The rise of populism challenges previously established values of democracy, fairness and diversity. Filter bubbles encourage extreme positions. We face dwindling public trust in facts and expertise on virtually any subject. The role of media in all this has been extensively discussed - public opinion is increasingly formed online, based on content and narratives optimised for clicks rather than a balanced point of view and corroborating evidence. Together with a fragmented, polarised public engagement and shortening attention spans, this challenges us to create new approaches, experiences and information technologies that entertain and educate at the same time. Fact checkers and online activism initiatives have started to tackle this with some success. They study the factual grounds of public claims and open up civic processes to make them more accessible to underrepresented groups.

MediaFutures will seek to address this topic by creating a European data innovation hub that will bring together data-savvy entrepreneurs, artists and other stakeholders in the media value chain to deliver a programme that expands on standard models such as the Quadruple Helix to come up with novel ways for people to engage with quality journalism, science education and democratic processes. Therefore, MediaFutures will:

• explore the critical factors that impact how people create and consume information online
• explore how the intersection of artistic production with media innovation can act as innovation enabler
• define a participatory, inclusive innovation programme leveraging impulses from multiple sectors, exploiting the synergies between entrepreneurs and creatives
• organise a competition addressing pressing technical and non-technical challenges, present and future, in the media value chain to identify promising digital entrepreneurs, creatives and data-empowered solutions
• provide experimentation facilities, data and other resources for the winners of this competition to test and nurture their ideas
• support them by solving common concerns around funding and access to mentoring and expertise in technical, legal, business, societal, media and sustainability matters   and
• create toolkits, guidance and best practices for innovators, creatives, and other stakeholders to achieve greater traction for their citizen-centric initiatives and empower them to communicate through data in inspiring and informative ways

Thereby, MediaFutures contributes by delivering a data innovation hub connecting businesses with artists so that they can exchange experiences, pool resources and expertise to innovate in new, unexpected ways, and make a difference on huge, societal challenges that require an active engagement with the public.

Projectpartner:

●  King’s College London

●  Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music (IRCAM) Centre Pompidou,

●  LUISS University

●  Zabala Innovation Consulting

●  Next Media Accelerator

●  Eurecat Technology Centre of Catalonia

●  Open Data Institute

●  DEN Institute and

●  KU Leuven Projektkoordinator: LUH/