The conference “Do Press Councils Have a Future?” will begin on Thursday, 25 September, and will last for two days. At the same time, the annual conference of the Alliance of Independent Press Councils of Europe (AIPCE) will also be held.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation is this year’s host of the AIPCE conference, and this is the first time in 30 years of the Alliance’s existence that the event is being organized in one of the Western Balkan countries.
In addition to the central panel, the two-day program will include discussions on a wide range of issues burdening the work of self-regulatory bodies, including political and economic pressures, the spread of disinformation, polarization in society, as well as the increasing presence of non-professional media actors in the public sphere. Panels will also be dedicated to artificial intelligence and the media in the context of self-regulation. This panel is considered the most relevant, given the rapid development of AI programs and their growing impact on the media industry.
The Media Council for Self-Regulation is honored by the trust placed in it to organize this important event, which will gather media experts from 30 countries and three continents.
Ranko Vujović, Executive Secretary of the Media Council for Self-Regulation, announced the event in an interview for Pobjeda.
Vujović explained that this is an annual gathering of press councils, which has been held for almost three decades in a different country each year.
“We are the first in the Balkans to be given the privilege of hosting such a conference,” he emphasized.
Speaking about the agenda and topics to be addressed at the conference, Vujović noted that the central panel will focus on the future role and mission of press and media councils, aiming to provide answers to the headline question: “Do Press Councils Have a Future?”
“Media self-regulation was traditionally linked to newspapers more than a hundred years ago when it was first established. However, major technological changes have radically transformed the way information is disseminated and received. Large technological platforms are gradually taking the lead in informing citizens, while at the same time they are hardly regulated—or self-regulated at all. Traditional media, such as newspapers, which were the primary subject of self-regulation, are disappearing. The question arises: what next, and how? Will we allow disinformation, hate speech, and harmful content to spread and be published without any control or restraint? What should be the role of regulatory and self-regulatory bodies in an information space that has become poisoned to the extreme? These are only some of the issues we will seek to address during the two-day conference with 60 participants from 30 countries and three continents,” said Vujović in the interview for Pobjeda.
The organizers emphasize that the conference in Montenegro will be an important opportunity not only to strengthen cooperation between European and regional bodies but also to promote the values of free and responsible media as a cornerstone of democratic society.
