Where is the European marketplace of ideas?
Europe has one currency, a central bank, a parliament and a court. As soon as the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect it will have an elected president and a foreign minister. Yet, when it comes to getting information about Europe there is not a single transnational medium that Europeans can turn to.
In his article on NRC International European editor Marc Leijendekker writes about a lack of Europe-wide media and public debate. The only publications that are read all over the continent are American (International Herald Tribune) or British (The Economist, Financial Times).
Sociologist Abram de Swaan calls this the “European vacuum”. There is no European marketplace of ideas, he says, no cross-border discussion, he says about the many challenges that Europe faces and that are beyond the reach of the nation states: migration, climate change, energy policy and international relations, to name a few.
Many initiatives to get the ‘European point’ across and bring Europeans of different cultures and languages together have sprung up in recent years, but with little success.
What do you think: can the European vacuum be filled? What would make a website draw the attention of Europeans across the union and drive a transnational debate? Or are language and national focus too big a hurdle to take?
Thursday 16 April 2009, 22:12
Marc Leijendekker points it out very well.
First of all, the importance is on Television Broadcasts. Having nowadays technology handy, it is unbelievable, that the public broadcasts are not delivered with subtitle options – at least for the languages of the neighboring countries? This could make a huge difference on the better understanding of each others.
I recall my experience with the Closed Caption feature offered for television viewers in the U.S.A. Here in Europe we need the same one, probably with all the official languages of the EU. This could be a huge help for all of us, who would like to learn these other languages too.
We are in need of a European Doctrine ordering the cable network providers to offer at least one public channel of each of its neighboring countries to be delivered in any EU member states. For the players of the market this has to be a basic condition to operate. Let’s call this the Cross Border Media Link.
Thursday 16 April 2009, 22:49
A common mandatory language. I speak four languages and yet I can only communicate with a handful of europeans.
Friday 17 April 2009, 11:39
Dear Marc,
It’s with great regret that I notice a very major omission in your very interesting article. I’d like to know why there is no reference to EUX.TV – the Europe channel. Your article is exactly what EUX.TV is about.
As a business journalist with an international track record (Bloomberg News, Associated Press-Dow Jones, Financial Times), and with multimedia experience, I founded EUX.TV – the Europe Channel, in September 2006 as an independent, non-subsidized attempt to create a European digital theme channel for a pan-European audience. NRC Next ran it as a front page news item, regretfully emphasizing my ‘Limburger’ background rather prominently. (Which province are you from, by the way?)
EUX.TV was ahead of its time. The firewalls at European institutions still blocked video, which made it difficult to gain broad recognition with the eurocrats in Brussels, and therefore also in the rest of Europe. The business model did not work because video at the time was not yet accepted as a source for online news. Potential advertisers in the EU arena were, and still are, afraid to support an independent initiative like EUX.TV because they felt an association with an independent initiative could harm their chances of winning contracts from the European Commission.
And when web video became more broadly adopted during 2007 and 2008, the EU institutions adopted their own webtv initiatives, taking inspiration from my initiative. The EUTube channel and EuroParlTV are an indirect (and undesired) result my experience with EUX.TV. Just FYI, EUX.TV attracted more than 2 million viewers via its YouTube channel during 2008, on a budget that’s only a fraction of the ‘official’ EU media. EuroparlTV has yet to exceed 500,000 views since its launch last October. (EUX.TV had 260,000 video views in the first week of April alone. )
EUX.TV was inspired on my experience as a journalist for American news agencies like AP-DJ, Bloomberg and CNBC Europe, between 1991 and 2006, in London, Amsterdam, Zurich and Paris, with bylines in many major papers worldwide. And also, motivated by a desire to create a pan-European medium in the post-Iraq war era, where American broadcasters like CNBC – my employer – lost their credibility because of the way they covered the war in Iraq, and – more recently – for the way they covered financial markets.
It remains a fact that it’s UK and US media that reach a niche pan-European audience in Europe. So this audience does exist.
My initiative was – and still is – to create a European media company that taps into this niche international audience, drawing on available resources in Brussels (EbS footage), camjo journalism and new web technology for distribution.
Setting up a pan-European business as a European is much much tougher than I anticipated. I was warned and know it would not be easy. But there really is no innovative climate, entrepreneurship is actively discouraged and anyone trying a bold new initiative quickly becomes envied for their independence. If an initiative like EUX.TV had been launched in the US it would have been a story different from the European ‘nightmare’ that I’ve experienced.
