While digitalisation is very advanced in the press and media sector in Europe, this is not yet the case for the work of press and media councils, which still handle the complaints submitted to them via a paper-based procedure. However, many press and media councils are presently looking at further digitising their work, and some have already moved to a fully digitised and paperless process. The Deutsche Presserat just published "DigiTool: Digital tools for complaints analyses by European press and media councils", a review of examples of digital complaint handling already in use.
The digital tools examined are those used by the Norwegian Press Association (Norsk Presseforbund), the Swedish Media Ombudsman (Allmänhetens Medieombudsman) and the German Press Council (Deutscher Presserat). The review explains the different approaches and technical arrangements, and outlines the costs of digitisation. It is intended to assist other European press and media councils to gain inspiration to digitalise their complaints-handling processes, and includes information such as implementation, pricing and benefits.
While all the three organisations work with digital complaints-handling processes, they each use different systems based on their particular needs and available software in their countries. They emphasise that digitalisation is not only inevitable but also offers opportunity in terms of efficiency and flexibility.
Read more about the different digital complaints-handling tools currently in use in Europe: