On 3–5 December 2025, COST Action CA23105 PLURILINGMEDIA was hosted at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
On 3 December, the COST Action Management Committee meeting took place at the Staszic Palace. Around 40 people representing all European countries and many associated countries came to Warsaw for the annual meeting of the PLURILINGMEDIA network’s Management Committee. Other participants joined the meeting online.
The meeting was opened by Prof. Nicole Dołowy, leader of Working Group 3 Language Vitality and a member of the network’s Core Group, and Dr Craig Willis, Chair of COST Action PLURILINGMEDIA. The meeting focused on the actions undertaken within the network so far, plans for the upcoming year, and the longer-term outlook.
On 4–5 December, the 1st PLURILINGMEDIA General Conference: Media and Language Vitality, organised by the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS, was held. This two-day gathering of researchers and media practitioners working with minority languages was dedicated to the role of media in preserving and promoting these languages. More than 80 participants from Europe and associated countries took part.
Nine thematic sessions were organised on topics such as: translation and accessibility; reception and minority-language media; AI, accessibility and the digital divide; language vitality and print media; media and the preservation of identity and languages; language ideologies, stigmatization and media discourse; digital spaces and online language use; the role of journalists; social media and languages; and language learning and media. In addition to paper sessions, three panels were held on: multilingual families and media; virtual spaces; and new media in the context of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
The conference was opened by Prof. Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones, President of the European Language Equality Network (ELEN) from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. Her lecture, “Resilience and Rights, Revitalisation and Reach: What Media Tells Us about the Future of Linguistic Diversity”, provided an overview of existing research on minority-language media and pointed to possible future research directions.
A plenary discussion featuring minority-language media practitioners also took place. The following speakers presented their work, its reception, and its possible impact on audiences:
– Anna Nikitiuk, who discussed her blog “Anna Nikitiuk – po swojomu” and the role of social media in preserving the local speech of Podlasie;
– Dr Piotr Szatkowski, who spoke about the presence of Kashubian on social media and his experience creating media content in the Mazurian language;
– Paola Valenta from the Associazione dei Giovani CNI – the association of young people belonging to the Italian minority in Slovenia.
Three representatives of the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS took part in the conference.
Prof. Nicole Dołowy, the main organiser of the conference, together with Prof. Sanita Martena from RTU Rēzekne Academy, delivered a paper titled “Digital Media and Their Role in Strengthening Literacy in Collateral Languages: Case Studies of Latgalian, Kashubian and Podlachian”, devoted to grassroots literacy practices in three collateral languages. Dr Piotr Szatkowski, a member of the COST Action PLURILINGMEDIA network and of the organising committee, presented the paper “AI-Generated Kashubian Voices: Community Perspectives on Concept and Implementation”, discussing the results of his survey on language attitudes and ideologies regarding the role of AI in producing content in both the dominant language (Polish) and the minority language (Kashubian). Dr Olha Tkachenko, in her paper “Dialects and Regional Languages on Ukrainian YouTube: Representation and Interaction” examined the ways regional languages are represented in Ukrainian social media.
The presentations and lectures were accompanied by lively discussions. The idea of COST Action is to foster networking among researchers as well as participants from outside the strictly academic sphere. The conference organised in Warsaw by the Institute of Slavic Studies PAS fulfilled this mission: it became a space for meetings, exchange of experiences, methods, and possible research applications.
More information about COST Action CA23105 PLURILINGMEDIA can be found at: https://plurilingmedia.eu/
