Spain

[ES] The Spanish Government launches a consultation to promote the digital transformation of news media outlets

IRIS 2023-9:1/18

Azahara Cañedo & Marta Rodriguez Castro

The Spanish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation has launched a consultation targeted at media outlets with the objective of identifying their needs in addressing their digital transformation and advancing cybersecurity issues. This will be achieved primarily by fostering a more secure relationship with consumers through digital platforms.

The main topics media outlets are invited to comment on are the type of organisations that are part of the media sector (press and digital media, according to their activity, size and geographical distribution), the digital technologies they are implementing and those that they would like to introduce, their levels of cybersecurity, their investment in R&D aimed at the development of AI applications and the opportunities for public-private collaborations.

Despite the levels of digitisation achieved in the media sector, it has been identified that media organisations are not accessing the same levels of support as other strategic sectors. Thus, the government is designing specific lines of aid for the media sector, that would allow it to evolve and therefore enhance its contribution to a healthy democracy. The answers received through this public consultation will shape these lines of aid and will help establish the most suitable financial and collaboration instruments for the sector.

This initiative is part of the strategy “Agenda España Digital 2026”, funded through the Recovery Plan for Europe, and is in line with the European Commission’s “Annual Sustainable Growth Strategy 2021”. It is also linked with the Spanish PERTE (Strategic Project for Economic Recovery and Transformation) on the New Language Economy , that aims at promoting Spanish and the co-official languages (Galician, Basque, and Catalan) as a factor of economic growth and competitiveness.