To effectively fight the information war, we have to consider many more perspectives than we are currently thinking about.

The traditional Georgian media method of framing issues through a partisan political lens has failed to attract viewers and the media is struggling to find its role in the evolving situation. But a public distaste for party politics and leadership battles during this pandemic is not the only challenge facing media newsrooms. Media content, TV programming structures and income-generating models are all increasingly being tested and strained by COVID-19.

Access to information is a fundamental human right and it has helped build the sovereignty of nations. In the years to come, the concept of “information sovereignty”, advocated by Moscow or Beijing, may turn the tide and damage democratic empowerment. Central and Eastern Europeans should care for their own information sovereignty, but in the first place we should get it right.

In autumn 2018 Poland was celebrating its 100 years of independence. On that occasion the European Solidarity Centre and private television station, TVN24, organised a televised discussion with historians who reflected on the significance of reinstating sovereignty. Timothy Snyder, the American historian and author of Bloodlands, spoke at large about the many dimensions of the concept, and invoked the notion “information sovereignty” – a collective effort to establish free media as well as developing countermeasures to push back against aggressive disinformation campaigns from Bolshevik Russia. Information warfare was as present and real a danger back then as it is today; except that wireless meant mostly long wave radio broadcast.