For example, in some countries, the production of news is controlled and governments do not allow media’s fully independence or, in other countries, the media are independent of the government but work as private industries which are pushed by profit.
Nowadays the technological progress has a great impact on journalism related practices, since the coming of Internet and smartphones implied many changes in both the production and consumption of the traditional print media channels. Social media news has also imposed the issue of the so-called fake news, in other words deliberately untruthful information which can have a quick and alarming diffusion.
In this context, journalism has to recall its concern for social responsibility and this is one of the milestones of the intent of UNIMED to build up a SubNetwork on Journalism.
The general purpose is to bring students, faculties and staff of UNIMED associated universities to share values and culture of journalism across the Mediterranean area. Through its action the SubNetwork aims to encourage dialogue and collaboration towards a shared strategy of promotion and support of journalism with the aim to enrich journalism studies, to endorse collaboration and research opportunities, to enhance capacity building processes related to journalism issues as well as to explore new curricula in universities.
The SubNetwork will seek to profile the profession of journalist in relation to social responsibility issues, to educate critical and reflective journalism professionals, to stimulate relationships with active audiences in order to ensure the improvement of public debate and support the democratization process of the country, where needed.
Moreover, the SubNetwork aims to improve and modernise the way of studying communication and journalism, for example by including the capabilities to use video, audio, text in innovative ways as well as to experience new communication platforms, such as social media and blogs, to produce journalistic contents.

For all these reasons, the purpose of this SubNetwork is to endorse the cooperation among the UNIMED partners on the fields of Journalism, involving academics and experts from both shores of the Mediterranean basin.
SubNetwork Objectives
– Collecting information on the “state of art” of journalism within UNIMED members.
– Sharing and promoting networking with UNIMED partners for EU-funded projects on journalism.
– Facilitate the exchange of information and stimulate researches and publications on these issues, strengthening the collaboration between researchers of the UNIMED consortium.
– Involving students, faculty and staff of the partner universities to participate in local, national and international events related to journalism.
– Organizing conferences, seminars, round-tables and workshops on relevant topics for journalism.
Each UNIMED partner will decide its own level of involvement to join the SubNetwork on one or more of these objectives