Time for Public Policy: Do We Need a New Political Field to Save Democracy?

While digital policy now has its own ministry, another central pillar of democracy still lacks a strategic framework: the public sphere.
Yet disinformation, polarization, and platform oligopolies threaten democratic opinion-making. We believe: if we want to prevent our democracy from being handed over to libertarian propagandists and algorithmic extremists, we need to act now – and above all, build structures that don’t allow responsibility to dissolve across endless jurisdictions.

The Alliance for a Resilient Information Society puts forward a bold thesis: we need a new political field – public sphere policy. A policy for a resilient information society – strategically conceived and practically implemented. For a public sphere oriented toward the common good. For a democracy that enables real participation. For a society that is both media literate and resilient. Because building a functioning public sphere is both security policy and infrastructure policy. Which leads us to the key question: How do we safeguard the foundations of our democracy in the 21st century?

Together with Eva Flecken (Medienanstalt Berlin-Brandenburg), Erik Tuchtfeld (D64 – Center for Digital Progress; MPIL), Hanna Gleiß (Das NETTZ), and Alexander Sängerlaub (futur eins, author of the Alliance’s policy paper “Towards a Resilient Information Society: Laying the Groundwork for Holistic Public Sphere Policy”), the Alliance for a Resilient Information Society invites you to join the discussion – and looks forward to engaging with many interested participants.