International Communication Summit in Brussels: Jung Chang, Harper Reed, Mulgan and Zémor debating on transparency and institutional communication

Can we create a dialogue between citizens and institutions? How does it change the concept of 'citizen-consumer' in the informative cloud invading our life? Are there ways to rebuild a relationship of trust between politics and the people?

The International Communication Summit, in its first European edition, held in the city of Brussels, Biblioteque Solvay, has succeeded in creating a debate on these issues, looking for opportunities of reflection rather than definitive answers. The ICS Pomilio Blumm Summit, created by the communication agency Pomilio Blumm, proposed new ideas on concepts such as the 'citizen-consumer' and 'transparency', seen as the only chance to engage european citizens in institutional communications, as pointed out by Pomilio Blumm President and ICS Chairman Franco Pomilio.

“Transparency is just telling the truth,” said  bestseller writer Jung Chang, who explained to the audience how her books are full of truth, of real life, and that’s why they fascinate so many people around the world (fifteen million copies for her last two books), because "transparency is at the core of my writing, is its soul".

Harper Reed, web strategist of President Obama's re-election campaign, explained that the president’s staff called him because they "wanted something different” and that social media and web can give great ways to make powerful communication such as “the crowdsourcing, that engages the people in such a way they do the hard work” or “the micro-targeting, which is really exciting” . Harper Reed also pointed out that “Facilitating community is the power behind your brand” and that if you create on the web a “good neighborhood, people will join it”.

One of the most authoritative thinkers on social innovation and the sharing economy, former Head of Policy and Director of the Strategy Unit for the Tony Blair government, Geoff Mulgan, explained how “one of Europe’s greatest challenges is to grow public understanding of the need to prioritize  future investment– in R&D, innovation – rather than current consumption.  Elsewhere in the world fear has often galvanized that commitment – we also now need to mobilize hope, but above all direct public involvement in the process of creating the future”. 

One of the most authoritative voices of public communication, Pierre Zèmor, talked about the risks of public communication “ who could be some times a sort of style exercise, becoming useless to face crisis, that’s why we need to find a true public communication, engaging real people, and helping policy-makers”.

Stephen Clark, responsible for communicating the activities of the European Parliament to citizens  explained that “as an institutional service we will always need to explain the Parliament. It’s a complicated place… but in the long run, our job is more and more to open it up and put citizens in touch with politicians. We need to start the conversation, and then get out of the way”. According to Ronny Patz, EU Communications & Policy Officer in Transparency International's Liaison Office to the European Union, “to gain trusts from the citizens all the policy makers have to not just make good laws on transparency, but be up to speed with the technical and social reality”. Moderator of the event was Barbara Roffi, Head of sector Content Production and Audio Visual Unit European Parliament.

Share this article: