Quantitative Data Input for the Map of EU Political Information Environments

To set out credible pathways to strengthen democracy, its resilience and stability through improving accountability, transparency and effectiveness of media production and expanding active and inclusive citizenship, research on the multifaceted relationships between media and democracy must focus on o the legal and (self-)regulatory framework under which media houses and journalism operate and people use media; o the media’s potential to promote and support democracy and political participation (supply side); o and the media use patterns, communication needs, and democratic attitudes of the audiences (demand side). In doing so, o the entire range of news media o and – most of all – the various notions of liberal democracy and the associated forms of participation in European societies have to be taken into account. Based on these premises, MeDeMAP endeavours to communicate research results to all those interested in the relationship between media and democracy, be they politicians, representa­tives of media authorities and self-regulation bodies, media owners, journalists, NGOs or citizens, who are most affected by how this relationship is shaped. Therefore, an interactive multi-layer map of European political information environments[1] will be developed, which will include the above-mentioned components of the political information environment and will be openly accessible to everyone. The idea behind this tool is to illustrate to what extent and in what ways legal and political framework conditions, media supply and media use are interconnected in the EU Member States and what this means for the state of democracy and political participation in these countries. [1] Concerning the concept of “political information environments” see: Van Aelst, P., Strömbäck, J., Aalberg, T., Esser, F., de Vreese, C., Matthes, J., Hopmann, D., Salgado, S., Hubé, N., Stępińska, A., Papathanassopoulos, S., Berganza, B., Legnante, G., Reinemann, C., Sheafer, T., & Stanyer, J. (2017). Political communication in a high-choice media environment: A challenge for democracy? Annals of the International Communication Association, 41(1), 3–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23808985.2017.1288551