Citizens or consumers?

“Televiewers, Citizens or just Consumers?”. On this question is based the survey “Viewers’ protection in Europe” by Paolo Celot, economist and expert in European affairs specialized in the media sector and secretary general of Eavi (European Association for Viewers Interests), and by Fausto Gualtieri, European Affairs consultant for Latimer Europe and expert in new cinema and television technology. The survey was published on issue n.12 (June 2008) of the magazine on communication studies and research “La Parabola”, tri-monthly magazine of Aiart – Viewers’ non-profit Association (Italy). The authors declared that from the analysis of the present situation, an outstanding feature emerges: “Citizens, viewers in particular, are gradually turning into mere consumers”. Instruments and Institutions. In a world marked by an “increasing gap between those who have the ability to decrypt media information” and “those who are out of the vicious cycle”, European Institutions promoted initiatives for the defence of citizens’ and consumers’ fundamental rights: “Media consumers can enjoy protection tools as European citizens and as European consumers”. The tools guaranteeing such rights are the petition of the European Parliament, whose intervention can be requested by citizens “as relates to issues lying within the European Union’s jurisdiction”, along with the interpellation of the European Mediator, the body which “looks into poor- administration complaints within EU institutions, exception made for the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance”. After having illustrated the protection tools, the authors gave an overview of EU institutions and consultative bodies’ activities starting from the European Commission which “takes action against that Member State which did not conform with European regulations, occasionally filing the case to the Court of Justice of the European Community”, which, on its part, simply “provides an interpretation, or rules in favour or against the validity of the Community deed at stake”. On a different front, the European Court for Human Rights can be consulted by individual citizens “in all those cases whereby one or more rights envisaged by the Convention (for Human Rights ed.’s note) have been violated by a State. However, “a more rapid path than that pertaining to legal complaints”, is provided by Solvit. Solvit is a problem-solving network created in 2002 for individual citizens and enterprises who need to solve problems triggered “by public authorities’ faulty implementation of internal Market regulations”. Finally, the authors pointed out the possibility of turning to the ECC-Net, the European Consumers Network, “whose goal is to step up consumers’ self-confidence when they purchase abroad or in their own Country”. Understanding, appropriating, partecipating. The measures for consumers’ protection enforced by the EU are envisaged in a directive, (99/44/CE) “devoted to the protection of their interests, whose objective is to facilitate access to the legal tools and to the relative EU procedures”. In order to increase protection, the European Commission established the Consumers’ Advisory Board, which plays a crucial role in the relations between the EU and local organizations. “It can also be viewed as an indirect opportunity for European citizens”. As relates to legislation in the field of audiovisuals, the reference document is the Directive on audiovisual services which, with the inclusion of new media, is aimed at “protecting specific public interests, such as cultural diversity, the right to information, media pluralism, the protection of minors and consumers’ protection” by promoting the “viewers’ media literacy”, enabling a safe and effective media fruition. The acquisition of new forms of knowledge is the subject of the conclusive part of the survey conducted by Celot and Gualtieri: “Being able to write and read is no longer sufficient. In the context we are living in, learning to read and write the media is crucial. Such objective entails the collective promotion of a new form of literacy aimed at helping citizens understand the role of the media and the meaning of its messages, use the media, or rather, appropriate them. Indeed, this is also the necessary condition to actively participate in different areas of social and democratic life”.