Researchers from the Peace Institute on the Citizens’ Parliament as an Innovative Democratic and Research Method

“Citizens’ parliaments can be understood as a democratic innovation with the potential to reshape relationships between citizens, media institutions, and policy making processes in Europe,” researchers from the Peace Institute emphasized at the conference.

On 15–16 January 2026, the international conference “Beyond the Audience: Rethinking Participation and Power in the Age of Data Capitalism” took place at IULM University in Rome. The conference was dedicated to critical reflections on how participation, power relations, and the role of media are being reshaped in contemporary data-driven societies.

The conference was also attended by Peace Institute researchers Brankica Petković, Tjaša Turnšek, and Lori Šramel Čebular, who presented the scientific paper “Engaging citizens in shaping media futures: democratic participation in Slovenian media policy-making.”

In their presentation, they explained why and how – according to the participants in the Citizens’ Parliament – it is meaningful to involve the public in media policy-making. Their analysis is grounded in an understanding of media as a public good and in the assumption that democracy functions better when people have genuine opportunities to participate in decision-making – not merely as audiences, but as active co-creators.

The core of the research is the Citizens’ Parliament method, a multi-day, facilitated deliberative process on media and democracy that took place in Slovenia last year.