But still, in September 2006 I put my money where my mouth is, left CNBC, and jumped. It was an expensive adventure that taught me a lot. What’s left now, after a lot of financial trouble, disappointing viewers via the expensive (now bankrupt) Narrowstep platform and an expensive dedicated Content-Management-System that proved too labor-intensive, is a YouTube channel with a low-cost WordPress website. EUX.TV no longer states its ambition of becoming a traditional digital theme channel, but it’s still alive on the web, proving to be effective in reaching a European audience and generating real debate among Europeans as a commercial channel on YouTube.
EUX.TV is a YouTube ‘branded channel’ and shares revenue from the advertisements that YouTube serves. And guess what? This ad revenue continues to grow and now allows me to pay for a humble office in the International Press Centre in Brussels. If growth continues, it might even pay a salary at some time in the future.
So is it because it’s too ‘fringe’ and ‘marginal’ that you choose to ignore EUX.TV? But pan-European media are marginal by definition.
A reader of your newspaper alerted my to your article and asked me why EUX.TV is not mentioned. So that’s my question to you.
Not mentioning a Dutch-inspired initiative like EUX.TV in an article about this topic is a major omission. The least I expect is that you acknowledge this.
Sincerely,
Raymond Frenken
–
Raymond Frenken
Freelance Journalist / EUX.TV – the Europe Channel
International Press Centre
1 Blvd Charlemagne, Bte. 24
B-1040 Brussels
Friday 17 April 2009, 13:21
I totally agree with this observation of a European vacuum. Ultimately this should be filled by proper independent pan-European broadcast TV channels. Which will only happen after the EU determines a framework, ensures financing and ensures independent journalism by removing itself far enough from the equation.
Websites: It may be interesting to have a look around in the collection of multilingual forums for idea exchange, which the EU has set up: http://europa.eu/debateeurope/
You will find that the English language forum is by far the most popular and within it the channel “Future of Europe”.
Although you may be put off however by the amount of off-topic discussion, spamming and “quarrels”, maybe that shows the character of a market. That has advantages:
1) If you want to start a new shop (website), why not try this in or near an existing market.
2) This market does draw people from quite a few different nationalities.
3) I could imagine that a high quality (meaning – strictly moderated) forum would be set up in this market place, in the English language section.
4) People who enjoy roaming the market and “chat” can still do so, but they will also pass the stall of the better-moderated interactive articles and ideas.
5) Technically these sites are well equipped, with possibilities for pasting quotes, pictures and links to clips or articles.
Saturday 18 April 2009, 21:58
Good article.
Look at countries that are linguistically divided. Belgium or Canada, for example. In those countries language is everything. The language groups barely communicate with each other. I’m afraid that there can be no common marketplace of ideas in Europe when people do not speak the same language. A Belgium-like existence, a community of multiple solitudes, is the EU’s inevitable destiny.
The truth is that most people outside Ireland, the UK and a few other countries don’t speak English well enough to contribute actively to a debate conducted in English. And the will isn’t there to bear the cost and time involved in having everything translated.
Look at the Netherlands, a country where English is spoken rather well. The Dutch could immediately join the same international marketplace as the IHT, The Economist, etc., by producing a quality English newspaper. They are welcome to do what English speakers do and produce, on their own, an international publication that informs, entertains and provokes.
So why don’t they do it? The truth is that even the Dutch are unwilling to do what it takes to join an international marketplace of ideas where everything is done in English. Every effort at creating an English-language media outlet in the country has more or less failed over the years. The Dutch don’t want it.
As for the “Anglo-Saxon monopoly”, I have to point out that in most places in Europe, including the UK, you can find German, French, Italian and Spanish publications. I don’t know how true this premise is.
Still, if there is a monopoly, it’s more than just language. I’m afraid the problem there is that Britain is the leading country in Europe. London is the true capital of Europe, intellectually, financially, culturally, and in other ways as well. It’s natural that British publications are available throughout Europe. On top of that, much of Europe is gobbling up American culture as fast as it can get it.
As the writer points out, Europeans just aren’t that interested in the “other solitudes”. They’re more interested in Youtube, Michael Jackson and David Beckham. The intellectuals, bureaucrats and other members of the European chattering classes can complain about this, but it’s just a reality.
Still, it would be wonderful to see a Continental European newspaper or other outlet producing a product that is interesting, entertaining and high in quality (both in content and language) and yet presents a non-English-speaking point of view. The NRC is flirting with English, but no newspaper or other media outlet in the Netherlands has yet to start a proper English language edition. Maybe by working together with other major newspapers from every country in Europe something could be started.
Who could ignore something like that? I would probably read it on a daily basis. But it would have to entertaining, informative and, of course, written in proper English.
