By Noémi Nagy and Craig Willis
The rapidly changing media landscape poses challenges for all areas of society, but, as recent developments at the top of social media ownership have shown, diversity and minoritized groups can be particularly vulnerable and media in minority languages can be particularly precarious, in various ways. It can therefore fall to regulators or lawmakers to ensure appropriate safeguards are in place to protect such groups and languages. In the context of regional or minority languages in Europe, there are only two legally binding documents at the international level which contain explicit provisions for minority-language media (MLM): the Council of Europe’s European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM). Both treaties set up monitoring mechanisms to ensure that States adhere to the commitments the legislation provides for. The ECRML has been ratified by 25 States and the FCNM by 38, having a wide geographic application as well as a broad thematic coverage. Since the texts were drafted in the early 1990s, many areas of life have changed considerably – media is arguably one of the most dramatic. As such, the monitoring cycles are intended to act as a continuing update to the texts where possible.
The ECRML has commissioned publications relating to media, such as the 2008 ‘The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the Media’ authored by Tom Moring and Rob Dunbar, or later the 2019 report on ‘New Technologies, New Social Media and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages’ by Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones, Jarmo Lainio, Tom Moring and Fatma Resit. This report pointed out ways in which the Committee of Experts of the ECRML (COMEX) could adapt to the new challenges within their work. Moreover, analysis of the Charter’s monitoring cycles has suggested that the Charter is ‘fit for the digital age’ even with its existing provisions. As for the FCNM, it has yet to dedicate one of its specific Thematic Commentaries to media but did cover various elements of the topic in its 2016 commentary ‘The Framework Convention: a key tool to managing diversity through minority rights’. It remains unclear whether the COMEX or the FCNM’s Advisory Committee (ACFC) are up to speed with the latest trends – given the sharp acceleration of transforming media consumption habits through the Covid-19 pandemic. In particular, social media has become increasingly audiovisual in content style with the emergence of TikTok and addition of Reels on Instagram – plus, EU data shows a growing divergence in terms of age groups and platform most used, with TikTok and Instagram very popular with younger generations, compared to a dominance of Facebook with over 35s.
The possible consequences of these shifting media habits for minority language media specifically have been unpacked in a recent academic commentary, yet the response of the Council of Europe and its monitoring bodies remains underexplored. This blogpost aims to shed light on this, through the analysis of reports from ECRML’s Committee of Experts (COMEX) and the FCNM’s Advisory Committee (ACFC) since the pandemic. First, however, we provide a background on the most recent challenges highlighted by minority language media literature in order to contextualise our findings.
Social media: friend or foe for minority languages?
The topic of social media usage in minority languages first emerged in literature in the mid-2000s. Social media was initially seen as a competitor and threat to traditional media outlets but also as an opportunity for participatory exchanges in what came to be termed as online breathing spaces. Most substantially, the volume edited by Jones and Uribe-Jongbloed brought together many topics concerned with the use of minority languages online but also the challenges legacy media was facing – compounded by globalisation and also the post-2008 financial crisis. The literature began to change towards the end of the 2010s and particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic, whereby social media trends had shifted greatly – giants such as Facebook and Twitter were facing issues in retaining their audience at the expense of TikTok and Instagram. In the context of minority languages, the global dominance of English had become an additional threat alongside official state languages and added an extra layer of complexity in promoting the former online. Legacy media had developed its approach as well, engaging with social media to create content within the platform rather than linking to content on its own website, as well as becoming more audiovisual in nature rather than text based. In this environment, concern has grown about the role of the social media platforms’ algorithms – the lack of transparency but also the issue of being crowded out in a global world of English and state languages.
Can the monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe keep up with the changing social media landscape?
Council of Europe, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
As previously mentioned, both the ECRML and the FCNM were devised in the 1990s and as such they include explicit references only to legacy media. Yet, this does not preclude their suitability to face recent challenges of MLM in a post-Covid environment, since both the COMEX and the ACFC have adopted a flexible, dynamic method of treaty interpretation (ACFC Thematic Commentary #4, para. 5). Indeed, Moring and Dunbar suggested already in 2008 that Article 12 of the ECRML could have a wider application beyond legacy media due to its reference to making use of new technologies. However, based on our analysis of all the opinions and evaluation reports – altogether 73 – adopted by the two expert organs in the past five years (2020-2024), it seems that this progressive approach has yet to be extended to MLM. References to social, digital or new media in the reports are overall scarce and lack consistency. Sometimes, the Committees simply repeat States’ presentations on online media outlets or products available in their country (digital versions of newspapers, podcasts, YouTube pages of public television or radio companies, etc.) without commenting on them (e.g. ACFC Latvia 2023, paras. 89-90; COMEX Cyprus 2021, paras. 26-27, 29).
