What can you expect from a three year old? I decided to see if the new posts on Bloggingportal.eu are good for other people than those interested in how many EU institutions can dance on the head of a pin.
Instead I opted for one or more policy areas related to the European information society (tag: infosoc) and online media (tag: media) during the last 24 hours or so.
Here is what I registered:
Eurooppaoikeus: Tekijänoikeustoimikunta verkkopiratismia vastaan
Grahnblawg: Framtiden online i Riksdagen
The IPKat: Congress 1, Public 0 – the U.S. Supreme Court's Big Decision in Golan v. Holder
The IPKat: Gambling on appeal? Seeing Red over 32
Europolice: EU surveillance
Mathew Lowry's Tagsmanian Devil: Dear Sony, so much for .eu
FT Brussles blog, Stanley Pignal: Steelie Neelie takes on the Hungarians
Google, European Public Policy Blog: Promoting small businesses and economic growth in Europe
TheIPKat: When reporting ”trumps” copyright: the sad case of Declan Hainey
Waltzing Matilda: Tools Tuesday: The Archivist
Groenlinks: ACTA rampzalig voor ontwikkelingslanden
Erkan's Field Diary: anti France imagery after the genocide bill in Turkish twittersphere
Eva en Europa: Hungría y el liberticidio se topan con la Unión Europea
Netzpolitik: ACTA: Kontaktiert den EU-Entwicklungsausschuss
Recent developments in European consumer law: EU data protection reform
Public Service Europe, Sabine Wils: Electronic waste – Europe living beyond its means
Rhein on Energy and Climate, Eberhard Rhein: EU is going ahead with stricter recycling of electric and electronic Waste
Comment
Not bad, I would say, for a day and a night. Theoretically Bloggingportal.eu has 904 euroblogs listed, but blogs come and go, so some are now inactive. However, during the last seven days close to 250 blogs have published one or more blog posts, which is quite impressive.
If I look at the information society themes, such as copyright, e-commerce, piracy, entrepreneurship, data protection etc., as well as matters related to online media, I feel that you can keep fairly well up to date by following all new posts on Bloggingportal.eu, not only the editors' choice (front page).
However, many of the best European tech and policy blogs have not yet found their way to Bloggingportal.eu, even if the EU is an important hub for the ITC issues debated both at global and at national level.
You can propose both individual articles and new blogs to Bloggingportal.eu. Perhaps you have a few policy oriented examples you could share, because the future of Europe is online.
Ralf Grahn
Showing posts with label online media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label online media. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Thursday, 14 October 2010
Smart Regulation in the European Union
Yesterday we looked at the number of EU regulations and directives. We also made some general remarks about the benefits of business regulation at EU level, the regulatory burden versus potential benefits, and the better regulation agenda of the European Commission, including the recent evaluation of impact assessments: How much EU law is there? Smart regulation and impact assessments (13 October 2010).
We turn to the Smart Regulation Communication from the Commission, available on the Better regulation pages (but not on Eur-Lex):
Smart Regulation in the European Union; Brussels, 8.10.2010 COM(2010) 543 final (11 pages)
The Communication is available in German “Intelligente Regulierung” and in French “Une réglementation intelligente”.
“Moses” Barroso?
The introduction discusses the lack of regulation as a cause for the financial, economic and sovereign debt crises, newish policy objectives, such as financial stability and climate change, as well as the costs of a fragmented single market. On the other hand, it duly remembers the importance of businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth envisioned by the Europe 2020 strategy, so the regulatory burden has to be limited to what is strictly necessary.
No wonder that Commission president José Manuel Barroso has taken upon himself to lead the European Union from the Egypt of better regulation to the Promised Land of smart regulation.
Key messages
The key messages are (page 3):
Here are some remarks on the first key message, which concerns mainly EU level action.
Evaluating existing legislation
One of the points in the first key message was the emphasis on evaluating the costs and benefits of existing EU legislation. Initial steps have been taken with regard to public procurement, professional qualifications and working conditions, but this approach has to become an integral part of smart regulation. Especially the member states have untapped opportunities to simplify legislation and to reduce regulatory burdens (page 4).
The Commission promises more comprehensive evaluations of whole policy areas, so called fitness checks, as opposed to individual legal acts (page 4-5).
“Fitness checks” have been launched in 2010 for areas in environment, transport, employment/social policy and industrial policy. This will be extended to other policy areas in 2011 on the basis of these experiences (page 5).
Impact assessments
The Commission underlines the importance of impact assessments and the work done by the Impact Assessment Board (IAB), and it refers to the evaluation made by the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
The Commission rejects an outside body to control impact assessments as an infringement of its prerogatives, but it promises to improve consultation processes.
After guidance on social impacts, the Commission intends to improve the assessment of impacts on fundamental rights.
The Commission admits that impact assessments should quantify costs and benefits, but it refers to the difficulties in quantifying national implementation measures (pages 6-7).
***
The sections on shared responsibilities between EU institutions and the opportunities for national authorities are worth reading. The Commission is going to extend the consultation period for proposals to twelve weeks, in order to give stakeholders and citizens more time to react. A progress report on the smart regulation agenda is promised during the second half of 2012.
Marketplace of ideas
My impression is that the ‘smart regulation’ agenda builds on good experiences, and it envisions sensible improvements.
However, there still seems to be too little quality discussion in public between the EU and national levels and various stakeholders, both business and wider societal interests. The Commission’s promise to improve consultations is a step in the right direction, but the other players need to open up as well and be less reliant on quiet lobbying.
In part they already communicate actively online, but mainly unidirectionally on their own websites. Perhaps the interest groups (stakeholders) should become more engaged in the public marketplace of ideas, participating in online discussions through social media.
It is increasingly hard to find European enterprises, public authorities or interest groups outside the public marketplace of ideas, without an active social media presence. Few of them are untouched by politics and policies at European Union level.
Politics, policies, economics and law at EU level are becoming more important in a globalising world, at least if Europeans still want to weigh in, instead of member states being picked off like clay pigeons.
EU-related blogs are a significant aspect of the emerging European online public space. There are now 673 Euroblogs, or blogs related to European Union and Council of Europe) affairs, listed on Bloggingportal.eu, the multilingual aggregator. There is still room for professional quality blogging on various aspects of EU politics and policies.
As a reader, you can take a look at the stream of all new posts, or follow the editors’ choices on the front page. You can also subscribe to the streams (all or highlighted) and the newsletters (daily or weekly) without cost.
Bloggingportal.eu needs a few more voluntary editors for the daily tagging of posts according to subjects. Why not increase your understanding of European affairs, improve your language skills and do something useful by joining the team of editors?
Ralf Grahn
We turn to the Smart Regulation Communication from the Commission, available on the Better regulation pages (but not on Eur-Lex):
Smart Regulation in the European Union; Brussels, 8.10.2010 COM(2010) 543 final (11 pages)
The Communication is available in German “Intelligente Regulierung” and in French “Une réglementation intelligente”.
“Moses” Barroso?
The introduction discusses the lack of regulation as a cause for the financial, economic and sovereign debt crises, newish policy objectives, such as financial stability and climate change, as well as the costs of a fragmented single market. On the other hand, it duly remembers the importance of businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) for the smart, sustainable and inclusive growth envisioned by the Europe 2020 strategy, so the regulatory burden has to be limited to what is strictly necessary.
No wonder that Commission president José Manuel Barroso has taken upon himself to lead the European Union from the Egypt of better regulation to the Promised Land of smart regulation.
Key messages
The key messages are (page 3):
First, smart regulation is about the whole policy cycle - from the design of a piece of legislation, to implementation, enforcement, evaluation and revision. We must build on the strengths of the impact assessment system for new legislation. But we must match this investment with similar efforts to manage and implement the body of existing legislation to ensure that it delivers the intended benefits. This requires a greater awareness by all actors of the fact that implementing existing legislation properly and amending it in the light of experience is as important as the new legislation we put on the table.
Second, smart regulation must remain a shared responsibility of the European institutions and of Member States. These actors have made varied progress, and the Commission will continue to work with them to ensure that the agenda is actively pursued by all. This must be accompanied by a greater recognition that smart regulation is not an end in itself. It must be an integral part of our collective efforts in all policy areas.
Third, the views of those most affected by regulation have a key role to play in smart regulation. The Commission has made great strides in opening its policy making to stakeholders. This can also be taken a step further and the Commission will lengthen the period for its consultations, and carry out a review of its consultation processes to see how to strengthen the voice of citizens and stakeholders further. This will help to put into practice the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty on participatory democracy.
Here are some remarks on the first key message, which concerns mainly EU level action.
Evaluating existing legislation
One of the points in the first key message was the emphasis on evaluating the costs and benefits of existing EU legislation. Initial steps have been taken with regard to public procurement, professional qualifications and working conditions, but this approach has to become an integral part of smart regulation. Especially the member states have untapped opportunities to simplify legislation and to reduce regulatory burdens (page 4).
The Commission promises more comprehensive evaluations of whole policy areas, so called fitness checks, as opposed to individual legal acts (page 4-5).
“Fitness checks” have been launched in 2010 for areas in environment, transport, employment/social policy and industrial policy. This will be extended to other policy areas in 2011 on the basis of these experiences (page 5).
Impact assessments
The Commission underlines the importance of impact assessments and the work done by the Impact Assessment Board (IAB), and it refers to the evaluation made by the European Court of Auditors (ECA).
The Commission rejects an outside body to control impact assessments as an infringement of its prerogatives, but it promises to improve consultation processes.
After guidance on social impacts, the Commission intends to improve the assessment of impacts on fundamental rights.
The Commission admits that impact assessments should quantify costs and benefits, but it refers to the difficulties in quantifying national implementation measures (pages 6-7).
***
The sections on shared responsibilities between EU institutions and the opportunities for national authorities are worth reading. The Commission is going to extend the consultation period for proposals to twelve weeks, in order to give stakeholders and citizens more time to react. A progress report on the smart regulation agenda is promised during the second half of 2012.
Marketplace of ideas
My impression is that the ‘smart regulation’ agenda builds on good experiences, and it envisions sensible improvements.
However, there still seems to be too little quality discussion in public between the EU and national levels and various stakeholders, both business and wider societal interests. The Commission’s promise to improve consultations is a step in the right direction, but the other players need to open up as well and be less reliant on quiet lobbying.
In part they already communicate actively online, but mainly unidirectionally on their own websites. Perhaps the interest groups (stakeholders) should become more engaged in the public marketplace of ideas, participating in online discussions through social media.
It is increasingly hard to find European enterprises, public authorities or interest groups outside the public marketplace of ideas, without an active social media presence. Few of them are untouched by politics and policies at European Union level.
Politics, policies, economics and law at EU level are becoming more important in a globalising world, at least if Europeans still want to weigh in, instead of member states being picked off like clay pigeons.
EU-related blogs are a significant aspect of the emerging European online public space. There are now 673 Euroblogs, or blogs related to European Union and Council of Europe) affairs, listed on Bloggingportal.eu, the multilingual aggregator. There is still room for professional quality blogging on various aspects of EU politics and policies.
As a reader, you can take a look at the stream of all new posts, or follow the editors’ choices on the front page. You can also subscribe to the streams (all or highlighted) and the newsletters (daily or weekly) without cost.
Bloggingportal.eu needs a few more voluntary editors for the daily tagging of posts according to subjects. Why not increase your understanding of European affairs, improve your language skills and do something useful by joining the team of editors?
Ralf Grahn
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Euroblogs: Online and social media in Spanish
The previous post presented three individual Spanish Euroblogs. We continue with a summary on communication by the EU and by mentioning two different collectives which publish in Spanish.