Sunday 19 April 2009, 19:40
The European parliament is the medium for discussion and idea exchange. Unfortunately the individual european states have far too strong an identity to be subsumed by one central policy think tank. The reason it works in the US is the individual states there do not have the legacy of centuries of war and political conflict. Although America is far from being a ‘united’ states the common bonds of language, media and history against the ‘old world’ is the glue that keeps it all together. Its also another reason why whoever is in power there seems to be hated by at least half the population who seem to be made up of either decadent, liberal over educated democrats or redneck bible bashing republicans.
Sunday 19 April 2009, 22:58
If there was popular demand for trans-national media, surely it would develop in the marketplace: demand creates its own supply?
Living outside Europe, I find I can rapidly gauge local flavour and debate by dropping in on the web sites of nrc, der speigel, financial times etc. A pan European site would lack that local flavour.
Monday 20 April 2009, 13:42
1. @ laszlo gyula:
It’s a rights issue. When broadcasting in 2 countries you have to pay for airing rights in both countries.
Scandinavia (Norway/Sweden etc.) has figured out something to that extent. On the Sirius satellite (footprint Scandinavia) most channels come with 4 different subtitle streams or audio streams.
Monday 20 April 2009, 17:04
GK writes: “I’m afraid the problem there is that Britain is the leading country in Europe. London is the true capital of Europe, intellectually, financially, culturally, and in other ways as well. It’s natural that British publications are available throughout Europe. ”
Obviously an interesting point of view, but with possibly a few flaws:
1. The UK has been in the grip of a Europe-hostile foreign owned press for so long that one has to be rather discerning to find a quality (i.e. non-bias) publication from the British Isles.
2. The UK is struggling so much with its inability to be at the heart of Europe, that you may well wonder whether it is truly and wholly part of it. For critical outsider opinions about the EU, there is a wide choice of newspapers and tabloids, but remember that Britain’s real struggle is with itself, with its curious system of “democracy”, with its many EU opt-outs and its angry referendum – denied population.
3. Not withstanding Shakespeare, British humor, British drama, British pop music, it is stretching the imagination to call London the cultural capital of Europe. As for “London intellect” (!), I surely must be too dumb to understand, but could it be that GK is of a proud Anglo-Saxon origin?
Tuesday 21 April 2009, 20:41
I think Mr van Leeuwen’s post illustrates perfectly why Continental Europeans will never succeed in creating a proper European forum, and why they will also not be able to participate in the international marketplace of ideas that already exists. I thought the whole idea was to escape narrow nationalistic chauvinism. Only English speakers seem so far to be able to accomplish this. Maybe that’s why Mr van Leeuwen (who is presumably as Dutch as I am) is reading The Economist and FT, and not vice versa. Still, I think it’s a noble cause as long as it doesn’t slip into anglophobia and anti-Americanism. One can’t help but think that this is the true issue here.
Thursday 23 April 2009, 0:16
GK writes: “Maybe that’s why Mr van Leeuwen (who is presumably as Dutch as I am) is reading The Economist and FT, and not vice versa”. Is this English? Why would I expect the Economist or FT to read me??! I don’t understand this statement.
When reading existing English language forums created by continental Europeans, my experience is that the French are not chauvinistic and the Germans, the Swedes or the Portuguese not nationalistic, but that any “narrow nationalistic chauvinism” is more likely expressed by participants from the UK. Possibly the French may be more chauvinistic in French language forums but I haven’t come across it in the English language ones. I have no problem that English is the de facto lingua franca for the exchange of ideas in Europe. I just don’t agree with the presumption of Britain being “the leading country in Europe”, with London to be the “true capital of Europe”. It is simply not my experience. Because English is the dominant language in Europe it remains important to remember a few peculiarities about Britain as I have pointed out earlier.
Thursday 30 April 2009, 9:08
I agree with several commentators that language is one of the major problems. Europeans do not speak English well enough as a basis for democratic decision making. And an English speaking new European medium would only feed the European technocratic elite but not foster a broad public debate.
So, cultural and linguistic translation becomes a crucial task for every European media, national as well as crossnational.
Giving access to TV programmes of (at least) the neighbour countries by putting subtitles would make a great difference.
National media could do much more in order to foster the common European debate. Reporting about Europe is not reporting about what is going on in Brussels. It is understanding how people in European countries think and discuss the common project Europe. As a consumer of mostly German speaking media, I rarely see there debates on a certain topic between Europeans. I can see a lot of TV-shows bringing together the German political party spectre. But I´ve rarely seen politicians from several European countries debating the same issue or commenting on national issues.
