Modern journalism, especially the news sector, is facing unprecedented challenges. It’s confronted with misinformation, content distortions, and disparagement by politicians, especially populists. Equally serious issues pose media that manipulate information and agenda, don’t follow professional standards, and don’t consider the interests of their audience. As a result, public trust in journalism is decreasing. However, there are good examples of newspapers, media, and other organisations that invest in building good relationships with an audience.

The Media for Citizens Story Lab brought representatives of some of those good examples, other media makers, and audience from Lithuania, Slovakia, Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Montenegro together to take further steps towards reversing negative trends in media, help regain trust of citizens, and ultimately respond and propose solutions to various societal challenges.

Media for Citizens Story Lab project empowered professional and citizen media makers to connect with each other internationally and also with their audiences, and together shed light on socially important topics and possible solutions in a responsible way. As well as facilitate involvement of audience in media production and discussions on relevant topics with journalists, media representatives, experts, and policy makers in order to make proposals on solutions to societal challenges in Europe. The project contributed to establishing and sustaining a network and facilitating constructive, solutions, engaged, and citizen journalism in Europe.

All of it was realised through Mediastorm (strategic planning meeting), New Spark to Journalism and Journalism Next Door (capacity building trainings), public discussions “H!ke”, and a Results dissemination event. The project team also provided further mentoring to participants of the trainings, who wanted to solidify their skills.

Partners:

National Institute for Social Integration (Media4Change, Lithuania, coordinator), European Dialogue (Slovakia), ICNM (Austria), StampMedia (Belgium), and Mladiinfo Montenegro.

Ideas Market

An online international collaboration platform Ideas Market is an innovative space designed to foster international collaboration. It connects journalists, experts, and active citizens, helps users to find future partners or sources, exchange ideas, and collaboratively implement them.

How Does It Work?

To understand the platform’s functionality, please refer to the following links:

  1. Audience/Active Citizen/Social Group Use of “Ideas Market”: here
  2. Journalist Navigation: here
  3. Expert Navigation: here

Project events

Mediastorm – strategic planning meeting in Antaliepte, Lithuania

Call for participants

Working groups

Spark to Journalism – International training in Antaliepte, Lithuania

Call for participants

H!ke – a walk through untold stories in Rome, Italy

You can also read about the event through the eyes of representative of the European Dialogue in this article on our website.

H!ke – a walk through untold stories in Graz, Austria

You can also read about the event in this article on our website.

H!ke – a walk through untold stories in Vilnius, Lithuania

Journalism Next Door – International training in Trnava, Slovakia

Call for participants and programme

H!ke – a walk through untold stories in Brussels, Belgium

You can also read about the event in this article on our website.

H!ke – a walk through untold stories in Montenegro

Results dissemination event & project evaluation meeting in Vienna, Austria


Media for Citizens Story Lab is a project aiming to empower media makers to connect with their audience, highlight important topics, and move media forward together. This project has been funded by the EU programme Europe for Citizens.

Disclaimer

The European Commission’s support for this project does not constitute an endorsement of the contents of activities and results, which reflect the views of the authors only and are their sole responsibility. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.