On blog Bitácora, which is a part of the Spanish version of multilingual Presseurop network, Susana del Río Villar an expert on Team Europa of the EU Commission representation in Spain describes communication challenges from the viewpoint of the EU institutions. In her first post on the subject, she discusses ‘total communication’ in Europe, which is much more than information: Comunicación integral (I) (9 September 2010).
Conceptually the European Parliament made a great leap forward ahead of the 2009 elections, although the debates were hijacked by national politics. Right now the European Commission attempts to project a more centralised and personalised message through its president José Manuel Barroso.
The virtual game Citzalia tries a different tack to engage younger citizens, but it remains to be seen if it succeeds.
What citizens do not seem to realise is that they are present daily in the real world European Parliament, through the directly elected Members of the European Parliament. Tweet your MEP (which starts on 22 September 2010) will certainly connect Europarliamentarians with citizens.
Each Euroblog has its own personality, but they publish, motivate debate and shape European public opinion on a daily basis. The former hierarchies of communication are a thing of the past. They cannot control the responses, but the messages can engage more people. Participation complements representation.
El País and La Comunidad
El País online presents itself as a global newspaper in Spanish. (Remember more than 400 million native Spanish speakers worldwide, second most globally.) It has quality reporting and opinion pieces on its pages for Europe.
La Comunidad of El País houses Euroblog, a collective European blog, where different citizen bloggers (cross)post their entries.
Europa451
Europa451 is a slightly different collective, because it is thebrainchild of five young professional journalists: Fernando Navarro, Jean Sébastien Lefebvre, Julie Gonce, Francesca Barca and Cédric Audinot.
They work together to produce articles in Spanish (Europa451.es), French (Europa451.fr) and Italian (Europa451.it).
By the way, this reminds me of the Day of Multilingual Blogging, 26 September 2010. There are many different ways to participate, but already 131 are attending and 119 may be attending.
Is crossing linguistic and national borders more useful than fun, or vice versa?
Ralf Grahn
On blog Bitácora, which is a part of the Spanish version of multilingual Presseurop network, Susana del Río Villar an expert on Team Europa of the EU Commission representation in Spain describes communication challenges from the viewpoint of the EU institutions. In her first post on the subject, she discusses ‘total communication’ in Europe, which is much more than information: Comunicación integral (I) (9 September 2010).
Conceptually the European Parliament made a great leap forward ahead of the 2009 elections, although the debates were hijacked by national politics. Right now the European Commission attempts to project a more centralised and personalised message through its president José Manuel Barroso.
The virtual game Citzalia tries a different tack to engage younger citizens, but it remains to be seen if it succeeds.
What citizens do not seem to realise is that they are present daily in the real world European Parliament, through the directly elected Members of the European Parliament. Tweet your MEP (which starts on 22 September 2010) will certainly connect Europarliamentarians with citizens.
Each Euroblog has its own personality, but they publish, motivate debate and shape European public opinion on a daily basis. The former hierarchies of communication are a thing of the past. They cannot control the responses, but the messages can engage more people. Participation complements representation.
El País and La Comunidad
El País online presents itself as a global newspaper in Spanish. (Remember more than 400 million native Spanish speakers worldwide, second most globally.) It has quality reporting and opinion pieces on its pages for Europe.
La Comunidad of El País houses Euroblog, a collective European blog, where different citizen bloggers (cross)post their entries.
Europa451
Europa451 is a slightly different collective, because it is thebrainchild of five young professional journalists: Fernando Navarro, Jean Sébastien Lefebvre, Julie Gonce, Francesca Barca and Cédric Audinot.
They work together to produce articles in Spanish (Europa451.es), French (Europa451.fr) and Italian (Europa451.it).
By the way, this reminds me of the Day of Multilingual Blogging, 26 September 2010. There are many different ways to participate, but already 131 are attending and 119 may be attending.
Is crossing linguistic and national borders more useful than fun, or vice versa?
Ralf Grahn
Friday, 10 September 2010
Euroblogosphere: Who discovers Portugal?
The current population of Portugal is 10.6 million, but this small country was at the vanguard of European overseas exploration (Wikipedia).
About 260 million speakers of Portuguese are the legacy of these intrepid explorers and the colonial empire their discoveries led to. Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world (Source: Wikipedia).
The former Portuguese prime minister José Manuel Durão Barroso is president of the European Commission since November 2004 (Wikipedia), now in his second term.
The current update of the EU Treaties is called the Treaty of Lisbon. Portugal participates in all EU policies, without opt-outs.
The present economic difficulties make Portugal one of the countries to follow with special care within the European Union and the Eurozone.
However, Portugal is quiet on the Euroblog front.
Among the 662 EU related blogs on the multilingual blog aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, the only blog in Portuguese to have published during the last seven days seems to be the internationally oriented Tratados, by Bruno Oliveira Martins.
I also made sporadic attempts to find Portuguese Euroblogs through other means, but came up short.
How should I put it?
Is it the time for the Portuguese to discover Europe, or social media, or should European online media discover Portugal?
Ralf Grahn
About 260 million speakers of Portuguese are the legacy of these intrepid explorers and the colonial empire their discoveries led to. Portuguese is the fifth most spoken language in the world (Source: Wikipedia).
The former Portuguese prime minister José Manuel Durão Barroso is president of the European Commission since November 2004 (Wikipedia), now in his second term.
The current update of the EU Treaties is called the Treaty of Lisbon. Portugal participates in all EU policies, without opt-outs.
The present economic difficulties make Portugal one of the countries to follow with special care within the European Union and the Eurozone.
However, Portugal is quiet on the Euroblog front.
Among the 662 EU related blogs on the multilingual blog aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, the only blog in Portuguese to have published during the last seven days seems to be the internationally oriented Tratados, by Bruno Oliveira Martins.
I also made sporadic attempts to find Portuguese Euroblogs through other means, but came up short.
How should I put it?
Is it the time for the Portuguese to discover Europe, or social media, or should European online media discover Portugal?
Ralf Grahn
Wednesday, 8 September 2010
Cheering crowds? Barroso’s EU “State of the Union” address
In the United States of America with a population of 310 million (Wikipedia), President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address drew 48 million television viewers, according to USA Today.
With the same 15.5 per cent of the 501 million population of the European Union, about 78 million EU citizens would have followed the “State of the Union” speech by Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
Before the “big speech” I remarked on the constitutional difference between the powers and the election of the President of the USA versus the position of the European Commission in the “institutional triangle”. In the USA, the State of the Union speech is enshrined in the Constitution, while in the European Union you have to struggle to find a legal base. (I am still waiting for clarifications promised from the European Parliament.)
When the chiefs of the EU Commission and the European Parliament felt the pressure to draw a decent crowd among 736 MEPs, they panicked.
In How many presidents does it take to run Europe? (7 September 2010), The Economist’s new Charlemagne noted how Nigel Farage, of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group and UKIP, seized on the constitutional differences and the viewer numbers between the USA and the EU.
The European Parliament’s press release, State of the (E)Union: The Europe of today and tomorrow debated in the EP, mentions no figures for viewers on the EP’s own channel europarltv, nor did I find any statistics regarding the session elsewhere on the EP website.
We can only speculate that EP Live may have experienced a peak of viewers because of the hyped name and the critical discussion preceding the “State of the Union” address, but how many thousands would we speak about?.
Despite the absence of cheering (or jeering) crowds, “Séance en direct” is an important public service, giving EU citizens online access to the plenary sessions – live or recorded - of the European Parliament in the original language and 22 other language channels. Agendas and documents complement the supply, which guarantees a certain level of transparency in EU affairs.
Ralf Grahn
With the same 15.5 per cent of the 501 million population of the European Union, about 78 million EU citizens would have followed the “State of the Union” speech by Commission President José Manuel Barroso.
Before the “big speech” I remarked on the constitutional difference between the powers and the election of the President of the USA versus the position of the European Commission in the “institutional triangle”. In the USA, the State of the Union speech is enshrined in the Constitution, while in the European Union you have to struggle to find a legal base. (I am still waiting for clarifications promised from the European Parliament.)
When the chiefs of the EU Commission and the European Parliament felt the pressure to draw a decent crowd among 736 MEPs, they panicked.
In How many presidents does it take to run Europe? (7 September 2010), The Economist’s new Charlemagne noted how Nigel Farage, of the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group and UKIP, seized on the constitutional differences and the viewer numbers between the USA and the EU.
The European Parliament’s press release, State of the (E)Union: The Europe of today and tomorrow debated in the EP, mentions no figures for viewers on the EP’s own channel europarltv, nor did I find any statistics regarding the session elsewhere on the EP website.
We can only speculate that EP Live may have experienced a peak of viewers because of the hyped name and the critical discussion preceding the “State of the Union” address, but how many thousands would we speak about?.
Despite the absence of cheering (or jeering) crowds, “Séance en direct” is an important public service, giving EU citizens online access to the plenary sessions – live or recorded - of the European Parliament in the original language and 22 other language channels. Agendas and documents complement the supply, which guarantees a certain level of transparency in EU affairs.
Ralf Grahn
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Communicating Europe: Reding’s revolution
How is the European Union responding to public opinion and media trends?
Conducted during the triple crisis – financial sector, economy and eurozone - Eurobarometer 73, Public opinion in the European Union (First results) recorded sinking support for what the EU has actually achieved, but possibly clear acceptance of future EU level action to sort out the economic mess and to promote job creation.
Europeans keep migrating to lively, chaotic and interactive social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.
European Commission
One part of what the European Union does as a whole is supplied by the European Commission, also in the area of communication.
EurActiv reports that the Commission plans communication ‘revolution’. Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is responsible for communication, wants to bring about a "culture shock" and genuine "revolution" of existing Brussels communication methods.
Reding’s plan includes structural change in a re-branding centred on President José Manuel Barroso, increased centralisation of public communications, a new organisational chart and a key reshuffle of top officials.
Reding aims for stronger centralisation in the delivery of messages, although flexibility will be allowed with regard to the forms.
Val Duchesse
Yesterday and today, the College of Commissioners is meeting informally in the Castle Val Duchesse (1 to 2 September 2010). In substance, the notice on the ‘EC College Seminar’ tells us that the Commissioners are going to discuss the Commission programme for the rest of 2010. The rest of the webpage is pure filling.
According to EurActiv, Reding’s plan was going to be discussed, but we do not know how much acclaim the strategy for Barroso’s stardom and henchmen is getting from the rest of the Commissioners, who are among the possible losers together with the online and social media pioneers.
Outside reactions
The drive towards personalisation, centralisation, old media favouritism and pet journalists has resulted in a few early reactions outside the lofty Berlaymont chambers and the cosy chateau milieu.
We may ask if the Reding plan has "the atmosphere of a better age", as in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
Michael Malherbe on Lacomeuropéenne (Se former à la communication européenne) asked if it is correct to speak about a revolution: Faut il parler de « révolution » de la communication de l’UE comme Viviane Reding ?
Malherbe’s conclusion is that Reding offers a plan for a bygone age:
The Watts On blog dissects five false assumptions Reding’s plan rests on, in the entry: The Commission should be focussing on policies not personalities.
After undermining the foundations, “Watts” offers the following advice for a profound Commission rethink:
In Rivoluzione d’autunno, Matizandrea has a hard time believing in a stunning revolution, asking ironically: Are they going to learn how to use SMS?
The Brussels Jungle pulls a virtual scoop on the Commission’s communication revolution by describing the Commission’s imaginative (and imaginary) plans for an animated TV series, in response to the virtual Citzalia world of the European Parliament. No prizes for guessing who the main characters – Redi and José – resemble in real life.
Sit up and take notice when those who wish the European Union well and ill seem to agree on the substance, even if not on the presentation.
