incomparable conversationalist/ interrogator. In addition, we were privileged to have Sean Bourke from the European Commission, who is a great aficionado of Eurocrime, and kindly gave the opening welcome for us.
Audience members had the opportunity to question and listen to the individual authors in small group sessions. The session I attended with Dominique Manotti was intense and informative. In addition, to the small group sessions and the full panel discussions, there were refreshments, book signings, book recommendations, quizzes with prizes and a lively set of Irish music.
Award winning author Dominique Manotti (centre) talks to the audience
The full discussions were truly entertaining and interesting and represented a range of viewpoints. Sophie Hannah (a great favourite of Leeds library audiences) was witty and amusing; Domingo Villar was modest and charming, while Dominique Manotti talked about her serious socio-political agenda. These excellent authors with their contrasting styles and cultural reference points provided a very interesting afternoon -Sophie Hannah expressing a preference for psychological novels reflecting her own favourite crime reading, while books she doesn’t enjoy much are those where the crime is organised or profit-driven; in contrast, Dominique Manotti, who spoke in French which was translated for the audience, expressed dislike of psychological crime novels and talked about some of the historical/social background to her gritty novels. Domingo Villar steered a courteous middle path and an atmosphere of good humoured debate ensued.
Irish music at Exprerience Eurocrime
With contributions and recommendations from many in the audience about a range of authors from across Europe who could be enjoyed, the afternoon opened up many more and culturally diverse crime reading possibilities for anyone who has exhausted their supply of English authors in this genre.
United States elections will affect the EU sooner or later. In fact, Obama has saved a few days of this pre-presidential campaign to visit EU countries, and McCain is starting to quote EU during his campaign.
An important source of information about Americans and their journalistic practices is the “Project for Excellence in Journalism” (www.journalism.org/), directed by Tom Rosenstiel. In a recent published report, the centre found out that most of the media narrative that are taking part in the 2008 election are not mainly related to the candidates profiles, but to the economic crises that the country (and the world) is facing at the moment.
The report found out that “Media coverage of the U.S. economic crisis eclipsed that of the presidential campaign for the third consecutive week, generating the most attention for a non-campaign news story since the Virginia Tech massacre in April 2007 … Coverage of the economic emergency and efforts to fashion a federal rescue package filled 45% of the news hole last week, compared with 34% for coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign.”
The recent debates between Obama and McCain, as well as the televised debate between their vice-presidents, represent a significant part of the American newspaper storylines. Nevertheless, how can the Americans understand the economic crises without understanding the role EU has in the world? This is an important question.
Source: http://www.euractiv.com/en/opinion/localisation-key-eu-communication/article-176215
Cooperation with regional and local media is the key to better communicating EU policy issues to citizens, concluded panellists at a debate on the issue in Brussels on 8 October, organised by the European Commission’s directorate-general for regional policy.
“The most important communication is with regional media,” said Dennis Abbott, spokesman for EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, explaining that the impact of EU policies was different throughout the EU and “the message put out in Brussels won’t necessarily work in the regions”.
Indeed, finding the right balance between the Brussels and national perspectives is crucial when communicating on EU policies, found the ‘Federation Survey 2008 ‘ carried out by EurActiv in conjunction with Kellen Europe earlier this year (EurActiv 29/02/08).
But Abbott said it was “a difficult exercise to get messages out across the EU,” which was why “initial communication in Brussels is aimed at the Brussels audience”.
Yet Sabine Berger, Brussels correspondent of the Austrian economic journal Wirtschaftsblatt, disagrees. “Lots of EU issues involve particular countries, but you can look at most issues from a regional point of view.” Nevertheless, conceding that “it is not possible for the Commission to break down huge issues for each region,” the journalist said it was left up to the media itself to do this. “Regional representations and MEPs can help here,” she added.
But Abbott cautioned that it was “human nature for [national] politicians to claim credit for [EU] initiatives themselves,” calling on MEPs and national politicians to do more to “debunk myths [about Brussels] when something is plainly wrong”.
Managing director of the European Journalism Centre Anne Autio agrees. “What comes out of the Commission is not always the problem,” Autio said. “It is that people and journalists say they are not interested in EU issues.”
