news industry trade associations are corruptly cashing in their political capital ... their members are newspapers, and politicians are scared of them — in desperate acts of protectionism to attack platform companies. The result is a raft of legislation that will damage the internet and in the end hurt everyone, including journalists and especiall…

There will never be an ‘EU superstate’ as long as the national presses of 28 countries are presenting 28 different visions of the European dream... there is no real union if members can’t watch together, read together, instinctively think and bind together. No news means no common purpose... A continent of many languages has no means of building b…

With independent journalism increasingly looking like an endangered species, a EU communication strategy that helped European media build the European Public Sphere would be a smarter longterm move than propaganda and brochureware

"Q. Is it realistic to think that a European public sphere could ever be created? TGA: My view is that we should try, but we shouldn’t ever kid ourselves that this is going to be like a national public sphere. Apart from anything else, we speak different languages, which is a huge barrier. The key for me, in continuing to make the argument for …

Is primetime TV advertising the right way to connect citizens to the EU?

Original linkTonight I'll be toddling along to Grilling Kippers, a UKIP-focused anti-Eurosceptic campaign from deep within the Brussels Bubble.

A while back I was invited to make a 10minute presentation to "Civil Society Day", held at the EESC. Kwinten Lambrecht asked me to upload the ppt, and others asked for followup links, hence this post.

At last, an opportunity to blog about gardening and EU comms in the same post.

The lack of specialists in EU-oriented blogs is impeding the development of the European online public space.

That's right - curation. Now officially Web2.0-buzzword-of-the-month (not quite sure which one).

So the debate about the Euroblogosphere, or the Eurosphere, or the European Public Sphere, or web2eu, or the European online public space, of whatever-we-call-it-next-week, has sparked again into life, like a Frankensteinian monster with dodgy spark plugs screwed into the base of its neck.

A Twitter conversation betweentwo much-followed EU-oriented bloggers over the weekend caught my eye. I won't identify them as you need to follow them on Twitter to see their tweets.It started when one asked whether anyone out there"still thinks that blogging is in any way likely to have an impact ... why should anyone listen to us? We st…

PR firm interns posting fake reviews about iPhone apps for their clients. Ghost blogging and tweeting by just about everyone, including thought-leaders in social media.  Bloggers not disclosing sponsorship. It's just a matter of time before someone poisons the well for EU social media.

Over on Nosemonkey's blog, in yet another debate on the pros and cons of EU membership, Insideur is of the opinion that there is a real gap in the market, that Open Europe has sought but failed to fill, for serious, informed, and therefore constructive criticism of the EU

Over on the Belgian IABC's web2eu site, Philip Weiss embedded a TED video of Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, discussing the revolutionary impact of social media. It's really so good I thought I'd repost it here and add some observations

Constructive discussions generally require good discussion documents. One of the Commission's major contributions to any European online space should therefore be a EUROPA that supports the conversations

Trans-European online Communities of Practice should become a key element in the European online community, but examples so far are few. This post looks at DG INFSO, which has been using online community principles since 2002, two years before the phrase "Web 2.0" was invented.

Now and then the question arises: how can we get a transnational discourse on European topics underway, or create a European online public space? The two phrases in bold, above, both come from one of the latest posts on the topic, this time from Julien Frisch. They follow initiatives like Steffan's Bloggingportal.eu, which aggregates Euroblog…

Quite a few people look at me in quite a puzzled way when I mention how the techniques and approaches of online community management 'may have something to offer' the EU in terms of communications, but that this may require 'a change in mentality'. When they look like that, I say "You know, something along the lines of the…

Following rapid and significant expansion into new markets and sectors of governance and policy, innovative union of nation states ("European Union", or EU) seeks an experienced Online Community Manager to gain buy-in at all levels throughout our 27 Members, as well as with external stakeholders on a global level.

I was discussing online communities and the EU with some friends before Christmas, when a few interlinked thoughts and ideas popped up, stemming from an earlier post about "trust2". I thought I'd commit them to screen while they were fresh in my mind, and ask for some ideas.Trust and (election) turnoutGiven that election turnout is …