In the spirit of the Albion Alliance, the Autonomous Mind blog describes the EU Commission plan as a vanity propaganda effort.
Next steps
My humble advice regarding the next steps:
What if the Commissioners in Val Duchesse started by locating the paper shredder and then decided to enter the fascinating world of 21st century communication?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Conducted during the triple crisis – financial sector, economy and eurozone - Eurobarometer 73, Public opinion in the European Union (First results) recorded sinking support for what the EU has actually achieved, but possibly clear acceptance of future EU level action to sort out the economic mess and to promote job creation.
Europeans keep migrating to lively, chaotic and interactive social media platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook.
European Commission
One part of what the European Union does as a whole is supplied by the European Commission, also in the area of communication.
EurActiv reports that the Commission plans communication ‘revolution’. Commissioner Viviane Reding, who is responsible for communication, wants to bring about a "culture shock" and genuine "revolution" of existing Brussels communication methods.
Reding’s plan includes structural change in a re-branding centred on President José Manuel Barroso, increased centralisation of public communications, a new organisational chart and a key reshuffle of top officials.
Reding aims for stronger centralisation in the delivery of messages, although flexibility will be allowed with regard to the forms.
Val Duchesse
Yesterday and today, the College of Commissioners is meeting informally in the Castle Val Duchesse (1 to 2 September 2010). In substance, the notice on the ‘EC College Seminar’ tells us that the Commissioners are going to discuss the Commission programme for the rest of 2010. The rest of the webpage is pure filling.
According to EurActiv, Reding’s plan was going to be discussed, but we do not know how much acclaim the strategy for Barroso’s stardom and henchmen is getting from the rest of the Commissioners, who are among the possible losers together with the online and social media pioneers.
Outside reactions
The drive towards personalisation, centralisation, old media favouritism and pet journalists has resulted in a few early reactions outside the lofty Berlaymont chambers and the cosy chateau milieu.
We may ask if the Reding plan has "the atmosphere of a better age", as in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.
Michael Malherbe on Lacomeuropéenne (Se former à la communication européenne) asked if it is correct to speak about a revolution: Faut il parler de « révolution » de la communication de l’UE comme Viviane Reding ?
Malherbe’s conclusion is that Reding offers a plan for a bygone age:
... une stratégie ante-web, oublieuse de l’intérêt d’un dialogue nourri avec les multiplicateurs d’opinion et de partenariats avec des relais institutionnels ou associatifs.
The Watts On blog dissects five false assumptions Reding’s plan rests on, in the entry: The Commission should be focussing on policies not personalities.
After undermining the foundations, “Watts” offers the following advice for a profound Commission rethink:
It needs to be more open, more focused on policy and delivery rather than personalities, more serious about tackling those ’causes’, more strategic in its approach to issues and, above all, more engaged in directly having a two way dialogue with the citizen.
In Rivoluzione d’autunno, Matizandrea has a hard time believing in a stunning revolution, asking ironically: Are they going to learn how to use SMS?
The Brussels Jungle pulls a virtual scoop on the Commission’s communication revolution by describing the Commission’s imaginative (and imaginary) plans for an animated TV series, in response to the virtual Citzalia world of the European Parliament. No prizes for guessing who the main characters – Redi and José – resemble in real life.
Sit up and take notice when those who wish the European Union well and ill seem to agree on the substance, even if not on the presentation.
In the spirit of the Albion Alliance, the Autonomous Mind blog describes the EU Commission plan as a vanity propaganda effort.
Next steps
My humble advice regarding the next steps:
What if the Commissioners in Val Duchesse started by locating the paper shredder and then decided to enter the fascinating world of 21st century communication?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Language barriers challenge online campaigning in Europe
The grass root campaigners for a PES Primary we are following have to shovel away without explicit endorsement from the Party of European Socialists (PES) or the formidable resources of its member parties at national level. Lacking a seal of approval from various party headquarters, they also have to overcome general attitude problems among party faithful who wait for a cue. The civil society actors have to surpass inertia and hostility.
In this blog post we look at another critical issue for pan-EU online campaigns: languages.
While an EU-wide campaign can use social media to pass mental barriers and cross national borders, languages are an obstacle and a challenge for civil society actors wanting to get their message across. Babel is a fact of life in Europe.
Without great organisations on their side, the civil society campaigners have to work themselves, build functioning networks through social media, and rely on other volunteers to spread the word in different languages and to drum up support.
The Campaign for a PES Primary has managed to get a helping hand from some Eurobloggers and socialist networks.
The French socialist collective 27roses.eu calls for people to join the Facebook group, as well as to act within their own party at national level.
In German, Martin on Europaeum finds that a primary would bring both the Party of European Socialists and the election to the European Parliament more publicity. Thus it would strengthen the EP.
In Romanian, Dan Luca has posted on the Casa Europei Cluj-Napoca (Europe House) blog, outlining a timetable for an EU-wide primary election for the candidate for the post of Commission President.
Francesca Barca wrote on Europa451.it, contrasting the lack of courage in the 2009 EP election with the level of energy the activists are aiming for in 2014.
I described the campaign on my Swedish blog, Grahnblawg, especially mentioning the Nordic social democratic parties and the competing Europarties being challenged by the PES activists.
On my Finnish blog, Eurooppaoikeus, I told the main things about the PES campaign and how to join it.
The Social Democratic Party in Finland will contribute to the future decision by the Party of European Socialists, but at this stage in Finland as elsewhere, the main question is to reach as many party activists in as many languages as possible, everywhere in the European Union.
The Campaign for a PES Primary is certainly working hard. Desmond O’Toole has just added new posts to the campaign blog, highlighting my entries on attitude obstacles and the presentation in Swedish as well as an entry that the French progressive think tank Eurocité has picked up the 27roses.eu article.
Overcoming linguistic diversity requires much work, but one small step at the time the online campaign is becoming known among socialists, social democrats and labour party members in the European Union.
New members have joined the Facebook campaign page, bringing the number of supporters to 935. The Twitter campaign page @PESPrimary is updated regularly, so social media are in play.
Still we may wonder if the networking efforts of an EU-wide social media campaign can really lift off before the big mainstream media players all over Europe start showing serious interest in this innovative and potentially transformative campaign.
The experiences of this campaign will be relevant for the civil society organisations and networks keen to test the citizens' initiative, when the implementing legislation is in place.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.
In this blog post we look at another critical issue for pan-EU online campaigns: languages.
While an EU-wide campaign can use social media to pass mental barriers and cross national borders, languages are an obstacle and a challenge for civil society actors wanting to get their message across. Babel is a fact of life in Europe.
Without great organisations on their side, the civil society campaigners have to work themselves, build functioning networks through social media, and rely on other volunteers to spread the word in different languages and to drum up support.
The Campaign for a PES Primary has managed to get a helping hand from some Eurobloggers and socialist networks.
The French socialist collective 27roses.eu calls for people to join the Facebook group, as well as to act within their own party at national level.
In German, Martin on Europaeum finds that a primary would bring both the Party of European Socialists and the election to the European Parliament more publicity. Thus it would strengthen the EP.
In Romanian, Dan Luca has posted on the Casa Europei Cluj-Napoca (Europe House) blog, outlining a timetable for an EU-wide primary election for the candidate for the post of Commission President.
Francesca Barca wrote on Europa451.it, contrasting the lack of courage in the 2009 EP election with the level of energy the activists are aiming for in 2014.
I described the campaign on my Swedish blog, Grahnblawg, especially mentioning the Nordic social democratic parties and the competing Europarties being challenged by the PES activists.
On my Finnish blog, Eurooppaoikeus, I told the main things about the PES campaign and how to join it.
The Social Democratic Party in Finland will contribute to the future decision by the Party of European Socialists, but at this stage in Finland as elsewhere, the main question is to reach as many party activists in as many languages as possible, everywhere in the European Union.
The Campaign for a PES Primary is certainly working hard. Desmond O’Toole has just added new posts to the campaign blog, highlighting my entries on attitude obstacles and the presentation in Swedish as well as an entry that the French progressive think tank Eurocité has picked up the 27roses.eu article.
Overcoming linguistic diversity requires much work, but one small step at the time the online campaign is becoming known among socialists, social democrats and labour party members in the European Union.
New members have joined the Facebook campaign page, bringing the number of supporters to 935. The Twitter campaign page @PESPrimary is updated regularly, so social media are in play.
Still we may wonder if the networking efforts of an EU-wide social media campaign can really lift off before the big mainstream media players all over Europe start showing serious interest in this innovative and potentially transformative campaign.
The experiences of this campaign will be relevant for the civil society organisations and networks keen to test the citizens' initiative, when the implementing legislation is in place.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.
Tuesday, 24 August 2010
Online campaign challenges in Europe: Inertia and hostility
Online media, or social media, potentially cross national and linguistic borders, but both attitudes and languages present formidable challenges for Europe-wide campaigns.
Here we take a look at attitudes.
In a blog post on Europaportalen, the Swedish researcher Jakob Larsson, who works in the Institute for Futures Studies (Institutet för framtidsstudier), yesterday wondered at how sluggish media attention given to EU issues is during the run-up to the parliament election on 19 September 2010, despite their obvious importance.
Sweden is not unique. In practically all member states of the European Union political parties and media deal with political and policy issues in a national framework. This reflects voter perceptions, but it also fails to educate the public.
During the Enlightenment, some philosophers managed to propagate new ideas beyond national borders, although most people continued to toil in local communities unaware of the paradigm shift taking place.
Despite great technological advances, Europe remains almost in the same situation. European affairs are still the domain of a minority of well-informed and alert people, who understand the interdependence and interaction between politics and issues at EU level and national level. Attitudes are passive and they change slowly.
Then there are the flat-earthers who actively keep digging deeper trenches, exemplified by EUReferendum. The Battle of Britain drones on, now into its 45th day. This could be an understandable mix of history and nostalgia, were it not based on unadulterated hostility towards everything which binds Europeans together:
A political online campaign for Europe has to contend with two attitude challenges: inertia and prejudice (even hatred).
The Campaign for a PES Primary is an example of an EU-wide political campaign, where party activists have to overcome both tardiness and hostility in order to gain wide enough support.
The Facebook campaign page has now gathered 921 members, and the grass root campaigners hope to reach 1,000 supporters by the end of August.
Not a bad start for a pioneering effort, but what (else) can civil society actors learn from the campaign?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.
Here we take a look at attitudes.
In a blog post on Europaportalen, the Swedish researcher Jakob Larsson, who works in the Institute for Futures Studies (Institutet för framtidsstudier), yesterday wondered at how sluggish media attention given to EU issues is during the run-up to the parliament election on 19 September 2010, despite their obvious importance.
Sweden is not unique. In practically all member states of the European Union political parties and media deal with political and policy issues in a national framework. This reflects voter perceptions, but it also fails to educate the public.
During the Enlightenment, some philosophers managed to propagate new ideas beyond national borders, although most people continued to toil in local communities unaware of the paradigm shift taking place.
Despite great technological advances, Europe remains almost in the same situation. European affairs are still the domain of a minority of well-informed and alert people, who understand the interdependence and interaction between politics and issues at EU level and national level. Attitudes are passive and they change slowly.
Then there are the flat-earthers who actively keep digging deeper trenches, exemplified by EUReferendum. The Battle of Britain drones on, now into its 45th day. This could be an understandable mix of history and nostalgia, were it not based on unadulterated hostility towards everything which binds Europeans together:
Fifty years of European political integration is not uniting us – it is dividing us, turning us back into enemies.
As Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Spaniards and the rest, they are our friends and allies, and deserve our respect. As "Europeans", they are Frogs, Huns, Ities, Dagos and the rest. They become our enemies and rivals. They get our enmity.
