Making media fit for the future
The media are in a state of upheaval due to the internet. Polarisation and disinformation are consequences of this. In the German state of Baden-Württemberg, a Citizens' Forum is therefore to develop proposals for a sustainable media landscape from 28 June 2025.
Democracy thrives on dialogue. But this dialogue is under pressure: traditional media are struggling to maintain their reach, funding and trust. Online platforms have lowered the barriers to access, but tend to polarise. In addition to disinformation, disinterest also threatens people's ability to communicate.
What do you want?
What common points of reference do we still have? This is precisely where the Pressestiftung Baden-Württemberg (Press Foundation Baden-Württemberg) wants to start with a Citizens' Forum - and consider together with citizens what a sustainable media landscape could look like. The mini-public not only asks: What is going wrong? But rather: What would you like to see - and how could this be realised?
The Citizens' Forum has four central goals:
- to visualise the current state of the media landscape
- to identify the needs and expectations of the participants
- to talk together about concrete possibilities for improvement
- and finally to consider: What could a media landscape look like if we could completely rethink it?
The forum will draw up a final report with recommendations. This will be presented to politicians, the media and other stakeholders towards the end of 2025.
Questions for forum members
The focus will be on questions such as:
- What information is essential for a functioning democracy?
- How do citizens want to be informed?
- What could a media landscape look like if we could completely rethink it?
- How would such a media landscape be financially viable?
Participants are people with different perspectives, based on the diverse population in Baden-Württemberg: men and women, old and young, people from different sized towns, from all four administrative districts, with different educational backgrounds, with or without a history of migration.
6,640 invitations sent out
On 12 May 2025, 6,640 addresses randomly selected from the population registers were contacted and invited to the citizens' forum. People from Deißlingen, Freiburg, Rheinstetten, Sipplingen, Ulm, Untereisesheim, Weil der Stadt and Waghäusel will be taking part.
The forum will meet in two separate groups. One includes all age groups from 16 upwards, the other only includes people aged between 16 and 24. At the end, the two forums discuss their results together and summarise them in a final recommendation.
Scientific support
The target size for each group is 32 people. There are also eight additional places in each group - because something always comes up. Whether due to relocation or illness: ‘If individual registered participants are unable to attend all of the dates, there will still be a colourful and sufficiently large group of around 30 to 40 people across all forums,’ says the Citizens' Forum website.
With this key, the organisers are following a recommendation from the University of Freiburg, which is providing scientific support for the forum. The team, led by political scientist Prof Dr Uwe Wagschal, is investigating the development of the two different groups, among other things.
Organisation and funding
The Pressestiftung Baden-Württemberg, which organises the Citizens' Forum, is a non-profit self-help organisation. Its sponsors are the Landespressekonferenz (State Press Conference), in which journalists reporting on state politics are organised, the state association of the Deutscher Journalistenverband (German Journalists' Association) and the Verband Deutscher Zeitungsverleger (Association of Southwest German Newspaper Publishers).
The original task of the foundation was to support journalists who fall on hard times through no fault of their own. However, its work has expanded and, following an amendment to its statutes in 2024, it is now also focussing on content-related issues relating to the media and its future.
The Citizens' Forum is financially supported by the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung (Baden-Württemberg Foundation) with 478,000 euros. The foundation was established in 2000 as a state foundation on the initiative of the then Minister President Erwin Teufel (CDU). It has assets totalling around 2.3 billion euros and supports numerous charitable projects every year.
Engagement with results desired
As Managing Director of the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung, Theresia Bauer would like to see a ‘debate about what is being produced’. The results should not be allowed to disappear into a drawer.