FEATURE
“You trust people you talk to more than just people that are talking to you.” – How the Public Spaces Incubator is building civic engagement
10 July 2026
At this year’s DW Global Media Forum, held in June in Bonn, Germany, PMA ran a session with the members of the Public Spaces Incubator.
The Public Spaces Incubator was launched in 2022, as a partnership between four public service media (PSM) organisations – CBC/Radio-Canada, RTBF (Belgium), SRG SSR (Switzerland) and ZDF (Germany) – and one US-based nonprofit R&D lab, New_ Public. After an initial period of work, ARD (Germany) and ARTE (France-Germany) joined the partnership.
The project initially focussed on exploring how people encounter and feel about the online spaces they engage with. Early findings showed that many people refrain from participating in online discourse due to its toxicity, and fear of abuse. But crucially, it also found that people wanted an alternative – a space where they could engage. From there, the partners worked on developing the tools. At the end of the project in 2027, the tools will all be made open source and available to be deployed by other media companies.
In the hour-long discussion, moderated by PMA’s CEO Kristian Porter, the panel spoke about the project’s origins and its mission, why public service media are taking on the responsibility to design such spaces, and what tools are already being rolled out across public media’s platforms.
Representing the PSI during the panel were: Chris Skinner, Senior Director, Business and Strategic Planning for Corporate Development, CBC/Radio-Canada, Samuel Profumo, Chief Data & AI Officer, RTBF, and Robert Amlung, Senior Innovation Advisor, ZDF.
An edited transcript of the discussion is available below.
Kristian Porter: I want to start by looking at the big picture. Why are your organisations wanting to research, design and develop these spaces? What’s the context and driving force in each of your countries?
Robert Amlung: The starting point was the realisation that within a big company like ZDF – we’re the leading television broadcast in Germany – we always did things on our own and we just were preaching to people in a way. It was a very one directional thing. We were talking to you, the audience. And now in the digital world, we realise more and more it’s not working like that anymore. The digital world nowadays, if you look at these platforms, if they are successful, these are two-way things. And so, we need to be able to listen and to communicate with people.
We do that already, but only on platforms that are not ours. We do that on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. But this cannot be the solution. And this is where we started this project.
Samuel Profumo: As a broadcaster, we used to talk to people and this was the way to do journalism and to provide people with the news. But then we asked ourselves, why are we falling behind on digital? And it was obviously by looking at big tech that we understood the two main things that people are looking on digital: personalisation and interactivity. These were not present on our platform.
We also understood at that time that the way it was embedded on big tech was a real problem because of the toxicity of the discussion, because of the hyper-personalisation that would put people in filter bubbles, for instance. And so we figured out that we need to offer a solution that would be more relevant to public service media values. And so that’s where we start the project, trying to understand how we can provide people with personalisation [and] interactivity on our platforms, but without the pitfalls of the actual system.
Chris Skinner: For us, we realised that over the last 10, 12, 15 years, we’ve gradually “outsourced” conversation to the big platforms. And over time, those platforms, there’s been an increase in toxicity, an increase in polarisation, misinformation and disinformation. Also, [there’s been] the realisation that those platforms are built for different purposes than ours, right? They’re designed and built for commercial purposes. In other words, clicks and engagement. And so quite often, those interests are at odds with the public service interest.
KP: What do we mean by civic engagement?
RA: The question we started with in this project was: Are people happy with what they have on the big platforms? Because we think that what you find on the big platforms, the toxicity with all the bullshit, all these loud people, this is not what people want, but we weren’t sure, so we asked. And we happily got the feedback that we wanted: people are not happy.
And so why are they not happy? Because many people told us when we did the first research, “We are not happy with what we find on the big platforms because we wouldn’t normally engage in a conversation like it is there. We just keep silent there.” So, it’s a debate on big platforms that is driven by a few people that are happy with this kind of engagement, but many people are not.
We took this as a starting point and said, “Well, what can we do better? If we build it ourselves, we can control the algorithms, we can control the way it is built.” This gave us a principle which we call ‘Civility by Design’, which means that we want to build it with the help of algorithms and AI and some clever design thinking ideas, that makes it easier for those people who are not one of those classical social media kinds, but those who want to have a good conversation and to make it easier for them. And this is what we’re trying to achieve.
“We feel that the balance is more around the opportunity of getting in touch with people, getting our journalists into the discussion, because it will, at the end of the day, be something good. You trust people you talk to more than just people that are talking to you.” – Samuel Profumo, Chief Data & AI Officer, RTBF
KP: Today we’re talking about civic engagement, this civility online through the lens of the Public Spaces Incubator, which is a unique initiative, not least because it’s collaborative. It’s across borders, not just within Europe, it’s including Canada as well. And it’s also had assistance from another non-profit as well. Can you explain what the PSI is and who is a part of it?