The "colleagues" need to wake up to this before it is too late. Leave us be, without trespassing on the "nooks and crannies" of our daily life and we are friends. Interfere and threaten us, and we are enemies. And they really don't want that. Look what happened last time.
A political online campaign for Europe has to contend with two attitude challenges: inertia and prejudice (even hatred).
The Campaign for a PES Primary is an example of an EU-wide political campaign, where party activists have to overcome both tardiness and hostility in order to gain wide enough support.
The Facebook campaign page has now gathered 921 members, and the grass root campaigners hope to reach 1,000 supporters by the end of August.
Not a bad start for a pioneering effort, but what (else) can civil society actors learn from the campaign?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.
Tuesday, 17 August 2010
Bloggingportal.eu and social media experiences in Grahnlaw post number 1,800
There is no magic in numbers, but it often feels comfortable to choose a certain date or an even number for a milestone. Say, the better life (learning Italian, keeping fit ... whatever) we start on 1 September – every year. Or, an even number of blog entries as an excuse to think aloud.
If active participants have called the Euroblogosphere self-referential, what can be more so than writing about your own blog, with no more justification than this being entry number 1,800 on Grahnlaw?
Temporarily, Grahnlaw has been centred more on Euroblogging and social media, than on issues of EU law, politics and policies. Online media offer unique opportunities for participation across linguistic and national borders, building European online public spaces. The explicit multilingual comment policy is one of new features on Grahnlaw.
Bloggingportal.eu
It has been a joy to see the continued growth of the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, which has now reached 651 blogs related to EU affairs (Euroblogs).
The editors’ choices on the front page of Bloggingportal.eu (and in the daily email newsletter), as well as the weekly roundup on the Bloggingportal.eu blog (and in the weekly newsletter), are valuable, but they reveal only the tip of the iceberg.
The continually updated stream of new posts is significantly down right now, due to the holiday season, but I expect Eurobloggers to return with zest, after rest, and the published posts are worth reading wherever you are.
Linguistic diversity? Virtually invisible interests?
This is only a snapshot at an arbitrary moment, but there is an astonishing difference between the size of the language communities in the European Union (European Economic Area) and blogger activity in the 25 languages on offer:
Among the 50 latest posts, there were 2 in Danish, 2 in German, 24 in English, 2 in Spanish, 3 in French, 1 in Norwegian, 1 in Polish, 1 in Portuguese and 14 in Swedish, when I checked.
Are there any conclusions you would like to draw?
Should bloggers engaged in European affairs take up the challenge to place their language (among the 16 missing from this sample) on the virtual map of the Euroblogosphere?
Are some linguistic communities under-represented, even if there was a post or two?
The European Union does not have exclusive competence in many policy areas, but it is active in more than thirty broad fields, with shared powers or in a complementary capacity, and a plethora of more narrow policy issues.
The EU is the frame of reference for many policy debates at national, regional and local level (although more seldom discussed in those terms locally).
There are huge numbers of European interest groups and associated national bodies, businesses, labour market organisations, EU and government officials, policy experts, consultants, lobbyists, EU projects, Europarties and their political foundations, politicians at all levels, NGOs, journalists, researchers, teachers, students, engaged citizens, and networks, who need to communicate with the outside world.
In my view, the Euroblogosphere needs more professional blogging on real issues, but online visibility is a key to success and interaction between different levels of governance is a necessity for various interests, although regular blogging is hard work.
Yesterday, Anne Christensen described on the Waltzing Matilda blog how the Commission and the other institutions of the European Union are upgrading their presence on social networks. This lays the foundations for a gradual shift from an information mindset to participation. Some day more politicians and officials may become courageous enough to venture onto outside forums as well, or at least start following exchanges on them.
If even institutional dinosaurs are on the move, shouldn’t nimble mammals be running ahead at high speed?
Naturally, the need for “hard information” is going nowhere. I need the Official Journal of the European Union, news and documents from the Council and the European Parliament, as well as other EU agencies and bodies, both for my blogging activities and in my work as a lawyer, interested in cross-border issues.
Online media offer valuable news and comments.
Volunteer work by editorial team
In principle, there is a chance to look for blog posts thematically (Topics button), but Bloggingportal.eu needs more voluntary editors to tag all new posts (and highlight the best ones).
The system of available tags is far from perfect, but with added programming skills on the editorial team, some improvements might be possible, even on the current platform.
Why not apply to join the team of editors?
Willingness to do grunt work (tagging), an eye for journalistic merit and original writing (not only among mainstream media), linguistic skills and programming abilities are much appreciated. Editorial independence is a valued asset, so people working for the EU institutions, or with pronounced commercial or organisational interests may not fit the bill to become editors, even if their blogs are welcome. Do not apply with the hidden agenda to promote your own posts: This is off limits.
Central and Eastern European languages are still under-represented among editors, as they are among Euroblogs.
The editors form a loose network, with little decision-making structures and even less executing powers, but the team is also a community which discusses common editorial issues, and the team spirit facilitates occasional personal contacts regarding other matters between individual editors.
Own experiences on other social media
I have participated actively on Twitter for a few months, and I use it to announce when I have published a new blog post, but especially to follow what others in the Euroblogosphere are saying, to retweet interesting entries or article links and sometimes to engage in discussions within the 140 character limit per tweet.
Almost daily, I find someone new with an interest in European affairs to follow, and it is usually a pleasure to find that somebody wants to follow my tweets.
Tags like #EU, #euroblog, #eulaw, #eurozone, #EP (European Parliament), #europarl, #EuTrioBe (Council presidency), #bkaeb (Better Know A EuroBlog recommendation), #EU2020 (for the economic reform strategy) and @bloggingportal help to keep me updated on the Euroblogosphere and media, when the tweets on the Home page keep disappearing at an increasing speed.
I follow a number of Euroblogs and media on my own blog - jestingly the “canonised version” although constantly developing - but also more widely through Google Reader and Bloglines feeds, as well as email subscriptions.
A few days ago I joined Facebook, after dithering for long, so I have only taken my first tentative steps. While getting the feel for the place, I have had time to add only a small number of friends, but I have been pleased to notice that already some blog readers, as well as other virtual and real life friends and acquaintances have taken the initiative.
It will be interesting to see how the Facebook experience pans out in the long run.
Incidentally, I found that there are great numbers of European and EU related groups (even if you look only in English), which could start blogging and join Bloggingportal.eu (if they have not done it by now).
How do you relate to European online media and social media networks, and how do you evaluate your own experiences?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. The Grahnlaw blog invites comments relevant to the topics discussed, but the number and the variety of spam comments seems to be increasing steadily. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your pertinent comment appears. Sometimes technical problems occur, such as yesterday when I received nine copies by the same author of the same comment, of which one copy was published.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
If active participants have called the Euroblogosphere self-referential, what can be more so than writing about your own blog, with no more justification than this being entry number 1,800 on Grahnlaw?
Temporarily, Grahnlaw has been centred more on Euroblogging and social media, than on issues of EU law, politics and policies. Online media offer unique opportunities for participation across linguistic and national borders, building European online public spaces. The explicit multilingual comment policy is one of new features on Grahnlaw.
Bloggingportal.eu
It has been a joy to see the continued growth of the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu, which has now reached 651 blogs related to EU affairs (Euroblogs).
The editors’ choices on the front page of Bloggingportal.eu (and in the daily email newsletter), as well as the weekly roundup on the Bloggingportal.eu blog (and in the weekly newsletter), are valuable, but they reveal only the tip of the iceberg.
The continually updated stream of new posts is significantly down right now, due to the holiday season, but I expect Eurobloggers to return with zest, after rest, and the published posts are worth reading wherever you are.
Linguistic diversity? Virtually invisible interests?
This is only a snapshot at an arbitrary moment, but there is an astonishing difference between the size of the language communities in the European Union (European Economic Area) and blogger activity in the 25 languages on offer:
Among the 50 latest posts, there were 2 in Danish, 2 in German, 24 in English, 2 in Spanish, 3 in French, 1 in Norwegian, 1 in Polish, 1 in Portuguese and 14 in Swedish, when I checked.
Are there any conclusions you would like to draw?
Should bloggers engaged in European affairs take up the challenge to place their language (among the 16 missing from this sample) on the virtual map of the Euroblogosphere?
Are some linguistic communities under-represented, even if there was a post or two?
The European Union does not have exclusive competence in many policy areas, but it is active in more than thirty broad fields, with shared powers or in a complementary capacity, and a plethora of more narrow policy issues.
The EU is the frame of reference for many policy debates at national, regional and local level (although more seldom discussed in those terms locally).
There are huge numbers of European interest groups and associated national bodies, businesses, labour market organisations, EU and government officials, policy experts, consultants, lobbyists, EU projects, Europarties and their political foundations, politicians at all levels, NGOs, journalists, researchers, teachers, students, engaged citizens, and networks, who need to communicate with the outside world.
In my view, the Euroblogosphere needs more professional blogging on real issues, but online visibility is a key to success and interaction between different levels of governance is a necessity for various interests, although regular blogging is hard work.
Yesterday, Anne Christensen described on the Waltzing Matilda blog how the Commission and the other institutions of the European Union are upgrading their presence on social networks. This lays the foundations for a gradual shift from an information mindset to participation. Some day more politicians and officials may become courageous enough to venture onto outside forums as well, or at least start following exchanges on them.
If even institutional dinosaurs are on the move, shouldn’t nimble mammals be running ahead at high speed?
Naturally, the need for “hard information” is going nowhere. I need the Official Journal of the European Union, news and documents from the Council and the European Parliament, as well as other EU agencies and bodies, both for my blogging activities and in my work as a lawyer, interested in cross-border issues.
Online media offer valuable news and comments.
Volunteer work by editorial team
In principle, there is a chance to look for blog posts thematically (Topics button), but Bloggingportal.eu needs more voluntary editors to tag all new posts (and highlight the best ones).
The system of available tags is far from perfect, but with added programming skills on the editorial team, some improvements might be possible, even on the current platform.
Why not apply to join the team of editors?
Willingness to do grunt work (tagging), an eye for journalistic merit and original writing (not only among mainstream media), linguistic skills and programming abilities are much appreciated. Editorial independence is a valued asset, so people working for the EU institutions, or with pronounced commercial or organisational interests may not fit the bill to become editors, even if their blogs are welcome. Do not apply with the hidden agenda to promote your own posts: This is off limits.
Central and Eastern European languages are still under-represented among editors, as they are among Euroblogs.
The editors form a loose network, with little decision-making structures and even less executing powers, but the team is also a community which discusses common editorial issues, and the team spirit facilitates occasional personal contacts regarding other matters between individual editors.
Own experiences on other social media
I have participated actively on Twitter for a few months, and I use it to announce when I have published a new blog post, but especially to follow what others in the Euroblogosphere are saying, to retweet interesting entries or article links and sometimes to engage in discussions within the 140 character limit per tweet.
Almost daily, I find someone new with an interest in European affairs to follow, and it is usually a pleasure to find that somebody wants to follow my tweets.
Tags like #EU, #euroblog, #eulaw, #eurozone, #EP (European Parliament), #europarl, #EuTrioBe (Council presidency), #bkaeb (Better Know A EuroBlog recommendation), #EU2020 (for the economic reform strategy) and @bloggingportal help to keep me updated on the Euroblogosphere and media, when the tweets on the Home page keep disappearing at an increasing speed.
I follow a number of Euroblogs and media on my own blog - jestingly the “canonised version” although constantly developing - but also more widely through Google Reader and Bloglines feeds, as well as email subscriptions.
A few days ago I joined Facebook, after dithering for long, so I have only taken my first tentative steps. While getting the feel for the place, I have had time to add only a small number of friends, but I have been pleased to notice that already some blog readers, as well as other virtual and real life friends and acquaintances have taken the initiative.
