The Linke Medienakademie (Left Media Academy – LiMA) is an independent, non-profit association for political media education. With our educational events we support individuals standing up against the increasing right-wing polemics, discrimination, and exploitation in the public sphere.

Our seminars, discussions and congresses are organized collectively – by activists, journalists and media workers. They take place partly on site, but also often digitally or hybrid – especially in the digital field, we develop new and innovative methods for educational events.

Easy Read: LiMA is the Left Media Academy. LiMA is an association from Berlin. The association supports people through education. The association wants to help people who work for justice in the media. People should learn and exchange ideas at the events. The events themselves are also organized by people who work for justice in the media. You can also become a member of LiMA. 89 other people do that too. Three people are currently working at LiMA, all part-time.

List of major projects 2023 and 2022

• Wikileaks and press freedom project 2023 funded by the Wau Holland Foundation
• Implementation of sustainable, accessible infrastructure 2023 funded by Aktion Mensch
• LiMA23 2023 Media Congress funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
• Organizational development for fundraising 2023 funded by Fonds Soziokultur
• People:Power Conference for Digital Participation and Accessibility 2022supported by Fonds Soziokultur
• Skillshare in movement 2022 funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
• Mediensprechstunde Trainings for Journalists 2022 funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
• LiMA22 2022 Media Congress funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
• Establishment of a low-barrier digital infrastructure 2022 funded by Aktion Mensch

The challenge: public shift to the right and populism

Right-wing polemics, populist opinion mongering, conspiracy theories and hate speech: they have been on the rise in the public sphere for some time now. The boundaries of what can be said are shifting ever further to the right, driven by the radical right-wing AFD. As in the migration debate, the social question is increasingly being answered with discriminatory and often racist pseudo-solutions. But the media itself is also in crisis: attacks against journalists are on the rise. The public sphere is increasingly dominated by large platforms and their algorithms and follows a profit logic, which promotes exaggeration, simplification and polemicization. Large publishers dominate the press landscape and marginalized perspectives are significantly underrepresented in editorial offices. This crisis of the public sphere jeopardizes democratic opinion-forming and promotes a climate of exclusion and hatred.

Our approach: shaping media education together

LiMA’s educational conferences and training courses challenge these conditions. They bring together people from the socio-ecological movement, civic engagement, progressive media work and journalism. The topics and content of the events are determined by needs surveys and open calls. Content-defining meetings are openly announced to all interested parties, allowing potential participants and lecturers to help shape the programs. At LiMA, participation in the public sphere is thus strengthened through low-threshold media skills and an exchange of opinions from the left is promoted through debate events. LiMA also organizes individual consultations for organizations such as NGOs, trade unions, foundations and others.

Our stance: Self-determined and transparent against the right

For us, left-wing means a clear stance against right-wing agitation, exploitation, discrimination and authoritarian ideologization. Public debate should be fact-based, with a clear and transparent stance. Anti-Semitic, racist, sexist, derogatory and otherwise inhumane attitudes have no place at LiMA. Our educational events follow the Press Code and adhere to the Beutelsbach Consensus; they are based on self-empowerment, constructive (media) criticism and a transparent approach. LiMA events are accompanied by an awareness concept to counteract power relations and discrimination.

Our aspiration: further development and reflection

At the beginning of the 2020 pandemic, LiMA greatly expanded digital events and developed a new concept for accessible digital seminars. Since then, more than half of the events have been held online. Quality is ensured through technical support, free further training for lecturers and a dedicated feedback system for lecturers and organizers. LiMA is constantly developing its main work, the organization of practical seminars. In 2021, an open source platform creatively designed by employees was established for playful exchange using avatars.

Our commitment: The association

LiMA currently has 89 voting members from the spectrum described above (as of December 23). 12 people form the elected honorary board. The LiMA team currently consists of 3 part-time employees who work in the Berlin office.

LiMA has media partnerships with Berlin-based national newspapers (taz, neues deutschland, der Freitag) and magazines (Missy Magazin, Blaetter für deutsche und internationale Politik). Other networks include the Media Residents and the Neue Deutsche Medienmacher*innen. We are networked with the climate movement, feminist movement, anti-racist movement, rents/right to the city and many more.

The association was founded in 2008 as an initiative of the federal working group of the Red Reporters of the Left Party. Today, it reflects a pluralistic spectrum of emancipatory and critical people from the movement, civic engagement, journalism and media work. As described above, LiMA is not only actively shaped and influenced by the association and full-time staff, but especially by the LiMA community, i.e. participants, lecturers and all interested parties. The Linke Medienakademie e.V. is a non-profit organization and completely independent of party-political, private or other non-profit interests.

We are currently preparing the necessary documentation for membership of the Transparent Civil Society Initiative. Further information on transparency can be found here.

Project: The LiMA-Congress

The Left Media Academy organizes the annual LiMA Week, Germany’s largest media policy training week for the emancipatory left-wing spectrum. Every year, LiMA Week offers a platform – with changing themes – for hundreds of interested media professionals, activists and people involved in civic engagement. The LiMA Week focuses on further education, exchange and discussion. In the seminars and workshops, expert lecturers impart practical skills for left-wing and emancipatory media work. The workshops and the supporting program are co-designed by the participants and lecturers in a participatory manner.

Project: Digital participation – People:Power

In 2022, for example, the project workshop “Digital Participation – People:Power” was organized. 126 participants attended several hours of practical digital workshops on the question of how participation, accessibility and digital inclusion can be implemented. The event was accompanied by a needs survey and three expert discussions to identify digital barriers and requirements for further training; interested parties were invited to help shape the event. A specially created guideline and a workshop for barrier-free digital seminar work supported the lecturers in their preparation. As some hurdles were identified within the association itself during the organization, LiMA developed an internal, ongoing process to reduce its own digital barriers and improve participation.

[Clickable portraits of the board, team, members and lecturers will follow shortly]