Directed by Professor Jaume Suau and the Dean of the School, Dr. Josep Maria Carbonell, MedMedia is a European-funded project formed by internationally renowned partners such as BBC Media Action, International Federation of Journalists, IREX Europe and the Jordan Media Institute.
In addition to the partners in the project, the faculty has also worked with UNESCO in the past four years to participate in the World Press Freedom Day, which is held annually in May.
Central themes of the project: the regulation of media
MedMedia's main objective has been to contribute to the development of the media system in the MENA region (North Africa and the Middle East), through a series of transforming and networking activities in all areas related to the media. The faculty has worked on the regulatory aspect of the media, with activities aimed at regulatory bodies, as well as the area of faculties of journalism and communication.
In the field of media regulation, the faculty began its task coordinating the implementation of a series of reports that assessed the situation of legislation and regulation of the media system in each of the countries of the MENA region . You can consult these reports, as well as other documents of interest in the MENA region, in the digital library of the project.
The School organized 2015 in Riga, within the framework of the World Press Freedom Day, a meeting of the main regulatory entities in the region to debate how the MedMedia project could promote pluralism and self regulation. As a result of this conference, which also hosted relevant European experts, the faculty promoted a series of peer-to-peer programs in order to exchange and increase cooperation between European regulatory bodies and the MENA region.
The countries that have benefited most from this project have been Tunisia and Lebanon, both of whom have been able to count on the advice of European experts in order to improve the actions of their regulatory entities.
Israel has also been a country that has benefited from this part of the project, promoting a cooperation agreement between the regulators of this country and the Information Council of Catalonia. In the framework of this peer-to-peer exchange, a conference was also held in Tel Aviv to identify the future challenges in the field of media regulation.
Weaving a Mediterranean network
In recent years, the School has focused its efforts on the creation of a network of universities in the MENA region, creating a biannual forum for the exchange of good practices and networking that has allowed the signing of numerous collaboration agreements and joint projects between universities in North Africa and the Middle East.
Up to 5 conferences have been held in countries such as Jordan, Morocco, Egypt and Finland, where the network of universities created by the Faculty participated in the 2016 World Press Freedom Day, promoting the debate on the challenge of transforming studies in communication both in Europe and in the MENA region. Thanks to the work of the faculty and the commitment of the different member institutions of the network, a number of areas of improvement have been identified in which the members have pledged to work. One of these challenges is precisely the internationalization of communication faculties in the MENA region. In this sense, the MedMedia project has helped to increase relations between universities in the region, as well as with European institutions.
