
Once heralded as innovative tools for promoting democracy and enhancing civic participation, digital media quickly started to provoke serious criticism. With armies of paid internet trolls roaming social networks and users selecting their online news portals according to their pre-existing political and social views, it is very hard to maintain the image of digital media as a virtual space for truly open public debate. But it would be hard to deny that in countries were newspapers and TV stations become megaphones for political leaders and oligarchs, digital media very often remain the only source of truly independent information and opinion. Under financial and political pressure condition of journalists has become increasingly precarious – will social media help them survive or become another nail in their coffin?
- Gemma Pörzgen, Freelance journalist, Berlin; Milena Jesenská Visiting Fellow at the IWM
- Saso Ordanoski, Freelance journalist, Sloboden Pecat and USAID Project, Skopje; Milena Jesenská Visiting Fellow at the IWM
- Maria Stepanova, Essayist, journalist, poet; editor-in-chief, COLTA.RU; Russia in Global Dialogue Guest at the IWM
- Vlad Odobescu, Freelance journalist, Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism, Bucharest; Milena Jesenská Visiting Fellow at the IWM
Generously supported by ERSTE Foundation and Open Society Foundations
