The 6th edition of EuroPCom, the European Conference on Public Communication,- organized by the CoR- took place on 21 and 22 October 2015 in Brussels.
Two intense days of lectures, debates and interactive workshops focused on major challenges in both EU and public communication, e.g.: how it flows from public institutions to citizens and vice versa, or how to incorporate participation and the use of new technologies.
Partenalia highlights its attendance to a session devoted to the way in which institutions are able to communicate European projects to journalists from local media. Apparently, Brussels may seem distant or pointless for citizens in their municipalities, so it is relevant to establish a different approach in which they can understand the effects of the decisions taken in Europa in everyday life.
To this end, Dr. Daria Santucci- DG Energy, European Commission- launched a number of recommendations for the European news to achieve greater impact on the local levels:
Be Factual: To make news more understandable. Those will have some local references for bringing them closer. In other words, they will be “face and eyes” and express feelings and emotions: they will tell a story.
Be Meaningful and Be Usual: It is important to insist on the purpose of the actions, not only on how these actions are developed, but also on why they are implemented and the immediate effects that they cause.
Be Replicable and Be Connected: If we use computer graphics on Twitter, their format will be simple, easily reusable and also shared with a homogeneous message to the largest possible number of platforms.
On top of that, both Alix Bolle- Covenant of Mayors’ Community Manager- and Hanna Möller- Local Journalist in Bremen- stressed the importance of strengthening the EU’s message as a leader in implementing all types of initiatives and good practices throughout the territory. This arises because the citizens themselves, and especially the media are encouraged by success stories taking place in their own local communities. That is to say, we need stories with a greater human component: more kind and replicable.