However, more often than not, the Committees are appreciative of these mentions and emphasize how “the advancements in modern information technology can be adapted for the benefit of the speakers” (e.g. COMEX Denmark 2023, para. 28). The Committees also point out that the fulfilment of media-related obligations can be facilitated by the internet (e.g. COMEX Croatia 2024, para. 80). State parties are encouraged to increase the offer of online media content in regional or minority languages (e.g. COMEX Spain 2024, pp. 56, 58, 74) and to design a policy for the production and distribution of new and social media (e.g. COMEX Finland 2024, para. 105). This is justified by the fact that many minority speakers, especially the youth, prefer these platforms to legacy media outlets. Therefore, these platforms could contribute to raising the popularity of regional or minority languages and help reaching younger audiences (e.g. ACFC Austria 2023, para. 100; COMEX Czechia 2020, para. 30).
In addition to acknowledging that media landscapes in Europe are shifting increasingly towards online content and appreciating the considerable potential social media offers in the promotion of RMLs (e.g. ACFC Germany 2022, para. 153), the COMEX and ACFC also emphasize the importance of legacy media for those without internet access or without digital competences for maintaining a link with their minority culture (e.g. ACFC Georgia 2024, para. 99; COMEX Bosnia and Herzegovina 2024, para. 118). In line with the OSCE HCNM Tallin Guidelines, the Committees also warn that the abundance of information available in today’s digital media environment does not lessen existing State obligations to facilitate the production and dissemination of minority-language content (e.g. ACFC Croatia 2021, para. 157). In fact, social media is not a panacea for the promotion of RMLs. Even in the digital social media environment, a divide persists between the majority population and national minorities, notably in the choice of social media platforms used (e.g. ACFC Estonia 2022, para. 117). This should be calculated into devising adequate policies.
Furthermore, social media is a favoured scenery for hate speech against national minorities, and a proof for increased racism and intolerance (antigypsyism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim and anti-Black racism, etc.) in contemporary societies. Authorities are repeatedly called to actively engage with media outlets and social media platforms to take steps to combat these dangerous trends and the negative stereotyping of minorities and their languages (e.g. ACFC Switzerland 2023, para. 7; COMEX Norway 2021, para. 18).
Conclusions and recommendations
Although in theory both the ECRML and the FCNM would be capable of addressing the recent challenges (for the ECRML, see Láncos), our analysis suggests that social media is not seen as a fundamental issue for the ACFC or the COMEX reporting. To start with, only 59 of the 73 evaluation reports contain any reference to media and just 44 mention social media specifically. This is despite the growing prominence of social media in the day-to-day life of the vast majority of society, and that social media is an area which is particularly salient in terms of its issues and the debate around regulation. Adding to this, there are no mentions at all of TikTok, just one mention of Instagram, and four mentions of Facebook – despite their widespread prominence in society.
Part of the reason for this does lie in the fact that the reports are responding to a previous state report, thus could be focused on a period as far back as the early 2010s. This could explain the very low level of TikTok and Instagram mentions but Facebook has been prominent since the late 2000s. Another argument could be that the treaty provisions concerning media are focused on traditional media outlets, yet almost all traditional media are present on social media and are often dedicating an increasing amount of their time and budget on these platforms. Part of the problem is a lack of consistency with terminology, with the terms social media, new media and new social media used across the reporting.
Going forward, the ACFC and COMEX need to increase their focus on social media on many levels, including with regard to how traditional media outlets are using social media (or not); i.e. within the scope of Article 9 of the FCNM and Article 11 of the ECRML, as well as further institutional use of social media by other public authorities such as the educational sector. Social media now concerns individual users/consumers, traditional media outlets but also a third sector of producers such as public authorities, NGOs and also private businesses. To sufficiently assess the use of minority languages online, all three sectors need to be considered, and this includes issues related to hate speech which can occur in all three – for example, through comments sections of social media posts. The COMEX has its 2019 publication as guidance for some of these issues, however this is already somewhat outdated given the particularly stark changes the pandemic accelerated. However, the ACFC has yet to dedicate a specific publication on media and so it could consider a new thematic commentary specifically concerned with the changing media landscape, post Covid-19.
Dr. Noémi Nagy is MSCA/ERA Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethnic Studies in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as well as Associate Professor at the Department of International Law, Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest, Hungary. She holds a PhD in law as well as university degrees in law and psychology. Her main research interests are the international protection of human rights, minority rights and language rights. Currently she is doing research on the Conceptualization and operationalization of minorities in the practice of UN treaty bodies (MINCOOP) and serves as Grant Awarding Coordinator of the COST Action project titled PLURILINGMEDIA.
Dr. Craig Willis is a Researcher at the European Centre for Minority Issues, focusing on minority language communities. This is primarily in the context of media within which he completed his cumulative PhD dissertation. He is also Chair of the recently launched COST Action on Language Plurality in Europe’s Changing Media Sphere (PLURILINGMEDIA), CA23105. This will run for 4 years, until October 2028, with the ECMI as the Grant Holder Institution. Craig is also a member of the steering committee in the International Association for Minority Language Media Research and a member of the Scientific Committee for the International Conference on Minority Languages XX to be held in Bogota in June 2025.
Feautured image by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash