Introduction

So wrote Miklos Haraszti, Hungarian writer and academic, in advance of a one-day event on media pluralism staged in the debating chamber of the European Parliament on 27 June 2012. Although not an official parliamentary occasion, the event featured a keynote speech by Neelie Kroes, then vice-president of the European Commission with responsibility for Europe’s media and digital agenda, and was attended by speakers and delegates from throughout the European Union and accession nations. It took place amidst rising concerns — mirrored in countries well beyond Europe — that even as social, mobile and online media technologies were proliferating and apparently presenting new opportunities for promoting diversity and enhancing democracy, a number of counterbalancing factors were conspiring to create uncertainty and anxiety. For a number of reasons, the pressure for political intervention — and for new, imaginative and creative policy ideas to protect and enhance plurality — had intensified.