What’s more, national audiences are under the impression that “Brussels regulates too much and forget that decisions lie with national governments and MEPs too,” according to Berger. It is up to the Commission to tell people otherwise, she added.
EurActiv Publisher Christophe Leclercq insisted that regional journalists would not take a story directly from Brussels. “They will take it from the national level, where regions are well represented, and adapt it to the regional level.”
But Berger was quick to warn against over-simplifying the message. “There is a limit to simplification. Clarity is more important, while in-depth analysis is important to understand complex EU issues.”
“Complexity is a reality that cannot be avoided,” agreed Zemor. Nonetheless, “you mustn’t be brutal with things” either, he cautioned. “Presenting people with an entire EU treaty after twenty years of silence is not the way to go. You need to apologise, admit previous failures, and explain that you’re here to help.”
Positions:
“Communication between the EU institutions remains minimal but the failed referenda [on EU treaties in France and Ireland] made clear that this is needed,” said Laurent Thieule, communications director of the Committee of the Regions. “The Commission’s failure [to communicate] is not the root of all evil,” he continued. “It is a result of politicians’ behaviour too” and the EU executive cannot solve the problem alone. Explaining why so few regional media have offices in Brussels, Thieule said it was probably because they would be too costly to run.
“There are prejudices regarding the EU institutions and the media find it hard to do their duty to inform people while keeping out of the power play involved,” according to Pierre Zémor, the president of the European Association of Public Communications Associations. “If [Commission Vice President responsible for communications] Margot Wallström talks about close cooperation with citizens, then she is talking about people’s concerns too, not just a geographical aspect,” Zemor added. “There is a need to find out what the electorate wants to know about Brussels, not just what Brussels wants to sell them.”
“When you say that 75% of [national] legislation comes from Brussels, people take note because they are primarily interested in their own back yard,” argued Anne Autio, the managing director of the European Journalism Centre, calling on the EU institutions “to be more active at the local level”. “Communicating online allows them to do this.” But “the final decision rests with editors to decide whether interest from readers in EU issues is there,” Autio warned.
Addressing the issue of EU jargon, Dennis Abbott, spokesman for EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, said his directorate-general was doing “its very best to cut down”. “The stories [regarding EU regional policy] are from the cradle to the grave and affect individuals, so we need to get beyond the jargon,” Abbott continued, insisting that since 2000, there had been “a sea-change in approach” within the EU institutions, which were now making more of an effort to communicate in “appropriate language”.
EurActiv Publisher Christophe Leclercq suggested that EU institutions be represented by sector-specific attachés from individual DGs in member-state representations. What’s more, there was room for more diversity of opinion between the institutions themselves, he said. “EU democracy is still in a development phase. The diversity of voices reflects the diversity of views and makes EU policies more interesting for national media.”
“Public opinion in Austria is shaped by big media, particularly the eurosceptic Kronenzeitung,” said Sabine Berger, Brussels correspondent of the Austrian economic journal Wirtschaftsblatt , explaining how the media can contribute to a negative image of the EU.
Source:http://www.theory.org.uk/david/book8.htm
How do you picture identity? What happens when you ask individuals to make visual representations of their own identities, influences, and relationships?
Drawing upon an array of disciplines from neuroscience to philosophy, and art to social theory, David Gauntlett explores the ways in which researchers can embrace people’s everyday creativity in order to understand social experience.
Seeking an alternative to traditional interviews and focus groups, he outlines studies in which people have been asked to make visual things – such as video, collage, and drawing – and then interpret them. This leads to an innovative project in which Gauntlett asked people to build metaphorical models of their identities in Lego. This creative reflective method provides insights into how individuals present themselves, understand their own life story, and connect with the social world.
Creative Explorations is a lively, readable and original discussion of identities, media influences, and creativity, which will be of interest to both students and academics.
These two videos offer an introduction to the work discussed in the book:
1) A short introduction to research where we ask people to make things as part of the process; with particular focus on the Lego identity study.
