Europe still has to make progress on media pluralism

The majority of European citizens do not believe their media is independent and the Greeks are the most sceptical of all about this. This is the conclusion of a Eurobarometer survey published on 17 November during the second annual colloquy on fundamental rights.

This study shows that the majority of the 28,000 citizens questioned are concerned about the subjectivity of the media and the increase in hate speech. Overall, 44% of respondents believe that the information they receive is not reliable and very few observe an improvement compared to the situation five years ago (18%). In 19 member states, more than half of the citizens questioned considered that their national media were subject to political or commercial pressures. Only a third of respondents (37%) believe that the audiovisual media monitoring body in their country acts in complete independence and freedom from any pressures being exerted.

Confidence is particularly low in Greece, where half of those questioned (52%) believe that the national media do not offer a variety of points of view and 9 out of 10 of them think that their media (including their public service media) are subject to pressure. This observation contrasts with the positive result in Scandinavian countries.

This Eurobarometer was presented during a colloquy focusing on media pluralism and democracy. The following themes were included on the agenda: preserving and promoting media freedom and their independence from political and financial pressures; providing journalists with more resources and protecting them from threats, physical violence and hate speech; the importance of education about the media and an ethical code for the media in the context of political debate and participation; prospects and challenges relating to the new media environment, internet platforms and social media. The Eurobarometer survey can be consulted at: http://ec.europa.eu/COMMFrontOffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Survey/getSurveyDetail/instruments/SPECIAL/surveyKy/2119 ] (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)