The same for print media. I rarely can read comments coming from European neighbours on national or common issues. National media have not yet explored all their possibilities to make Europeans speak to each another.
Saturday 2 May 2009, 14:33
@Hillegard Willer: I agree with you that language is a problem.
I would consider English only as a “next best”, because so many of the younger generations can speak some English. A lot can be achieved with subtitling or dubbing as well in order to make more pan-European programs for a pan-European audience. Euronews.net, now available on TV and Internet in 8 languages seems a good example. It irritates me that this still is not available in Dutch, which is like discrimination for all Dutch people who do not yet speak much English. Watching the English language version, I prefer it to BBC-World and CNN, because to me a slight European bias is currently more useful to me than an American or British one.
Taking English as a next best, a good thing about BBC-World are their multinational “Doha-Debates” (one could imagine a program “Europe-Debates” made on the same basis) and their program “The Record Europe”. Sometimes an episode is put on the BBC website. The current one,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8029665.stm , shows an example of what you asked: politicians from different European countries debating the same issues. A bit duller than the Doha-Debate format, but it shows that many politicians can stand their ground while speaking English.
Sunday 31 May 2009, 1:14
Thank you for this very interesting article.
I agree that there is hardly anything that could be called pan-European mass media, most importantly because there is no pan-European general public due to the lack of a common language.
However, there are a number of publications and other media that could indeed be called pan-European. The fact that these are not directed at the general public but are fairly specialised, high end of the market publications does actually reveal a lot about Europe as well as possibly certain limits to the European project.
Let us first look at the three publications that the author suggested are probably the most widely read across the entire continent:
First, the IHT is a fairly high end publication which is owned by the New York Times and focused to a large extent on US foreign policy issues (hardly a day without Iraq, Israel or Obama heading the first page). The fact that this relatively thin publication has made it to such Europe-wide prominence represents the fact that the United States continues to guarantee European security to a larger extend than most (West) Europeans would want to believe (Estonians and Poles e.g. are far more aware of this fact).
Next, the FT and The Economist are the UK’s leading business and economics publications. The other major UK domestic newspapers are far less widely read in continental Europe. In fact, I would not be surprised if other quality non-English-language newspapers such as Le Monde, El Pais, FAZ or NZZ sold more copies outside their respective home markets. The Europe-wide readership of the FT and The Economist reflects the fact that the EU continues to be largely an economic project; a main day to day benefit being how the internal market and the euro have facilitated trade across continent. The UK, despite its half-hearted commitment to the European project, is a major beneficiary of the internal market. London, not Frankfurt, is the financial capital of the EU and continental Europeans take advantage of the accessible English labour market.
Moreover, there are two more publications, both English-language, which deserve attention in this context: the European Voice and Monocle.
The European Voice, published by The Economist, provides readers with detailed information on EU political issues and news about the European institutions. Its readership is pan-European (not global) but small and specialised.
Monocle is a London-based high end market general interest magazine with a decidedly European focus; one of a number of Europe-based English language publications which cater to a relatively affluent and/or internationalist audience. These publications show that there is a market for pan-European publications, however that it has little depth and is rather elitist – again a striking resemblance to the EU.
These examples of pan-European publications show that there is a pan-European media landscape to the extent that there are pan-European issues. These are limited to: 1. relationship with and reliance on the US (also with regard to Russia and the entire energy security issue), 2. the internal market, 3. the Brussels bureaucracy, and 4. a relatively small group of people with an international perspective but a European mindset
Finally, the question coming out of this is whether it is actually such a bad thing that there is no pan-European general public. The biggest issue coming to mind is that we are holding elections without having a pan-European public debate about pan-European issues. For the more specialised pan-European issues discussed above (high level security reliance, international business, the Brussels political process, high end lifestyle) there are pan-European media catering to a pan-European public.
In the long term, there are two possible courses of action we can take from here:
1. Create a pan-European general public: This would involve teaching everyone English, which has itself proven to be a relatively easy to learn language in the immigrant societies of the United States, Canada and Australia. We would have to forgo the social benefits of relatively homogenous societies to melt a pan-European lowest common denominator society with lower transaction costs and economies of scale for business. We would probably call it the United States of Europe and preferably do all this better than the USA is currently doing it already.
2. Accept the fact that there is no pan-European general public and delegate all matters which are of interest to the general public to the national level. Basically this would mean we could close the European parliament (both of them) and exercise democracy only where it is legitimate and based on a broad public discourse. This would be the national level, or more regional, e.g. in Belgium if it continues to exist in its current setup. Brussels would remain what it already is: a high level technocratic/diplomatic centre. On the other hand there are issues that probably deserve more attention at the pan-European level, such as less reliance on US security. Once there is a pan-European infrastructure in place for such an endeavour, the media coverage will most certainly follow.