2) A short guide to findings from the Lego identity study, where people were asked to build metaphorical models of their identities (‘Creative Explorations’ by David Gauntlett).
Posted by Daniel Nagel
Lisbon Treaty: scrutinised by the German Federal Constitutional Court
A German MP initiated a constitutional complaint against the Lisbon Treaty on 23 March 2008, whereupon the German President Köhler decided to withhold his signature of the ratification document – does this complaint really constitute a challenge for Europe comparable to the Irish “No”?
Arguably the complaint, which has been carefully drafted by a German Professor of Law, does contain some arguments which should be taken seriously. The complaint i.a. argues that following the Maastricht-judgment of the German Federal Constitutional Court, the Lisbon Treaty could be regarded as contrary to the German constitution as the Treaty would increase democratic deficiencies and thus undermine the legitimation of public authority. In addition, the Treaty would cause the ‘final loss of national sovereignty’.
Although these arguments might be able to stir up a lot of dust, they nevertheless cannot be supported. Contrary to the assumption of the aforementioned complaint, the Lisbon Treaty can rather be seen as a first step towards a more democratic European Union. In particular, the increase of rights of the European Parliament as well as the slight changes to the majority voting system lead to a system which is closer to the original sense of democracy than ever. In addition, the principle of conferral will still be predominant. Furthermore, the Treaty brings along institutional changes which in turn entail more transparency and are thus able to bring the Union finally ‘closer to its citizens’.
Moreover, the envisaged enhanced cooperation between Member States should not be mistaken as a loss of national power or influence. On the contrary, it enables States to effectively pursue their interests on a supranational basis and add weight to their arguments by combining their efforts (as can e.g. be seen from existing co-initiatives such as the French-German proposal in respect to the carbon-dioxide debate). Finally, the Lisbon Treaty provides for a right to withdraw from the Union, which de facto renders a loss of sovereignty impossible.
As a conclusion to this, the constitutional complaint cannot be seen as a threat to the European Union. It, however, will surely lead to an insightful scrutiny of the Treaty by the German Federal Constitutional Court.
About the author: PhD candidate Daniel Nagel studied law at the University of Heidelberg and at Leeds University. He is working as an editor for the international CISG database of Pace University New York. His current research focuses on inner-European and international harmonization of law.
EU-Mali relations resulted in the creating of the first immigration centre outside EU
Reaching out to migrants
CIGEM – new centre for migration information and management in Bamako, Mali
First immigration centre outside EU borders ready to start work.
Every year thousands of Africans try to make the perilous journey to Europe as illegal migrants. Often their quest for a better life ends in a tragedy at sea.
Raising awareness of the risks of illegal migration is one of the tasks of the new centre in Bamako , the capital of the West African nation of Mali. An information point for would-be migrants, the centre offers guidance on legal immigration and helps with job training and the search for work abroad.
Mali is a prime candidate for the pilot project. The country is a transit point for migrants heading to Europe and an important source of labour for neighbouring countries. Some 4 million Malians live abroad, a huge exodus considering there are just 12 million in all. Most are scattered around West Africa, but about 200 000 live in Europe.
Mali is one of the world’s poorest countries. The main industry is farming, with cotton the biggest cash crop. The country depends heavily on the money migrants send home, but a big part of this income is eaten up by bank transfer fees. The centre is studying proposals to lower these transaction costs.
The centre is also working with returning migrants to help them resume life in their home country. Most migrants are young men who can’t find work at home. They are gone anywhere from a few months to several years at a time, leaving women, children and the elderly to run family farms.
Europe is home to most of the Africans living overseas. Many are from North Africa, but a growing number are from sub-Saharan countries like Mali.
The centre employs about 40 people and has a budget of about €10m. It officially opens on 6 October.
Migration from Mali – more information
Justice and citizens’ rights – Immigration – 02/10/2008
Jeremy Rifkin
Is there a European dream, comparable to the American dream of freedom and independence? Definitely, argues social historian and thinker Jeremy Rifkin in this EuroparlTV interview: Europe’s dream is about quality of life for all, and therefore it is much more communal than the American dream.
Click here to watch the interview from Europarl TV – Your Parliament.
Recent Comments