Media Freedom and Pluralism in the Age of AI and Platforms: A New Era for Media Policy/Regulation?
The “Communication Law and Policy” Section of the European Communications Research and Education Association (ECREA) invites abstracts for theoretical and empirical papers on the topic Media Freedom and Pluralism in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Platforms: A New Era for Media Policy/Regulation? This two-day workshop will be a unique opportunity to bring together those researchers investigating the processes of regulating media sectors under the influence of online platforms in Europe and beyond. The workshop will take place in Brussels, Belgium, on 18-19 September 2025. It is hosted by the imec-SMIT research centre and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
The dominance of online platforms over media production, distribution and consumption and the pervasiveness of their big data tools have a profound impact on media sectors and on societies, in Europe as in the rest of the world. Their prioritisation systems, the way they recommend and moderate content, give them a role on the shaping of public spaces and public opinion that goes beyond what can be expected from a private (and for-profit) organization in a democracy.
More recently, AI has seen the development and democratization of various applications, in particular to generate content. They are conspicuous by their lack of transparency regarding notably the data (personal data, content, etc.) and algorithms used for such generation. In turn, this connects to long-standing issues regarding the lack of transparency in media, from ownership to finance to algorithms.
Several European countries, and in particular the European Union, have reacted to such evolutions by developing regulatory frameworks, most recently with the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act), in a move that tries to catch up with latest technological trends and geopolitical developments. There are concrete plans for adaptation of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) and of the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market, for developments around the regulation of the music sector that would take audiovisual regulation as an example while taking stocks of challenges brought by the development of AI.
This workshop is dedicated to discussing the nature of such challenges and the appropriateness of policy solutions offered by the European Commission, national governments or regulatory bodies.
Call for Papers
The workshop invites contributions dealing with media and communication law and policy, and its implementation. This includes submissions from political economy, policy and govern-ance studies, media and communication law, among others. We welcome theoretical, methodological and empirical submissions, case studies and comparative work. Innovative use of methods, and in particular interdisciplinary approaches, are encouraged. The organizers are especially interested in the following areas:
- Public values and norms for private platforms: Which challenges do online intermediaries raise for media sectors? To what extent are they regulated by (more) traditional media and telecommunication policy? Do they call for innovation in media policy and regulation?
- Evaluating DSA, DMA and EMFA: What are the Digital Services Act (DSA), the Digital Market Act (DMA) and the EMFA’s first impacts on the production and distribution of media content in Europe? To what extent have they fostered further collaboration between media regulatory authorities across the EU?
- AVMSD reform: What has been the impact of the latest revision of the AVMSD? What are the latest evolutions regarding content moderation by services hosting user-generated content? Has the regulation on signal integrity been taken up? Has the limited obligation of media ownership transparency been successful?
- Prominence and discoverability: How can local content and services of general interest be promoted? To what extent can policies favouring exposure diversity respect user agency? Which measures can ensure that public service media and content of general interest remain visible and findable on digital intermediaries, including devices such as smart TVs?
- Media concentration: How can media concentration measures be enforced in a context where media sectors are dominated by global/non-EU based platforms? To what extent has the impact of media concentration changed in increasingly integrated European media markets?
- AI Act and media sectors: How to monitor and enforce the AI Act? What potential impact of the new rules for marking AI-generated content and copyright requirements for the use of data to train AI? Are other regulation needed towards the use of AI in media?
- Inclusion and inequalities: How effective are policy measures to combat inequalities and disparities in the fields of media and communication? How can digital platforms engage marginalized and diasporic communities towards more inclusion? What are the links between technological infrastructure, innovative business models and inclusive media practices aimed at fostering justice and participation?
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted for blind peer review in DOCX or ODT directly to the organizers of the conference by March 15th, 2025 at the following e-mail address CLPBrussels2025@vub.be.
Each abstract should address one of the above topics in a sound theoretical and methodological manner, and include a title as well as the name(s), institutional affiliation(s) and e-mail address(es) of the author(s). The colleagues will be notified of acceptance by April 20th, 2025, and registration is required by June 1st, 2025. Details concerning the registration form will be made known in due time.
For more thorough feedback and discussion in the sessions, authors of accepted abstracts are invited to send an extended abstract or full paper by July 31st, 2025. Full papers might be invited after the workshop for publication. Reduced fee for ECREA-recognized “soft-currency” countries and non-waged participants is possible for accepted submitters. More information will be available in due time on the ECREA CLP website.
The ECREA 2025 CLP workshop will take place on 18-19 September 2025. A welcome event will be organized on the 17th. Guests of the ECREA Workshop are also invited to the conference “Public Service Media in the age of platforms: reshaping values, strategies and organizations?”, a two-day knowledge exchange between academia, industry and policy practitioners, organized by the PSM-AP project (https://psm-ap.com/). (granted by Chanse Era-net, funded through Horizon Europe).