It will be interesting to see how the Facebook experience pans out in the long run.
Incidentally, I found that there are great numbers of European and EU related groups (even if you look only in English), which could start blogging and join Bloggingportal.eu (if they have not done it by now).
How do you relate to European online media and social media networks, and how do you evaluate your own experiences?
Ralf Grahn
P.S. The Grahnlaw blog invites comments relevant to the topics discussed, but the number and the variety of spam comments seems to be increasing steadily. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your pertinent comment appears. Sometimes technical problems occur, such as yesterday when I received nine copies by the same author of the same comment, of which one copy was published.
It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Saturday, 14 August 2010
EU Commission President: Campaign for a PES-PSE Primary growing by the day
Social media are a wonderful thing. Online you can make contacts and campaign for good causes across borders, such as the Campaign for a PES Primary we looked at yesterday. Check for updates on the active blog, which gets today’s #bkaeb recommendation (the Twitter tag for Better Know A EuroBlog, a #FF or #followfriday for Euroblogs).
In less than 24 hours the online media campaign on Facebook has grown by 60 persons (from 590 to 650). I hope that all members of the social democratic, socialist and labour parties in Europe, especially the activists of the Party of European Socialists (PES; Parti socialiste européen, PSE), join the demand to hold primary elections, involving PES party members across Europe, to select their candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission.
Naturally, I am going to be even more impressed if the PES-PSE shows the way, although as an independent citizen of the EU and Finland I am not included in the target group - party members – but see the campaign in the wider context of developing European level representative democracy.
Since PES-PSE activists were the first off the blocks, my thoughts turn to people active in other constructive national political parties and Europarties. Are they ready to take up the challenge in their own political party at European level, and do they have enough drive to make their Europarty commit to democratic primaries ahead of the European Parliament election in 2014?
There are two parts to the challenge. First of all, each Europarty should clearly and visibly field its candidate for the presidency of the European Commission ahead of the European Parliament election in 2014. Second, the nomination of the candidate should be decided through a democratic primary election in each political party.
A President of the European Commission with a stronger mandate from voters is not enough to turn the European Union into a parliamentary democracy, and it would not by itself institute politically accountable government at EU level, but it is a step in the right direction, well worth campaigning for and deciding on.
In the Euroblogosphere, Jon Worth and The European Citizen wrote about the campaign for a PES primary before the first entry appeared here on Grahnlaw. Follow the stream of new posts on Bloggingportal.eu to see when other Euroblogs take up the challenge by spreading the word.
The European public online space keeps growing. Multilingual Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates the posts of 648 blogs related to EU affairs (Euroblogs).
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
In less than 24 hours the online media campaign on Facebook has grown by 60 persons (from 590 to 650). I hope that all members of the social democratic, socialist and labour parties in Europe, especially the activists of the Party of European Socialists (PES; Parti socialiste européen, PSE), join the demand to hold primary elections, involving PES party members across Europe, to select their candidate for the Presidency of the European Commission.
Naturally, I am going to be even more impressed if the PES-PSE shows the way, although as an independent citizen of the EU and Finland I am not included in the target group - party members – but see the campaign in the wider context of developing European level representative democracy.
Since PES-PSE activists were the first off the blocks, my thoughts turn to people active in other constructive national political parties and Europarties. Are they ready to take up the challenge in their own political party at European level, and do they have enough drive to make their Europarty commit to democratic primaries ahead of the European Parliament election in 2014?
There are two parts to the challenge. First of all, each Europarty should clearly and visibly field its candidate for the presidency of the European Commission ahead of the European Parliament election in 2014. Second, the nomination of the candidate should be decided through a democratic primary election in each political party.
A President of the European Commission with a stronger mandate from voters is not enough to turn the European Union into a parliamentary democracy, and it would not by itself institute politically accountable government at EU level, but it is a step in the right direction, well worth campaigning for and deciding on.
In the Euroblogosphere, Jon Worth and The European Citizen wrote about the campaign for a PES primary before the first entry appeared here on Grahnlaw. Follow the stream of new posts on Bloggingportal.eu to see when other Euroblogs take up the challenge by spreading the word.
The European public online space keeps growing. Multilingual Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates the posts of 648 blogs related to EU affairs (Euroblogs).
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Sunday, 8 August 2010
Euroblog interaction: Communities (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Sorry for this post from the "field" without links, but here are a few thoughts about some of the important players in the Euroblogosphere: the communities.
The Taurillon family (discussed in detail in the previous post), Eurotribune, Cafe Babel and a few new (and potential) entrants do a fine job of communicating European issues, and they seem to work well enough as communities (between members).
It would be a nice addition to see them engage more with other Euroblogs, through commenting, linking, promoting etc.
The #bkaeb Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge is one opportunity to start engaging more between communities, hopefully on a permanent basis.
Ralf Grahn
The Taurillon family (discussed in detail in the previous post), Eurotribune, Cafe Babel and a few new (and potential) entrants do a fine job of communicating European issues, and they seem to work well enough as communities (between members).
It would be a nice addition to see them engage more with other Euroblogs, through commenting, linking, promoting etc.
The #bkaeb Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge is one opportunity to start engaging more between communities, hopefully on a permanent basis.
Ralf Grahn
Friday, 6 August 2010
Euroblog: The Taurillon family resurrected (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
About a week ago I wondered where Le Taurillon and its sibling publications had disappeared without any notice I had seen. The blog post did not draw any official response from the editors, who may think that actions speak louder than words.
Without further discussion about the art of public relations, let us rejoice that Le Taurillon, magazine eurocitoyen, has made its (equally unexplained, it seems) reappearance, and that subscribers are receiving new articles.
We notice the “black hole” clearly, and the ezines have mainly filled gaps left during the offline period, but it is a good start.
Earlier I made the mistake to speak about sister publications, but some of the names are quite bullish, so let us switch to the gender neutral “sibling”.
In the Greek myth, Europa was very much a woman, who was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull.
Le Taurillon
Le Taurillon is the French version, and it seems to be the hub of the publishing activities.
Sébastien Antoine has written latest articles published, about the role of European mega-cities and EU urban policies in the era of globalisation: La région métropolitéenne européenne : quelle cohésion dans quelle globalisation ? 1/2 and 2/2.
Pierre Bonifassi argues how the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognises the Kosovo declaration of independence, but the political dependence of Kosovo remains.
Bonifassi’s blog post was published 4 August 2010, but the offline period due to technical problems means that we have to go back to 8 July to find the previous entry, an interview with Catherine Soullie MEP on EU security and defence policies.
The New Federalist
The New Federalist (Webzine of the Young European Federalists) has returned online with an English translation of an article where Pascal Malosse argues for a European response to the German decision to ban bare sales.
In the previous entry, published about two weeks earlier, Malossi argued why the European Council conclusions of 17 June 2010 on economic governance were a disappointment.
Eurobull
The Italian version is called Eurobull (La rivista che fa luce sull’Europa). It has made its comeback with a post written during the football World Cup. Giorgio Anselmi gave reasons for optimism with regard to European soccer teams and the future of European political integration.
For the previous entry we have to go back to 14 July 2010, when Federica Martiny called for a democratic European Union, in the footsteps of Altiero Spinelli and the Crocodile Club.
Treffpunkt Europa
The German version is called Treffpunkt Europa. On the Taurillon website you can access articles published until 16 July 2010, although a spate of them just appeared in my reader.
However, the new Treffpunkt Europa website I mentioned earlier seems to have disappeared, including the posts published there. Perhaps some PR minded soul could clarify(?)
Young European Federalists (JEF)
Le Taurillon, The New Federalist, Eurobull and Treffpunkt Europa have more in common than a website, namely the JEF.
There is a short Wikipedia entry on the Young European Federalists (JEF, French Jeunes Européens fédéralistes, German Junge Europäische Föderalisten, Italian Gioventù Federalista Europea, Czech Mladí evropští federalisté etc.), the umbrella organisation of 35 national sections.
The different language versions of the ezine are similar, but not identical. Young writers publish an article (in their own language), and volunteer translators help to spread the contents to one or more of the other language versions.
Thus, Le Taurillon and its siblings form a collective or network, which manages to cross linguistic and national borders. They are an important part of the emerging online European public space, with discussion ranging from the fundamentals of European integration to quite technical posts on diverse EU policy issues.
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the real world and the online world do not aestivate (pass the summer in a state of torpor). For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week (stream of new posts). In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow (a changing list).
On Bloggingportal.eu, Le Taurillon (multilingual, although listed only as French) and The New Federalist (multilingual, although listed only as English) are listed in the category Civil society / NGOs. They are recorded as having published four entries each during the last seven days, but in fact they are the same posts (the same multilingual stream).
Bloggingportal.eu readers voted for their favourite Euroblogs during the “time of troubles” over at Le Taurillon (The New Federalist and Eurobull), so the only active blog in the network was Treffpunkt Europa with two substantive articles and two technical announcements to its immediate credit. As the only available representative of the herd of young bulls, Treffpunkt Europa was voted the second most popular Euroblog among the thirty nominations.
The French and the German versions are listed on the Collective page of the Netvibes collection of Euroblogs made by the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels. However, at this moment both links lead to the same Le Taurillon page in French, where the English, German and Italian versions are a further click away.
In my subjective view, the Taurillon family would rank among the top ten (must read) Euroblogs (although you can discuss different types of online or social media: blogs, ezines, emagazines...).
The Taurillon family is well worth the #bkaeb seal of approval, intended to serve as a recognition and an inspiration. Hopefully getting back into full production mode after the offline spell, the JEF volunteers produce quality writing giving valuable input on various aspects of European integration and EU policies. The translators help to produce localised content on common European themes, contributing to the online public space in four major European languages: English, French, German and Italian.
Only the JEF 35 years age limit prevents the Taurillon group from being the pan-European blog some have called for, if it does not require a firm anti-federalist component.
The Taurillon family and other Euroblogs offer an enjoyable way to learn foreign languages while getting to know more about issues important for our common future.
Welcome back online!
I wish Le Taurillon, The New Federalist, Eurobull and Treffpunkt Europa the best for the future.
By the way, Bloggingportal.eu has grown to 642 Euroblogs listed.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Without further discussion about the art of public relations, let us rejoice that Le Taurillon, magazine eurocitoyen, has made its (equally unexplained, it seems) reappearance, and that subscribers are receiving new articles.
We notice the “black hole” clearly, and the ezines have mainly filled gaps left during the offline period, but it is a good start.
Earlier I made the mistake to speak about sister publications, but some of the names are quite bullish, so let us switch to the gender neutral “sibling”.
In the Greek myth, Europa was very much a woman, who was abducted by Zeus in the form of a bull.
Le Taurillon
Le Taurillon is the French version, and it seems to be the hub of the publishing activities.
Sébastien Antoine has written latest articles published, about the role of European mega-cities and EU urban policies in the era of globalisation: La région métropolitéenne européenne : quelle cohésion dans quelle globalisation ? 1/2 and 2/2.
Pierre Bonifassi argues how the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognises the Kosovo declaration of independence, but the political dependence of Kosovo remains.
Bonifassi’s blog post was published 4 August 2010, but the offline period due to technical problems means that we have to go back to 8 July to find the previous entry, an interview with Catherine Soullie MEP on EU security and defence policies.
The New Federalist
The New Federalist (Webzine of the Young European Federalists) has returned online with an English translation of an article where Pascal Malosse argues for a European response to the German decision to ban bare sales.
In the previous entry, published about two weeks earlier, Malossi argued why the European Council conclusions of 17 June 2010 on economic governance were a disappointment.