CS: For us, the key thing was the ‘I’ stands for ‘Incubator’. The idea was that we weren’t buying something off the shelf. We’ve done that already. We’ve bought different tools. We’ve bought different dialogue and conversation tools that we would attach to content. But those weren’t working for us. And so the idea of the incubator was to start with a set of problem statements around civic and civil engagement and PSM values. And the idea was, could we do something together collaboratively that could achieve the objectives that we wanted?
The idea was, let’s come together. Let’s put our collective resources around something that is mutually beneficial to all of us. Let’s share the cost. Let’s share the risk. We all have the same values and so can we produce something? There’s a risk in that, that we come to the to the end of it and don’t achieve everything that we wanted to achieve. But we were fairly certain that it was a big enough problem – it was something that we should be involved in and we should try.
What is the Public Spaces Incubator? Listen to our podcast with two of its founders.
KP: The international aspect of the PSI is really important. Is there a benefit to it being international rather than just focusing on, say, Canada or Belgium, for example?
CS: There’s certainly a benefit from it being an international project. We already do this in co-productions and content all the time. It’s applying the same kind of model to design and product development, as we do with content. And what we found was there’s a lot of overlap. We already knew [about] each other beforehand, but the more we dug into challenges and obstacles and objectives, we found that we’re much more alike than we are different. But in the places that we are different, it just added new elements to the product development.
SP: We are a small country. Obviously, we need to provide solutions that are scalable and it’s not something that we can do alone on the Belgian French-speaking side of things. And we had the opportunity to work with New_ Public – people that are really experts, with proven track records on building these kind of interfaces. So, we had the chance to work with them, which would not [have] happened otherwise.
“The idea was, let’s come together. Let’s put our collective resources around something that is mutually beneficial to all of us. Let’s share the cost. Let’s share the risk. We all have the same values and so can we produce something?” – Chris Skinner, Senior Director, Business and Strategic Planning for Corporate Development, CBC/Radio-Canada
KP: But this isn’t this isn’t an alternative to social media. This isn’t a new social media platform or anything like that, that you’re trying to create, right?
SP: In the real world, the way you interact with people is different than the way you interact if you’re in the parking lot, or if you’re in a church, a wedding, or whatever. You change the setting, you change the way people are interacting with each other.
The way interfaces are designed at the moment looks more like parking lots and traffic jams than it looks like a nice place where you could have great encounters. I think it was really something that convinced us to move forward and not just by saying we are going to build a new social network that would look the same. At some point we just want to build digital places that are designed for people to encounter [each other] like the way they do here. It’s part of a bigger strategic decision, that if we say we do want to keep direct contact with the public, we do not want to rely only on the big platforms.
But this is why a couple of years ago we took the general decision that we want to keep our platforms. We have a streaming platform, we have a news platform, and we want to keep them. Which means that we have to invest in them and have them in a state that they can compete with the others. We know that we won’t succeed in getting all the audiences to our platform. So we are also on YouTube, we are also on Instagram, and we will continue to be. But our own platforms must be as attractive as the others so that people come to us.
KP: Why should it be public media who are leading initiatives like this?
RA: The basic thing here is that, from the financing business model that is underlying public service media, we are lucky that we can invest a bit more in innovation and try out things. The return [doesn’t have to] come very fast. And in the German case also there is quite a special thing. There has been a change in media law recently, last year, and in the new version of the media law it says clearly the public service media have to invest in communication and dialogue with the public and have to do that on their own, not only relying on third parties. So even if we would not have the project already, we would have to start one now because the EU would like to do this.
The PSI in Action
This screenshot from Radio-Canada’s website shows a conversational space built at the time of the landing of Artemis II in April. Four Radio-Canada experts are also ‘online’ able to answer questions and engage with online users. “In our testing, we found that conversations, they’re much, much less toxic when journalists and other experts are involved,” said Chris Skinner. “Their participation elevates the overall quality of our participation.” A QR code on the live television broadcast directed people towards the online space, with over 4,000 QR code scans.
This screenshot shows a conversation happening on RTBF’s Actu news site. In this instance – focussed on Brussels’ urban planning – users can first write a detailed comment, and then select their position from the options. This “has a great editorial value for journalists,” said Samuel Profumo. “When you dig into the comments that we have on this platform, you can have a new real opinion that makes it more interesting to write an article on the topic. It also gives a better representation of the debate because sometimes when you tackle a topic like this, you can also be polarised in the way you see the situation.”