Monday 8 June 2009, 17:36
ARTE is a Franco-German channel that has been working for some time now.
They have programs in each language and they do instant interpretation of debates or subtitle news programs. I can get it on the satelite, but perhaps there should be some kind of pan-european public channel that would be accessible to all EU citizens.
Perhaps most of the programs would be in English but there could be some programs in different languages subtitled or similar.
If this kind of channel does not already exist it is perhaps because some governments do not want to lose their control on the media and have plural European debates on TV.
Friday 17 July 2009, 19:39
People draw much of their opinions from TV and newspapers.
1. There are local/regional TV channels and papers
2. There are national TV channels and papers.
3. There are international (global) TV channels and papers
What are clearly missing are European TV channels and papers, providing a European perspective.
Preferably these should be available in many languages as to reach a wider public than just those who master sufficient English.
Euronews.net and presseurope.eu (available in 8 and 10 languages respectively) make early examples of these.
It is just a matter of time (and hopefully not too much time will be wasted before this is achieved) that there will be pan_European TV and newspapers, providing a European perspective on all kinds of issues. The “Europenization” of public opinion is a necessity in a era that the Europenization of economic and political cooperation is becoming more intense.
Tuesday 21 July 2009, 13:01
Why should all Europeans learn English? Didn’t anybody tell you, that the structure of a language commands the structure of thinking?
We need to preserve the multitude of national languages to preserve our specific abilities. If we need to have a common language for trade and government purposes we should start educating our children in a “neutral” language – like esperanto or latin – besides our national languages.
Besides, did you know that the language with the greatest number of native speakers (more then 100.000.000 citizens) is deliberately ignored by brussells bureaurats? Why is german discriminated compared to french or english?
Thursday 23 July 2009, 21:53
Verhagen:
“A solution to the problems surrounding Icesave could speed up the handling of the Icelandic application for EU membership,” Verhagen said.”
My comment: This is Blackmail!!
The two issues are not related+
Snaebjorn Kristjansson. I am an Icelander
Engineer and working in diverse european cooperation areas with good europeean friends.
Thursday 17 December 2009, 8:58
all this talk about language makes me glad I speak english….
Thursday 17 December 2009, 15:38
I think Ulrich’s comments explain why there can hardly be a pan-European voice. Europe is still a society of many tribes and tribes do not seem to like it when you play with their languages or cultures.
Though I foresee English becoming prevalent over time, a European identity would remain a myth for decades (if not centuries) to come, as each nation state clings to its language and culture. Europe is not the United States or Canada. No, it is a society of tribes who have been brought together not by their shared common ideas but by history.
I find it amazing that people still speak of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ speakers of a language. English may be ‘native’ to the United Kingdom, but its future lies more with the United States, India, Nigeria who have not only adopted the language but will largely redefine its future global course due to the large number of English speakers in these countries.
I am glad that I can speak and write English well. Though a non-European and a ‘non-native’ speaker according to Ulrich’s definition, English has opened up a world of possibilities to me. Without English, I wonder what life would be! I am still struggling to learn and perfect my Dutch, given that I currently live in the Netherlands but, without a doubt, on a global level Dutch pales in comparison to English. I only need Dutch in the Netherlands and maybe Belgium and Surinam.
I see two main global languages dominating the future: English and Chinese. Just as I was encouraged to learn English as child, I can only encourage my kids to learn English and Chinese, in addition to whatever local or regional languages they may also speak.
No nation state or regional union can exist without a common language. Language is important and that is why several African countries adopted European languages (English, French, Portuguese) as official languages. It wasn’t their love for these languages that made them do it. No. It was the need for unity.
Saturday 19 December 2009, 15:25
I think this discussion summarizes perfectly one of the most important paradoxes of our (post-)Modern times. On one hand, thanks, among other factors, to new technological advances and decreasing transportation costs,, we are exposed to a greater extent to other cultures, languages, perspectives and points of views that not long ago went largely unnoticed. On the other hand, as Ulrich pointed out, we are becoming systematically homogenized being a common (English) language the critical unifying element and all present diversity crushed. Take a look at most European or American cities. Besides the well known identity elements that distinguish them all from each other, one can easily notice evident resemblances in people’s behaviors, habits, tastes. In reality, I suspect we are witnessing the results of a large-corporation driven homogenization strategy which tends to perceive the world in terms of markets. It would be a tragedy to culturally unify Europe for the sakes of a political merger.
joseutrecht@hotmail.com