DIACOMET – Fostering capacity building for civic resilience and participation : Dialogic communication ethics and accountability. Report : Focus Group Discussions, Finland
Tolonen, Elina; Heikkilä, Heikki (2025)
Tampere University
2025
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-4148-0
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-03-4148-0
Tiivistelmä
This report examines how non-institutional media actors in Finland perceive ethical problems in the current hybrid media environment and which values and ethical principles guide their participation in public communication.
The study forms part of the EU Horizon project DIACOMET – Fostering Capacity Building for Civic Resilience and Participation: Dialogic Communication Ethics and Accountability, which investigates communication ethics and accountability through focus group discussions conducted in 2024 in eight European countries: Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, and Switzerland. Altogether, 87 focus groups were held with over 500 participants.
In this context, non-institutional media actors refer to “users beyond audiences”—individuals and groups who both produce and consume content while engaging in public communication outside institutional communication professions and journalism. Building on research on the hybrid media environment and the attention economy, participants were recruited into four analytical categories: attention magnets (e.g., politicians, experts), attention hackers (e.g., activists, artivists), attention workers (e.g., influencers, podcasters, students), and the attention deprived (e.g., minorities, older people, young people, rural residents). Each of these groups has access to different resources and, crucially, to varying degrees of attention capital, which shapes their opportunities to participate in public debate in today’s communication environment.
The report proceeds in three parts. The first analyses participants’ perceptions of the media environment, highlighting criticism of journalism for commercialisation and bias, and of social media for algorithmic precariousness and a “diversity paradox” where broader representation coexists with fragmented realities. The second explores experiences of public communication and tactics for participation, such as intermediary advocacy, media collaboration, and audience building, while noting that access to public discourse remains unequal. The third examines ethical reflection and value tensions—such as truthfulness versus strategic positioning, inclusivity versus boundary-setting, and individual responsibility versus systemic challenges—through which participants articulated their own ethical frameworks.
By amplifying perspectives beyond professional codes and institutional self-regulation, the report shows how non-institutional actors develop ethical principles grounded in lived dilemmas. These include honesty as transparent authenticity, epistemic diversity beyond demographic inclusion, and democratic care through relational listening. Such practices may demand deeper self-reflection than existing professional guidelines, yet in the absence of institutional structures they rely on networked ethical reasoning that may introduce biases or blind spots.
In documenting these perceptions and situated practices, the report nuances Finland’s reputation as a high-trust democracy and contributes to European debates on communication ethics in hybrid media environment. The report demonstrates that attention—its pursuit, the strategies it requires, and its unequal distribution—constitutes a central ethical challenge of contemporary communication. Addressing this ethics of attention is essential for developing dialogic approaches that can strengthen civic participation and accountability in public life.
The study forms part of the EU Horizon project DIACOMET – Fostering Capacity Building for Civic Resilience and Participation: Dialogic Communication Ethics and Accountability, which investigates communication ethics and accountability through focus group discussions conducted in 2024 in eight European countries: Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, and Switzerland. Altogether, 87 focus groups were held with over 500 participants.
In this context, non-institutional media actors refer to “users beyond audiences”—individuals and groups who both produce and consume content while engaging in public communication outside institutional communication professions and journalism. Building on research on the hybrid media environment and the attention economy, participants were recruited into four analytical categories: attention magnets (e.g., politicians, experts), attention hackers (e.g., activists, artivists), attention workers (e.g., influencers, podcasters, students), and the attention deprived (e.g., minorities, older people, young people, rural residents). Each of these groups has access to different resources and, crucially, to varying degrees of attention capital, which shapes their opportunities to participate in public debate in today’s communication environment.
The report proceeds in three parts. The first analyses participants’ perceptions of the media environment, highlighting criticism of journalism for commercialisation and bias, and of social media for algorithmic precariousness and a “diversity paradox” where broader representation coexists with fragmented realities. The second explores experiences of public communication and tactics for participation, such as intermediary advocacy, media collaboration, and audience building, while noting that access to public discourse remains unequal. The third examines ethical reflection and value tensions—such as truthfulness versus strategic positioning, inclusivity versus boundary-setting, and individual responsibility versus systemic challenges—through which participants articulated their own ethical frameworks.
By amplifying perspectives beyond professional codes and institutional self-regulation, the report shows how non-institutional actors develop ethical principles grounded in lived dilemmas. These include honesty as transparent authenticity, epistemic diversity beyond demographic inclusion, and democratic care through relational listening. Such practices may demand deeper self-reflection than existing professional guidelines, yet in the absence of institutional structures they rely on networked ethical reasoning that may introduce biases or blind spots.
In documenting these perceptions and situated practices, the report nuances Finland’s reputation as a high-trust democracy and contributes to European debates on communication ethics in hybrid media environment. The report demonstrates that attention—its pursuit, the strategies it requires, and its unequal distribution—constitutes a central ethical challenge of contemporary communication. Addressing this ethics of attention is essential for developing dialogic approaches that can strengthen civic participation and accountability in public life.