Media Policy in the Digital Space

This chapter has shown how active the European Union has been in the last ten years in regulating the increasingly digital media information space. Stepping up its efforts in this area has been a priority, highlighting increasing digital sovereignty. It was the result of the fast paced trends in the digital environment, with a strong position taken by several global online platforms in various key areas for citizens, including enabling access to media content. More generally, it was also a consequence of worrying developments in Europe's information space and democracies, such as the rise of disinformation. The EU has been tireless in providing workable solutions—often consisting of guidance and minimum harmonisation and coordination of national approaches, including via the EU network of national regulators—always navigating between the Member States' interest in the sensitive field of media policy and the imperative to provide pan-EU answers to increasingly digital and thus transnational challenges to media freedom and pluralism. Injecting a certain degree of level playing field through regulation has been necessary and has also set an example for other jurisdictions. This move was also key from a geopolitical point of view: to show the world that strong media and creative industries are not left alone in Europe, in particular in a world of evolving consumption trends and growing disinformation. More generally, such regulation could not be done only on a country-by-country basis: regulating the information space in a more globalised manner has been the proper way forward and, hopefully, will also be a successful one.