By Helmut Peissl, COMMIT
The process of the Citizen’ Parliament in Austria with 20 participating citizens was a great success and all of them stayed with us until the last session. The group was very diverse with members ranging from 19 – 80 years old and coming from 5 Austrian regions – both urban and rural. As the organising team, we have been impressed by the strong commitment of the citizens involved who, despite recurring differences of opinion, worked together extremely constructively and purposefully. We had engaged two professional facilitators who had already experience in citizen council/parliament settings working on other topics. The inputs from academic experts Josef Trappel, Nikolaus Forgó, Petra Herczeg and Sieglinde Rosenberger, several media representatives and journalists from public service, private and community media, complemented by training videos, were an important basis for deliberation on the topics of each thematic day. At the final feedback round, all participants confirmed that everyone appreciated the participation and was proud to have learned a lot about media & democracy and to have succeeded to formulate and vote on the 50 resolutions.
A recurring question at the end of the final session was: What is the next step? How do we move forward? This showed that the CP process was not only a good concept for an intense exchange with experts and the adoption of resolutions, but it was also motivating the citizens to continue working on the topic and to participate even more in the future.
The Austrian Citizen Parliament adopted a list of 50 resolutions focusing on five areas:
1. Ensuring the quality of media content
2. Promoting participation and access
3. Media education for all
4. Representation and diversity
5. The European Union and Digital Platforms
The resolutions were presented on 25th of June at the Press Club Concordia in Vienna and discussed with three representatives from the ministry responsible for media, for education and for science and adult education. Two more speakers represented the public service broadcaster and the press council – as self-regulation body of the press sector. Appreciative words also came from the local sponsors Erste Foundation and the Office for Participation of the City of Vienna. Over 70 visitors joined the event, and the national press agency APA produced a press release, which was taken up by several media. Among the visitors we had representatives from political parties, academics, NGOs, journalists and many interested citizens.
A central theme in the resolutions was the improvement of media funding – away from funding mainly established large media (paid or free) and independent of quality criteria – towards funding based on clear quality criteria, including the funding of new media, start-ups and non-commercial initiatives. It is important to note here that in Austria considerably more public funds flow to large boulevard media houses via advertisements than via specific subsidies. The dissemination of advertising, in turn, is closely linked to the specific expectations of the “customers” (e.g. ministries) that the respective politicians or parties have of the media. This is discussed in Austria under the term “advertising corruption”. A change is urgently needed.
A recent funding decision of the media authority KommAustria made visible the problem with the current system again. Support was given to a right wing online-media portal (eXXpress) and led to protest, as this portal is known for spreading (pro-Russian and other) disinformation. This and the fact of lacking quality criteria for media funding has now been also strongly criticised by the national audit court.
So the recommendations formulated by our citizens parliament from a bottom-up perspective came at the right political moment and should help in a period where the funding system for the media sector in Austria might be restructured.
A first follow-up discussion took place with Klaus Seltenheim, the group leader of social democrat parliamentarians and speaker for media policy. He supports most of the recommendations and will try to organise a larger meeting with parliamentarians including members from other party groups. After the summer break, more meetings will take place to discuss the resolutions also with conservative and green party parliamentarians. The Public service broadcaster (ORF) also invited members of the Citizens’ Parliament to take part at their “ORF-dialogue forum”.
The final report of the Citizens’ Parliament in Austria can be accessed in English and in German.