Dr. Eileen Culloty:

On the question of monitoring, the issue is that the entire media system is incredibly complex. There are so many different platforms and actors. Any one of us can create media and call ourselves a journalist. There are so many different journalism outlets. Ireland is a small English-speaking country which is massively influenced by what happens in the UK and US. When one puts all of that together, one has health and wellness influencers on Instagram or TikTok who are slowly engaging with content in the US that is becoming quite political and then suddenly they are talking about politics in Ireland. That might not be on any of our radars because people who are interested in European affairs may not be particularly interested in what people are saying about going to the gym.

When an issue arises and we see something dramatic happening, journalists and fact-checkers can try to understand what has just happened but without that background understanding of just what is going on across the whole system media system. For example, and I know this as a lecturer, the people students are interested in and follow are people I have never heard of. I assume that most journalists are not aware of who these people are either. This idea of monitoring is very much about being aware of what is going on in Ireland, who is influential, what topics are gaining traction and so on.

That is not something that is being done across the board. Journalists do not have resources to be doing that because it is not something they would be reporting on every single day. Then there are NGOs, for example, the work EMI is doing around Europe, and other NGOs might focus on particular issues they are interested in. Again, one is missing that bit about the wellness or foodie influencers or whatever it is. The European Digital Media Observatory at DCU leads on that and is the hub in Ireland. The original idea was that this body would do some of that work but the European Commission funding for it was cut so we now only get 50% funding.

Researchers are a different thing. What they do is try to understand. Research is a very long process and it is not about this day-to-day of what is going on. It is not clear under whose remit this would fall. Whoever could do it, and I do not think it would require a huge amount of funding as a handful of people could probably do this type of work, it would need to be transparent. Whatever methodologies are used, it needs to be accountable because many NGOs which do this work then come under attack with people saying they are biased and so on. It is about transparency in the methods they use and showing their work. That could then be a great resource for people, whether it is journalists, politicians or other actors, to understand what is going on. Even the Electoral Commission or Coimisiún na Meán would benefit from this type of resource. Instead, at the moment we are all quite blind and reacting to stuff instead of understanding the environment.