Since February 2023 the researchers of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) at the Robert Schuman Centre have started to collaborate with other partner organisations on the project ‘Local Media for Democracy'. The aim is to help struggling local, regional and community media in the news desert areas in Europe by providing financial support and organisational capacity building.
The concept of ‘news deserts’ was initially developed by US scholars and policymakers to explain the crisis of traditional news media and the vanishing of local news outlets as a consequence of the digital transformation and the 2008 global economic crisis. News deserts can emerge not only where there are no media outlets, but also where there are newsrooms captured by economic, political or other interests.
CMPF researchers have just published a blogpost where they highlight the importance of identifying and tackling news deserts also in the European context, given their potential to undermine civic engagement and democracy.
Check out this preliminary study that features a literature review and methodological definition of 'news deserts' in the European context.