What does European Union do to promote social and responsible media?

[MickyBag]

[SocialistDream]

In a time of rapid change in the media world, changing technologies and growing concentration of ownership in the hands of a small number of powerful conglomerates, the Socialist Group has been vigilant to defend diversity, oppose excessive concentration of ownership, promote access to new forms of communication and ensure that mass media - including new media - are responsive to the needs and concerns of Europeans.

In December 2005 the European Commission proposed an update of the TV Without Frontiers directive. In the course of its consideration by the EP (adopted in December 2006), Socialist Group amendments achieved 3 key improvements:

-new safeguards for media pluralism, ensuring for consumers a large choice of content, reflecting different points of view and different cultures;
-a requirement on EU governments to ensure that audiovisual services are gradually made accessible for people with hearing or visual disability;
-an EU-wide labelling, assessment and filtering system to give parents and other carers greater control over programmes with pornographic or violent content.

The Socialist Group also took the initiative of launching a Parliamentary report on Concentration and Pluralism in the Media in the EU, prepared by Marianne MIKKO (PSE Estonia) which was adopted by the Parliament in September 2008.

In recent years, a proliferation of new commercial outlets (e.g. in broadcasting) has taken place. However the number of companies in the media business decreased as more and more independent companies fell under the ownership of a few conglomerates. On the basis of the MIKKO report the European Parliament called for:

•full disclosure of the ownership of media outlets, to avoid the dangerous overlap between media ownership and political power (such as is seen - most notoriously - in Italy under Berlusconi)
•a series of measures to raise the quality of the media e.g. to ensure journalistic and editorial independence by appropriate guarantees, to support high-quality public broadcasting services
•improvements in working conditions for journalists.



The Socialist Group will continue to work for greater transparency in media ownership: to fight against monopolies, to call for higher journalistic standards and to support high quality public broadcasting; as well as to combat precarious work conditions in the media.

[boofuswoolie]

They set fire to headquarters