Project

Outcomes

The MediaAcT project has a duration from February 2010 to July 2013. The project's results will be collected on this website, once they are available.

Mapping Media Accountability - in Europe and Beyond

The MediaAcT project's first book publication carries the title "Mapping Media Accountability - in Europe and Beyond". Edited by the consortium members Tobias Eberwein, Susanne Fengler, Epp Lauk and Tanja Leppik-Bork, it provides pioneer work in analyzing the development of established and emerging media accountability instruments in 14 countries in Eastern and Western Europe as well as the Arab world. Besides separate country reports on the status quo of media accountability research in the journalism cultures that are covered by the MediaAcT consortium, the volume offers an introduction into the project's theoretical foundations and a first cross-cultural assessment of current trends in media self-regulation and accountability. Looked at from a comparative point of view, the reports hint at the formation of different cultures of media accountability within Europe and its adjacent countries. Learn more about the publication here!

Media Accountability Practices on the Internet

The Internet offers new opportunities and challenges for the transparency of journalistic work and the responsiveness to audience criticism. A series of working papers, entitled "Media Accountability Practices on the Internet" and coordinated by the MediaAcT consortium members David Domingo and Heikki Heikkilä, analyse how newsrooms and citizens use the Internet for media accountability all around the globe. The series includes reports from European countries (Bulgaria, France, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Serbia, the United Kingdom), Arab countries (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia) and the USA. These country reports are the product of over 90 interviews with experts, media professionals and activists, and provide the empirical material for an international comparison of the role of digital technologies in media accountability. Results suggest that similar technological instruments may be used very differently in divergent media contexts. The comparative study and all country reports are available for download here!

Media Accountability: Strategies and Examples for Media Managers

Efficient media accountability practices and internal media self-regulation instruments can help media companies to create and improve transparency as one of the main quality criteria in contemporary journalism. Such instruments can set professional journalism apart from copy-paste journalism, user-generated content or social media hypes. Furthermore, the inclusion of users, pro-active quality management during the production process combined with a transparent correction management can generate trust-based user loyalty and a sales boost, regardless of the specific media product. To support media managers in establishing such accountability practices, the MediaAcT project has developed guidelines and also collected several best-practice examples. You will find more information about these strategies and examples here.

MediaAcT Policy Brief

The policy briefs contain information about first results and policy implications of the MediaAcT project and are available here:

Policy Brief No. 1 [PDF] and No. 2 [PDF].