The Sphera Project
Sphera Project: A social media-first, multilingual content production hub for the next generation of Europeans
Photo credit: Christian Helgi Beaussier
In the summer of 2020, the journalist platforms Are We Europe and CafeBabel requested our help to design an ambitious plan to get more young Europeans interested in current European events. The problem they wanted to tackle is the “participation paradox”: young people are quite active in volunteering and in local communities, but don’t necessarily go out and vote, or engage in politics or in other societal debates—especially at a European level.
With a pressing deadline, we quickly drew up a media outreach strategy that was completely focused on the world of young Europeans: video-first and social media-first, with plenty of podcasts. We introduced a new audience segmentation based on engagement level rather than demographics, and added various other innovative ideas to boost the involvement of young Europeans in cross-border topics with exciting media content.
The Sphera Project was selected as best project of the application pile by DG Connect, giving a consortium of 10 up-and-coming European media organisations the resources they need to create a European media hub and empower young audiences to get involved in ideas that matter to them.
In 2021, a second EU grant for Sphera was awarded to continue the work, now under the coordination of Babel International. We helped Babel International secure a 3rd grant for the continuation of the project in 2023.