Eurobull
The Italian version is called Eurobull (La rivista che fa luce sull’Europa). It has made its comeback with a post written during the football World Cup. Giorgio Anselmi gave reasons for optimism with regard to European soccer teams and the future of European political integration.
For the previous entry we have to go back to 14 July 2010, when Federica Martiny called for a democratic European Union, in the footsteps of Altiero Spinelli and the Crocodile Club.
Treffpunkt Europa
The German version is called Treffpunkt Europa. On the Taurillon website you can access articles published until 16 July 2010, although a spate of them just appeared in my reader.
However, the new Treffpunkt Europa website I mentioned earlier seems to have disappeared, including the posts published there. Perhaps some PR minded soul could clarify(?)
Young European Federalists (JEF)
Le Taurillon, The New Federalist, Eurobull and Treffpunkt Europa have more in common than a website, namely the JEF.
There is a short Wikipedia entry on the Young European Federalists (JEF, French Jeunes Européens fédéralistes, German Junge Europäische Föderalisten, Italian Gioventù Federalista Europea, Czech Mladí evropští federalisté etc.), the umbrella organisation of 35 national sections.
The different language versions of the ezine are similar, but not identical. Young writers publish an article (in their own language), and volunteer translators help to spread the contents to one or more of the other language versions.
Thus, Le Taurillon and its siblings form a collective or network, which manages to cross linguistic and national borders. They are an important part of the emerging online European public space, with discussion ranging from the fundamentals of European integration to quite technical posts on diverse EU policy issues.
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the real world and the online world do not aestivate (pass the summer in a state of torpor). For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week (stream of new posts). In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow (a changing list).
On Bloggingportal.eu, Le Taurillon (multilingual, although listed only as French) and The New Federalist (multilingual, although listed only as English) are listed in the category Civil society / NGOs. They are recorded as having published four entries each during the last seven days, but in fact they are the same posts (the same multilingual stream).
Bloggingportal.eu readers voted for their favourite Euroblogs during the “time of troubles” over at Le Taurillon (The New Federalist and Eurobull), so the only active blog in the network was Treffpunkt Europa with two substantive articles and two technical announcements to its immediate credit. As the only available representative of the herd of young bulls, Treffpunkt Europa was voted the second most popular Euroblog among the thirty nominations.
The French and the German versions are listed on the Collective page of the Netvibes collection of Euroblogs made by the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels. However, at this moment both links lead to the same Le Taurillon page in French, where the English, German and Italian versions are a further click away.
In my subjective view, the Taurillon family would rank among the top ten (must read) Euroblogs (although you can discuss different types of online or social media: blogs, ezines, emagazines...).
The Taurillon family is well worth the #bkaeb seal of approval, intended to serve as a recognition and an inspiration. Hopefully getting back into full production mode after the offline spell, the JEF volunteers produce quality writing giving valuable input on various aspects of European integration and EU policies. The translators help to produce localised content on common European themes, contributing to the online public space in four major European languages: English, French, German and Italian.
Only the JEF 35 years age limit prevents the Taurillon group from being the pan-European blog some have called for, if it does not require a firm anti-federalist component.
The Taurillon family and other Euroblogs offer an enjoyable way to learn foreign languages while getting to know more about issues important for our common future.
Welcome back online!
I wish Le Taurillon, The New Federalist, Eurobull and Treffpunkt Europa the best for the future.
By the way, Bloggingportal.eu has grown to 642 Euroblogs listed.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Thursday, 5 August 2010
Euroblog: Franco-German EU girl geeks - vasistas? (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Long before the world of online media or social media, in La Débâcle (The Downfall), the novelist Émile Zola described the ravages of war from the perspective of ordinary people, even if he hoped that a new France could be raised from the ashes.
Sadly, the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71, leading to the downfall of the Second Empire in France and the proclamation of the German Empire, was not to be the last devastating conflict between these two great European nations.
After the Second World War the relations between France and Germany have developed on twin tracks: European integration starting with the Schuman declaration (1950) and bilateral cooperation based on the Elysée Treaty (1963).
vasistas? blog
„Das französisch-deutsche Weblog – Le blog franco-allemand“ (The Franco-German blog) is how vasistas? describes itself on the front page. The About page offers us a bilingual description of the themes of vasistas?, such as digital rights, the European Union, human rights, as well as politics and society in the digital age.
vasistas? publishes frequently in German or French (with a smattering of English).
27C3: We come in peace (in German) spreads the word about the next Chaos Computer Congress, on 27 to 30 December 2010 in Berlin. The French version of 27C3: We come in peace is the latest blog entry in that language.
Überarbeitung der EU-Datenschutzrichtlinie nicht vor 2011 tells us that the formal Commission proposal to reform the Data Protection Directive 1995/46 will be postponed to the latter half of 2011.
Instrumente der Europäischen Union zum Datenmanagement offers a German version of the Commission’s press release about EU information management instruments, with a summary of instruments regulating the collection, storage or cross-border exchange of personal data for the purpose of law enforcement or migration management.
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb, which stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
On Bloggingportal.eu vasistas?, a team of two, has been placed in the category Individuals, and it has published five entries during the last seven days.
The authors, who present themselves only as kirsten and marine, produce one of the hidden treasures of the Euroblogosphere. The #bkaeb recommendation is meant to draw attention of readers to a good Euroblog and to inspire its writers.
The vasistas? entries about data protection and challenges in the digital era deal with issues important for individuals and organisations alike. There are many bridges to build in the Euroblogosphere, and vasistas? does its part in the construction work, between two important linguistic communities.
Women who combine techie stuff and EU issues gather at the EU girl geeks’ Table607, where you find some of the active female Eurobloggers, including the authors of vasistas?
Are you a female Euroblogger? Perhaps you should join? Table607 has a Contact page for you.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Sadly, the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71, leading to the downfall of the Second Empire in France and the proclamation of the German Empire, was not to be the last devastating conflict between these two great European nations.
After the Second World War the relations between France and Germany have developed on twin tracks: European integration starting with the Schuman declaration (1950) and bilateral cooperation based on the Elysée Treaty (1963).
vasistas? blog
„Das französisch-deutsche Weblog – Le blog franco-allemand“ (The Franco-German blog) is how vasistas? describes itself on the front page. The About page offers us a bilingual description of the themes of vasistas?, such as digital rights, the European Union, human rights, as well as politics and society in the digital age.
vasistas? publishes frequently in German or French (with a smattering of English).
27C3: We come in peace (in German) spreads the word about the next Chaos Computer Congress, on 27 to 30 December 2010 in Berlin. The French version of 27C3: We come in peace is the latest blog entry in that language.
Überarbeitung der EU-Datenschutzrichtlinie nicht vor 2011 tells us that the formal Commission proposal to reform the Data Protection Directive 1995/46 will be postponed to the latter half of 2011.
Instrumente der Europäischen Union zum Datenmanagement offers a German version of the Commission’s press release about EU information management instruments, with a summary of instruments regulating the collection, storage or cross-border exchange of personal data for the purpose of law enforcement or migration management.
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb, which stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
On Bloggingportal.eu vasistas?, a team of two, has been placed in the category Individuals, and it has published five entries during the last seven days.
The authors, who present themselves only as kirsten and marine, produce one of the hidden treasures of the Euroblogosphere. The #bkaeb recommendation is meant to draw attention of readers to a good Euroblog and to inspire its writers.
The vasistas? entries about data protection and challenges in the digital era deal with issues important for individuals and organisations alike. There are many bridges to build in the Euroblogosphere, and vasistas? does its part in the construction work, between two important linguistic communities.
Women who combine techie stuff and EU issues gather at the EU girl geeks’ Table607, where you find some of the active female Eurobloggers, including the authors of vasistas?
Are you a female Euroblogger? Perhaps you should join? Table607 has a Contact page for you.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
Great Euroblog on social media: Waltzing Matilda (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
“The views and ideas in this blog are entirely those of the authors and do not represent the official position of the European Commission”, make the blog Waltzing Matilda sound more like a promise than a threat, given the less than cuddly image of the EU institutions.
Based at the social media team of the European Commission’s DG Communication, Waltzing Matilda sets out to look at evolutions and revolutions in the social media world.
The latest post, however, makes us wonder what the future will hold: Alenka Natek reflects on the end of her traineeship.
This leaves only two team members, Bert Van Maele and Anne Christensen.
The latest Waltzing Matilda post directly related to social media was, in EU jargon, inter-institutional in character: an interview with the Web Communication Unit of the European Parliament. Their work includes several social media platforms, not forgetting the Writing for (y)EU blog we mentioned yesterday. However, their main job is to run the web pages of the EP. The interview ends with good advice for communicators in other organisations.
The war room describes how organisations need to use social media: centralise the development of core messages and decentralise the distribution to and interaction with the outside world.
In an interview with Antonia Mochan, Waltzing Matilda tells us how the European Commission’s Representation in the United Kingdom uses social media including Antonia’s blog, in order to engage directly with people. – A quote worth remembering:
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
On Bloggingportal.eu Waltzing Matilda has been placed in the category Commissioners, and it has published one entry during the last seven days.
Waltzing Matilda was one of the more popular Euroblogs among Bloggingportal.eu readers.
On the Netvibes pages of the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels, Waltzing Matilda is listed among EU officials in the selection of Euroblogs.
Waltzing Matilda is well worth the #bkaeb seal of approval. The entries about online media are of durable interest to public and private organisations, and the blog posts are well written. If possible, the (now decimated) blog team could try to publish more frequently, possibly by recruiting new members.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Based at the social media team of the European Commission’s DG Communication, Waltzing Matilda sets out to look at evolutions and revolutions in the social media world.
The latest post, however, makes us wonder what the future will hold: Alenka Natek reflects on the end of her traineeship.
This leaves only two team members, Bert Van Maele and Anne Christensen.
The latest Waltzing Matilda post directly related to social media was, in EU jargon, inter-institutional in character: an interview with the Web Communication Unit of the European Parliament. Their work includes several social media platforms, not forgetting the Writing for (y)EU blog we mentioned yesterday. However, their main job is to run the web pages of the EP. The interview ends with good advice for communicators in other organisations.
The war room describes how organisations need to use social media: centralise the development of core messages and decentralise the distribution to and interaction with the outside world.
In an interview with Antonia Mochan, Waltzing Matilda tells us how the European Commission’s Representation in the United Kingdom uses social media including Antonia’s blog, in order to engage directly with people. – A quote worth remembering:
One should think of social media as a reception rather than a meeting.
#bkaeb Twitter tag
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
On Bloggingportal.eu Waltzing Matilda has been placed in the category Commissioners, and it has published one entry during the last seven days.
Waltzing Matilda was one of the more popular Euroblogs among Bloggingportal.eu readers.
On the Netvibes pages of the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels, Waltzing Matilda is listed among EU officials in the selection of Euroblogs.
Waltzing Matilda is well worth the #bkaeb seal of approval. The entries about online media are of durable interest to public and private organisations, and the blog posts are well written. If possible, the (now decimated) blog team could try to publish more frequently, possibly by recruiting new members.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Tuesday, 3 August 2010
How to miss a Euroblog endorsement in style: Writing for (y)EU (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
The Twitter tag #bkaeb stands for Better Know A EuroBlog, and it is meant for blog posts recommending a certain Euroblog to potential readers. The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) for blogs related to EU affairs.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective Bloggingportal.eu criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
The criteria led to the exclusion of Writing for (y)EU, the collective blog of the web team of the European Parliament, which has not been active in almost two weeks (more than three, if you count only original writing). The archives are still worth a visit, because the entries deal with interesting online issues.
It is not exclusively my opinion that Writing for (y)EU, when active, is a star in the Euroblogosphere. It shared first place among the three most popular blogs for Bloggingportal.eu editors (with L’Europe en blogs and Grahnlaw), and it clearly won the reader poll.
Writing for (y)EU is one of the selection of top ten Euroblogs (all categories) by the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels.
The web editors have to underline that Writing for (y)EU is NOT an official European Parliament website, and that it DOES NOT reflect in any way the position of the EP.
The web team stays well clear of political issues, but the European Parliament deserves some credit for giving the editors a long enough leash to produce an interesting blog.
If the Prague Spring was about “socialism with a human face”, Writing for (y)EU manages to make the European Parliament seem almost human. Hopefully, similar experiments are allowed to grow and prosper in other EU institutions as well, without threats of normalization.
Writing for (y)EU can draw on the talents of a multinational team, with a variety of interests. I am going to mention only two recent posts as examples.
In When Luther came to Brussels... Hanna relates the Nordic influence on the long haul to improve transparency, openness, access to documents and clarity of EU communication.
Tayebot describes the successful editorial model of the online Huffington Post, and reflects on the possible lessons for EU communications more willing to experiment.
Writing for (y)EU fails to get my #bkaeb endorsement at this point in time, but at least the blog fails in style.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Despite holiday season for the EU institutions, the online world does not aestivate. For the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I decided to endorse blogs listed on Bloggingportal.eu and active during the last week. In addition to the objective Bloggingportal.eu criteria, I narrowed down the potential endorsements to Euroblogs I follow.
The criteria led to the exclusion of Writing for (y)EU, the collective blog of the web team of the European Parliament, which has not been active in almost two weeks (more than three, if you count only original writing). The archives are still worth a visit, because the entries deal with interesting online issues.
It is not exclusively my opinion that Writing for (y)EU, when active, is a star in the Euroblogosphere. It shared first place among the three most popular blogs for Bloggingportal.eu editors (with L’Europe en blogs and Grahnlaw), and it clearly won the reader poll.
Writing for (y)EU is one of the selection of top ten Euroblogs (all categories) by the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels.
The web editors have to underline that Writing for (y)EU is NOT an official European Parliament website, and that it DOES NOT reflect in any way the position of the EP.
The web team stays well clear of political issues, but the European Parliament deserves some credit for giving the editors a long enough leash to produce an interesting blog.
If the Prague Spring was about “socialism with a human face”, Writing for (y)EU manages to make the European Parliament seem almost human. Hopefully, similar experiments are allowed to grow and prosper in other EU institutions as well, without threats of normalization.
Writing for (y)EU can draw on the talents of a multinational team, with a variety of interests. I am going to mention only two recent posts as examples.
In When Luther came to Brussels... Hanna relates the Nordic influence on the long haul to improve transparency, openness, access to documents and clarity of EU communication.
Tayebot describes the successful editorial model of the online Huffington Post, and reflects on the possible lessons for EU communications more willing to experiment.
Writing for (y)EU fails to get my #bkaeb endorsement at this point in time, but at least the blog fails in style.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Monday, 2 August 2010
WSJ blog: Real Time Brussels (Twitter tag #bkaeb)
Martin on Europaeum proposed the new Twitter tag for blog posts presenting Euroblogs worth reading: #bkaeb (for Better Know A EuroBlog). The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) recommending Euroblogs.
Holiday season is reflected in the low number of blog entries aggregated on Bloggingportal.eu right now, but for my contribution to the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I am going to deal only with blogs which have published recently.
Naturally, the eligible Euroblogs (related to EU affairs) have to be ones I follow among those listed on Bloggingportal.eu.
Blogs kept by (mainstream) media or written by professional journalists are important and influential in the Euroblogosphere, even when the blog is only a sideline to the main reporting activities.
Based on its knowledge of the EU economic and political scene, the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels has selected fifteen Euroblogs by journalists.
One of these emblematic Euroblogs is the Wall Street Journal blog Real Time Brussels, which combines insider and outsider traits, explaining “Europe” to mainly US readers.
Most of the Real Time Brussels entries deal with serious stuff, such as France and Germany on economic government, fake goods (counterfeit and pirated products), European bank stress tests, EU population and demographic trends, antitrust (competition), large scale investment into agriculture in developing countries (land grabbing), value-added tax (VAT), the European Central Bank (ECB) and high-denomination euro banknotes, and economic recovery.
Sometimes Real Time Brussels takes a stroll from the office to the playground, as when it reports on the rapidly growing parakeet population in the de facto capital of the European Union.
Relevant issues and professional writing make WSJ Real Time Brussels one of the Euroblogs to follow.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
Holiday season is reflected in the low number of blog entries aggregated on Bloggingportal.eu right now, but for my contribution to the Better Know A EuroBlog August 2010 challenge I am going to deal only with blogs which have published recently.
Naturally, the eligible Euroblogs (related to EU affairs) have to be ones I follow among those listed on Bloggingportal.eu.
Blogs kept by (mainstream) media or written by professional journalists are important and influential in the Euroblogosphere, even when the blog is only a sideline to the main reporting activities.
Based on its knowledge of the EU economic and political scene, the public affairs consultancy Fleishman-Hillard Brussels has selected fifteen Euroblogs by journalists.
One of these emblematic Euroblogs is the Wall Street Journal blog Real Time Brussels, which combines insider and outsider traits, explaining “Europe” to mainly US readers.
Most of the Real Time Brussels entries deal with serious stuff, such as France and Germany on economic government, fake goods (counterfeit and pirated products), European bank stress tests, EU population and demographic trends, antitrust (competition), large scale investment into agriculture in developing countries (land grabbing), value-added tax (VAT), the European Central Bank (ECB) and high-denomination euro banknotes, and economic recovery.
Sometimes Real Time Brussels takes a stroll from the office to the playground, as when it reports on the rapidly growing parakeet population in the de facto capital of the European Union.
Relevant issues and professional writing make WSJ Real Time Brussels one of the Euroblogs to follow.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Sunday, 1 August 2010
Better Know A EuroBlog: August 2010 challenge
To much public acclaim, Martin on Europaeum proposed a new Twitter tag for blog posts presenting Euroblogs worth reading: #bkaeb (for “Better Know A EuroBlog”). The new tag has been described as a #followfriday (or #ff) recommending Euroblogs.
My own modest efforts to highlight other Euroblogs have led to two #bkaeb posts this far. The first post was on The European Citizen, a blog on relevant issues and with original content about the politics and law of the European Union.
The second #bkaeb post recalled Nosemonkey and Jon Worth as Founding Fathers among individual Eurobloggers.
After three blogs in English, it would have been nice to add some linguistic diversity, but instead my attention was drawn to the gaping hole left by now offline Le Taurillon (in French), as well as its sister publications in English and Italian (and German).
As we can see from the comments, as a stop-gap measure the German JEF activists had launched a separate blog, Treffpunkt Europa, but unfortunately without access to the database with earlier posts.
With no Le Taurillon post to read, and only four for Treffpunkt.Europa, I did not use the tag #bkaeb for my blog post yesterday.
I miss the French Le Taurillon, as well as The New Federalist (in English) and Eurobull (in Italian), and I hope that they reappear on their new server as soon as possible.
It is probably as futile to reject English as a bridging language today as it was to resist Latin as the common language of learning during medieval times, but individual blogs can reach out to respect the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe, while promoting the shared values and joint actions aiming at improving the European Union.
The online world of social media thrives on linking and sharing. The Euroblogosphere offers the special opportunity to connect people across linguistic and national borders in the quest for a better future.
Here is my August 2010 challenge to Eurobloggers: I hope to see many Euroblog entries on Bloggingportal.eu and #bkaeb tweets promoting cross-border discussion in the pan-European online public space.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly, and as Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
My own modest efforts to highlight other Euroblogs have led to two #bkaeb posts this far. The first post was on The European Citizen, a blog on relevant issues and with original content about the politics and law of the European Union.
The second #bkaeb post recalled Nosemonkey and Jon Worth as Founding Fathers among individual Eurobloggers.
After three blogs in English, it would have been nice to add some linguistic diversity, but instead my attention was drawn to the gaping hole left by now offline Le Taurillon (in French), as well as its sister publications in English and Italian (and German).
As we can see from the comments, as a stop-gap measure the German JEF activists had launched a separate blog, Treffpunkt Europa, but unfortunately without access to the database with earlier posts.
With no Le Taurillon post to read, and only four for Treffpunkt.Europa, I did not use the tag #bkaeb for my blog post yesterday.
I miss the French Le Taurillon, as well as The New Federalist (in English) and Eurobull (in Italian), and I hope that they reappear on their new server as soon as possible.
It is probably as futile to reject English as a bridging language today as it was to resist Latin as the common language of learning during medieval times, but individual blogs can reach out to respect the rich cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe, while promoting the shared values and joint actions aiming at improving the European Union.
The online world of social media thrives on linking and sharing. The Euroblogosphere offers the special opportunity to connect people across linguistic and national borders in the quest for a better future.
Here is my August 2010 challenge to Eurobloggers: I hope to see many Euroblog entries on Bloggingportal.eu and #bkaeb tweets promoting cross-border discussion in the pan-European online public space.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly, and as Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Saturday, 31 July 2010
Euroblogs: Where is Le Taurillon?
What has happened to Le Taurillon, the once active and alert online magazine for EU citizens in French, and the hub for articles in English, German and Italian sister publications?
According to Bloggingportal.eu, the latest blog post on Le Taurillon was published more than two weeks ago. Taurillon on Twitter is silent too, with the last tweet on 8 July 2010.
When you try to access the webpages of Le Taurillon, you are met by a Forbidden notice.
The new German blog Treffpunkt.Europa, which seems to have been in existence only since 19 July 2010, mentions technical problems at Taurillon and posted a similar explanation a week later.
Are the problems technical or financial, or has the production and translation network of Young European Federalists (JEF) broken down?
It would be interesting to know what has happened to Le Taurillon and its English and Italian sister publications (ezines or blogs), which have been an important part of the European online public space. Naturally, explanations about the prospects for their resurrection are as eagerly awaited.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly, and as Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
According to Bloggingportal.eu, the latest blog post on Le Taurillon was published more than two weeks ago. Taurillon on Twitter is silent too, with the last tweet on 8 July 2010.
When you try to access the webpages of Le Taurillon, you are met by a Forbidden notice.
The new German blog Treffpunkt.Europa, which seems to have been in existence only since 19 July 2010, mentions technical problems at Taurillon and posted a similar explanation a week later.
Are the problems technical or financial, or has the production and translation network of Young European Federalists (JEF) broken down?
It would be interesting to know what has happened to Le Taurillon and its English and Italian sister publications (ezines or blogs), which have been an important part of the European online public space. Naturally, explanations about the prospects for their resurrection are as eagerly awaited.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly, and as Eurobloggers we should promote interaction among Europeans. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:
I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Monday, 26 July 2010
Mathew Lowry and the European online public sphere
Martin on Europaeum launched the Twitter hash tag #bkaeb for Better Know A EuroBlog, for blog posts giving reasons for reading a specific Euroblog.
Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil has been mentioned frequently on Grahnlaw, because Mathew has spent a lot of time and effort thinking aloud about the European online public space.
Please, take the time to read a number of older blog entries to get acquainted with the state of the Eurosphere.
In this #bkaeb post I am going to refer to the two latest posts only.
Mathew presents his starting points on group blogs, ethics and group inertia, inspired by the long but important blog post where Bora Zivkovic says farewell to Scienceblogs.
Mathew’s latest post Bloggingportal2: What, Why, How … and When? acknowledges that Bloggingportal.eu (BP) helps people find out what people are saying about the EU in social media.
However, according to Mathew, more is desirable and possible:
He then discusses the need for resources, curated policy sections and finding the necessary funds for development, before he invites ideas from readers.
By reading Mathew’s entries, you do not only get to know one Euroblog, but the state of the Euroblogosphere.
Mathew is the engine for SWOT analysis in the European online public sphere: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Please, join the conversation.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Multilingual comment policy: In order to facilitate interaction in the Euroblogosphere, I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Mathew Lowry’s Tagsmanian Devil has been mentioned frequently on Grahnlaw, because Mathew has spent a lot of time and effort thinking aloud about the European online public space.
Please, take the time to read a number of older blog entries to get acquainted with the state of the Eurosphere.
In this #bkaeb post I am going to refer to the two latest posts only.
Mathew presents his starting points on group blogs, ethics and group inertia, inspired by the long but important blog post where Bora Zivkovic says farewell to Scienceblogs.
Mathew’s latest post Bloggingportal2: What, Why, How … and When? acknowledges that Bloggingportal.eu (BP) helps people find out what people are saying about the EU in social media.
However, according to Mathew, more is desirable and possible:
Human curation is essential to overcome the barriers of language and national political contexts. And that curation is what BP’s model offers.
So I would want to see BP remain focused, laserlike, on this aim. It doesn’t need to become an intranet for bloggers, or (another) blogging platform, or (another) group blog. People should blog wherever they like, with BloggingPortal doing better what it already does.
He then discusses the need for resources, curated policy sections and finding the necessary funds for development, before he invites ideas from readers.
By reading Mathew’s entries, you do not only get to know one Euroblog, but the state of the Euroblogosphere.
Mathew is the engine for SWOT analysis in the European online public sphere: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.
Please, join the conversation.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Multilingual comment policy: In order to facilitate interaction in the Euroblogosphere, I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.
Sunday, 18 July 2010
Euroblogs debating Euroblogosphere: Navel-gazing? Professionalism?
With the help of the Twitter discussion under the hashtag #bbs10 (now seven plus pages), let us track the discussion in and about the Euroblogosphere following the Waggener Edstrom Brussels Blogger Study 2010. In addition to the blog entries, remember to read the interesting comments, a sign of an emerging Eurosphere.
Jon Worth invited himself to the launch event, and he seems to have been the first Euroblogger to comment. Jon found the top ten list odd, with Charlemagne (only) in 11th place and Nosemonkey ranked 20th. He offered a link to the report, which was not on the Waggener Edstrom website (but the link did not open the document for me, using Google Chrome).
Even if not downloadable on the Waggener Edstrom website (despite WE comments to that effect), you can request a copy of the Brussels Blogger Study 2010 from the consultancy, by using the link in the first comment.
The EU-Brussels bubble has some way to go before understanding the impact of blogs it seems, concluded Jon, who also linked to the Twitter discussion under the hash tag #bbs10.
Independent bloggers writing about EU policy are nipping at the heels of their big media rivals, according to a survey on the EU's English-language blogosphere, was the main conclusion of EurActiv.
BlogActiv director Stuart Langridge noted the importance of Blogactiv.eu and Bloggingportal.eu for the EU blogosphere, and he rejoiced that nine of the forty most influential blogs were hosted on BlogActiv.
The interview with John Jolliffe of Waggener Edstrom adds a few reflections on the nature of the study.
EurActiv publisher Christophe Leclercq on the EuRoman blog opined that EU online media are at their best when they build on a national debate. He trumpeted EurActiv and BlogActiv, but he criticised the study for being confined to blogs in English only, and for non-clickable blog names.
Online communications specialist Mathew Lowry underlined the importance of doing something for progress, rather than criticising those who act. Despite English-only blogs, narrow Brussels focus and a very debatable ranking of blogs, the report was a step on the way towards more and better analyses of EU social media by more people.
The new quality Euroblog Eurogoblin.eu did not pull his punches in an entry asking: How did Waggener Edstrom get it so Wrong? Arbitrary criteria and then failing to adhere to them started a detailed dressing down of the report, including the lack of blogs in other languages than English.
Eurogoblin.eu set off a lively blogger discussion, with commentators pointing out the differences between the US and EU political blog scenes, as well as the absence of female Eurobloggers and anti-EU blogs.
Quality blogger the European Citizen modestly doubted his influence on other Eurobloggers and the Brussels Bubble. Conor Slowey referred to a number of other Euroblog comments, and he recalled the importance of Bloggingportal.eu finding and promoting blogs.
Europasionaria noticed movement among French Euroblogs and she expressed the belief that politicising Europe is a requirement for making it more interesting. But Euroblogs could also deal with other issues in order to appeal to a wider public.
Martin on Europaeum evoked the importance of Bloggingportal.eu , which aggregates more than 600 Euroblogs. He then proposed a new Twitter tag to present new Euroblogs: #bkae (for “better know a euroblog”), a proposal which received favourable reactions.
Rose22joh on Bit more complicated referred to both the study and the following discussion before adding that US methodology and comparison may have distorted the outcome. She underlined the variety and amateurism of much Euroblogging, the absence of EU girl geeks, and the importance of Twitter as a forum for discussion.
Breaking through the English-only study criteria, Michael Malherbe on Lacomeuropéenne continued his professional analysis on EU communications with a critical comment on the Waggener Edstrom study, but he also presented Fleishman-Hillard’s Netvibes pages on Euroblogs according to categories: FH’s selection, Journalists, Citizens, EU officials, Commissioners, MEPs, Corporate, and Collective (introduction here).
Fleishman-Hillard’s Public Affairs 2.0 blog had previously discussed the absence of influential and professional policy bloggers in Brussels, and this was one of the main findings of the Waggener Edstrom report as well.
My own initial comments on the Waggener Edstrom report and the Fleishman-Hillard Netvibes pages were posted yesterday.
Know thyself
A discussion about Euroblogging among Eurobloggers is self-referential, but it is no sin. Know thyself is a recipe for learning.
The European social media scene, including the Euroblogosphere, is still in its infancy, but growing rapidly. Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates more than twice the number of blogs (628) it did a year and a half ago.
In a natural way, growth leads to coverage of more policy areas and variety of views being expressed, including national angles on EU issues.
Both Fleishman-Hillard and Waggener Edstrom have, however, highlighted the relative absence of influential and professional Eurobloggers on (more focused) policy issues.
The public affairs consultancies have a natural interest to generate client interest in EU social media, but this does not mean that they are wrong.
Companies and business associations, Europarties and their foundations, think tanks, as well as “organised” civil society (NGOs) have a golden opportunity to start building credibility through blogs and other social media in order to advance their long term interests, outside the traditional channels of quiet lobbying.
However, turning on the volume and utilising more channels to reach a wider audience are not enough. Without credibility and interaction, megaphone politics turn off viewers and listeners.
The emergence of professionalism and lucrative interests are no hindrance to the continued appearance of engaged citizen bloggers, on the contrary. Independent minds and outspoken persons are needed even more than before, in order to keep the deference factor in check.
Ralf Grahn
Jon Worth invited himself to the launch event, and he seems to have been the first Euroblogger to comment. Jon found the top ten list odd, with Charlemagne (only) in 11th place and Nosemonkey ranked 20th. He offered a link to the report, which was not on the Waggener Edstrom website (but the link did not open the document for me, using Google Chrome).
Even if not downloadable on the Waggener Edstrom website (despite WE comments to that effect), you can request a copy of the Brussels Blogger Study 2010 from the consultancy, by using the link in the first comment.
The EU-Brussels bubble has some way to go before understanding the impact of blogs it seems, concluded Jon, who also linked to the Twitter discussion under the hash tag #bbs10.
Independent bloggers writing about EU policy are nipping at the heels of their big media rivals, according to a survey on the EU's English-language blogosphere, was the main conclusion of EurActiv.
BlogActiv director Stuart Langridge noted the importance of Blogactiv.eu and Bloggingportal.eu for the EU blogosphere, and he rejoiced that nine of the forty most influential blogs were hosted on BlogActiv.
The interview with John Jolliffe of Waggener Edstrom adds a few reflections on the nature of the study.
EurActiv publisher Christophe Leclercq on the EuRoman blog opined that EU online media are at their best when they build on a national debate. He trumpeted EurActiv and BlogActiv, but he criticised the study for being confined to blogs in English only, and for non-clickable blog names.
Online communications specialist Mathew Lowry underlined the importance of doing something for progress, rather than criticising those who act. Despite English-only blogs, narrow Brussels focus and a very debatable ranking of blogs, the report was a step on the way towards more and better analyses of EU social media by more people.
The new quality Euroblog Eurogoblin.eu did not pull his punches in an entry asking: How did Waggener Edstrom get it so Wrong? Arbitrary criteria and then failing to adhere to them started a detailed dressing down of the report, including the lack of blogs in other languages than English.
Eurogoblin.eu set off a lively blogger discussion, with commentators pointing out the differences between the US and EU political blog scenes, as well as the absence of female Eurobloggers and anti-EU blogs.
Quality blogger the European Citizen modestly doubted his influence on other Eurobloggers and the Brussels Bubble. Conor Slowey referred to a number of other Euroblog comments, and he recalled the importance of Bloggingportal.eu finding and promoting blogs.
Europasionaria noticed movement among French Euroblogs and she expressed the belief that politicising Europe is a requirement for making it more interesting. But Euroblogs could also deal with other issues in order to appeal to a wider public.
Martin on Europaeum evoked the importance of Bloggingportal.eu , which aggregates more than 600 Euroblogs. He then proposed a new Twitter tag to present new Euroblogs: #bkae (for “better know a euroblog”), a proposal which received favourable reactions.
Rose22joh on Bit more complicated referred to both the study and the following discussion before adding that US methodology and comparison may have distorted the outcome. She underlined the variety and amateurism of much Euroblogging, the absence of EU girl geeks, and the importance of Twitter as a forum for discussion.
Breaking through the English-only study criteria, Michael Malherbe on Lacomeuropéenne continued his professional analysis on EU communications with a critical comment on the Waggener Edstrom study, but he also presented Fleishman-Hillard’s Netvibes pages on Euroblogs according to categories: FH’s selection, Journalists, Citizens, EU officials, Commissioners, MEPs, Corporate, and Collective (introduction here).
Fleishman-Hillard’s Public Affairs 2.0 blog had previously discussed the absence of influential and professional policy bloggers in Brussels, and this was one of the main findings of the Waggener Edstrom report as well.
My own initial comments on the Waggener Edstrom report and the Fleishman-Hillard Netvibes pages were posted yesterday.
Know thyself
A discussion about Euroblogging among Eurobloggers is self-referential, but it is no sin. Know thyself is a recipe for learning.
The European social media scene, including the Euroblogosphere, is still in its infancy, but growing rapidly. Bloggingportal.eu now aggregates more than twice the number of blogs (628) it did a year and a half ago.
In a natural way, growth leads to coverage of more policy areas and variety of views being expressed, including national angles on EU issues.
Both Fleishman-Hillard and Waggener Edstrom have, however, highlighted the relative absence of influential and professional Eurobloggers on (more focused) policy issues.
The public affairs consultancies have a natural interest to generate client interest in EU social media, but this does not mean that they are wrong.
Companies and business associations, Europarties and their foundations, think tanks, as well as “organised” civil society (NGOs) have a golden opportunity to start building credibility through blogs and other social media in order to advance their long term interests, outside the traditional channels of quiet lobbying.
However, turning on the volume and utilising more channels to reach a wider audience are not enough. Without credibility and interaction, megaphone politics turn off viewers and listeners.
The emergence of professionalism and lucrative interests are no hindrance to the continued appearance of engaged citizen bloggers, on the contrary. Independent minds and outspoken persons are needed even more than before, in order to keep the deference factor in check.
Ralf Grahn
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