This screenshot is from ZDF’s logo! website, which is specifically targeted towards younger audiences. The question – around how excited you are for this year’s football world cup – allows users to select one of five positions on the slider, from “Nein” on one side, to “Ja” on the other. “This is about not having thumbs up, thumbs down, polarised, but something that gives the possibility in between,” said Robert Amlung. “It’s about, locating yourself on the spectrum. This is what we are offering also to the kids.” Users can also leave a comment, and there is an AI tool which checks what users are writing, and can suggest that the user reviews their comment, while also then flagging to the human moderators if the comment has been posted, so they can take action.
KP: With the AI being used, is that a tool that’s being shared among you, or is the AI individual to your organisations?
CS: It’s collaborative. One of the benefits of the collaboration is the sharing, right? And so we share everything from best practices around crafting questions and the kinds of conversations that are successful and the metrics.
But things like AI and the development of that AI as well, where we have language in common, for instance. So we have Quebecois – French in Canada – and we have Belgian French as well. So those are somewhat different. And so there are different idioms and there’s sarcasm, and the Swiss bring a French as well. We just find that as all additive to the overall product so as much as we can, we’re trying not to silo things by partner and by country and by culture. We’re trying to share as much as possible.
KP: The theme for this conference is ‘Journalism Out Loud’ so how can this project enhance journalism?
RA: I think the strength of these tools is that they offer a lot of different possibilities for the editorial people at ZDF. Which means that if you are really coming from the news part, for instance, and want to increase your journalism, you can do that by inviting people into a reasoned debate and having arguments put forward that actually help the journalistic work and that enhance the whole product. That’s one possibility.
But on the other side, [it’s not always] about a debate with arguments. It’s about participating. And the most successful of this was that the moderator said, “Okay, after the show that you’ve just seen, you can continue to chat with me there with PSI tools.” And this chat was very successful, but it was not really about learning something. It was really about connection.
Another example: we have a huge fictional production at ZDF. So there’s nothing about journalism. But the fictional people are also interested in the tools because they have quite a couple of series that have a huge fan potential. These fans want to discuss what they’ve seen and what they’re seeing. And again, the tools are a great way to facilitate this. And this all can happen on our platforms.
CS: I would also just add to that, looking at it from both sides, users expect conversation and engagement around content. So there’s just a general behaviour and expectation that we need to meet.
Especially at a time where we were shutting down comments because they just didn’t work for us, when you asked journalists about that, what they said was “Yes, in some cases they were toxic, but when it worked, it worked really well.” In other words, we got story ideas. We were able to connect with the audience in a much deeper way than we would have otherwise. And since we shut those off, that just shut off a very valuable insight and perspective that they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
Just taking a Canadian case, many people may know that Meta shut off news on its platforms, on Facebook and on Instagram. So there is no news for Canadians, whether it’s our news or coming from anywhere in the world. And so having conversation around content, we needed some answer to that. And we weren’t going to get it at the scale of Facebook or Instagram, but in some small way, wanted to provide those things on our own site.
“From the financing business model that is underlying public service media, we are lucky that we can invest a bit more in innovation and try out things. The return [doesn’t have to] come very fast.” – Robert Amlung, Senior Innovation Advisor, ZDF
KP: It seems to touch on everything, it touches on the quality journalism, it touches on the role in cohesion and societal contributions, it touches on civic engagement. What are the risks with this?
SP: I want to emphasise the opportunity around this, because at the moment, as I said, the major risk is that, as long as we are the most trusted news source in French-speaking Belgium, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report we can feel that everything is going fine. But actually, we thought that the trust, the confidence that people put in our news, might be higher if we join the conversation.
So we see that as an opportunity, even though it can go wrong for many different reasons. We feel that the balance is more around the opportunity of getting in touch with people, getting our journalists into the discussion, because it will, at the end of the day, be something good. You trust people you talk to more than just people that are talking to you.
Listening is an interaction between people – that is super important. And if you just talk to someone and never listen to him or her, you won’t get any trust, or not the trust that you could expect. So that’s what we really want to do. And we don’t feel that the risk would outweigh this opportunity.
RA: And let me add, we were a bit anxious about using AI. And we did a lot of testing with people before publishing. And in the testing, it was quite astonishing because we were a bit timid and saying, “Well, not too much of it.” The constant feedback from users in the test was, “Do more – if it helps the quality of conversation, it’s fine.” And this chimes with recent experiences we had around AI that people are very aware of the context of AI. And they do not like if we use AI for our journalistic product. That’s rarely done. But they’re quite happy if it helps some, for instance, a good conversation.
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