nEUrosis

Europeans lend me your ear

May 6th, 2007 by Pim de Kuijer

This weekend I attended a debate on new media and the existence of a European public space, organised by the Allianz Kulturstiftung and the Madariaga Foundation. The debate was even hotter than the room itself, and went between one extreme, there is no European public space and the other, the European public space has the future.

The panelists, representatives of new media www.cafebabel.com, www.indigomag.eu, www.eurozine.com, and an EC communications expert started by giving a definition of a European public space or sphere. One called it a public defined by a common historic memory, the second said it consists of a public which has a certain Erasmus lifestyle of traveling and speaking multiple languages in common. The communications expert, the sceptic of the company, said there was no such thing as a public space or if it did exist it was tiny.

The new media representatives had to admit that their readerships were still limited, but claimed this was due to change over time. And, they argued, they did already reach a small European elite and, quoting Margaret Thatcher, if it rains on the rich it trickles down to the poor. The communications expert countered by mentioning a feasibility study for a European TV channel which showed that only between 0.1 and 0.5% of European TV consumers were interested in such a channel. That is as much as an average national shopping channel has as an audience. Someone from the public added to the criticism by pointing to the suscpiciously high level of europhilia in the new media. Those who are enthusiastically and often without compensation putting in time and effort to adress a European audience are bound to have positive feelings about such a European public space.

But in my humble opinion, the advantage of the new media is that it is no longer limited to one way communication. No matter how euro-enthusiastic my contributions to cafebabel or the nEUrosis might be, you can leave your (sceptic) reactions and start a debate. In the new media, articles are no longer the end but the beginning of a debate. So go ahead and show the communications expert wrong. Participate in and help create the European public space. Leave a message, after the beep.

Beep.

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