Alliance for the Resilient Information Society
futur eins is a member of the Alliance for a Resilient Information Society, which was initiated by betterplace lab together with Publix, More in Common, and many others. Alex Sängerlaub, who strategically advised and co-developed the Alliance, also published the policy paper Towards a Resilient Information Society: A Cornerstone of Holistic Public Sphere Policy as part of its launch.
Daring to Imagine Better Publics
Democracies need reliable information. The Alliance for a Resilient Information Society is a network of civil society organizations working to strengthen democratic discourse. It creates a strategic space for reflection, pools resources, and empowers civil society in the digital age. The Alliance was initiated by betterplace lab together with CORRECTIV, More in Common, the Bucerius Lab of Die Zeit, and Publix. Since September 2024, Alex Sängerlaub has been advising betterplace lab strategically in building the Alliance, and since October 2024, futur eins has been an Alliance partner.
The organizations within the Alliance strengthen the democratic information ecosystem — for example through investigative journalism, the promotion of information and media literacy, accompanying research, or the development of policy recommendations. Each organization contributes at different points to building a better information ecosystem.
On March 13 and 14, the Alliance’s inaugural event took place in the form of a future-oriented process. At the opening on Thursday evening, we discussed with Markus Beckedahl (Netzpolitik), Simon Hurtz (Social Media Watchblog), Christiane Hoffmann (Deputy Government Spokesperson), and Laura Krause (More in Common) under the title “Discourse instead of Destruction: How do we become a resilient information society?” On Friday, visions for the future of democratic publics were jointly developed and discussions were held on how to achieve them.
“Do we need a comprehensive policy for publics?” We explored this question on July 17 at Publix together with betterplace lab (Lukas Harlan, Josefa Kny), and discussed it with Eva Flecken (mabb), Erik Tuchtfeld (D64), Hanna Gleiß (Das NETTZ), Alex Sängerlaub, and Kristina Krömer (metro_polis).
The Goals of the Alliance
The Alliance aims to foster a shared understanding of what makes a resilient information society and to develop perspectives on handling and accessing information that remain robust even in times of crisis. On the Alliance’s website, you can find the policy paper On the Way to a Resilient Information Society: Laying the Foundation for a Holistic Public Policy by Alexander Sängerlaub, which provides the foundation for this discussion.
At the core of the paper are four resilience factors of a functioning democratic information ecosystem and how it can be strengthened:
Resilience of Democracy: Stability and integrity of the political system as well as the political framework for a functioning public sphere
Resilience of Journalism: Freedom, trust, and quality of the media system
Resilience of Social Media Platforms: Blueprints, accountability, and rule(-enforcement) in social networks
Resilience of Society: Skills and competencies (especially digital information and media literacy) of society
The Alliance connects civil society organizations contributing to a resilient information society and brings them into exchange with experts from other sectors. To this end, we conducted a future process on March 14 with over 50 experts, drawing inspiration from examples in Finland (KAVI), Denmark (Constructive Institute), and the EU (the DSA from the European Commission). First impressions as well as the opening panel discussion can also be found on the website.
The Alliance for a Resilient Information Society was founded in 2024 by betterplace lab together with CORRECTIV, More in Common, Publix, and the Bucerius Lab. Current additional Alliance partners include SPREUWEIZEN, Das NETTZ—and us, futur eins.
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