Communication is Key (to Europe) Written by Teresa Puchinger Member of AEGEE-Lyon and Liaison Officer towards UN Women Our organisation, Europe and the whole world relies on communication. This year, a big part of our communication had to be transferred to the digital space and as a consequence, shorter, more informal pieces of communication like small talks, as well as face-to-face communication have become scarcer in the political cosmos. A big advantage of online communication is that the access is easier and safer. Communication via the internet provides an opportunity for poorer participants or people who could not travel to a specific country for political reasons to make their voices heard. However, establishing or maintaining contact is way more difficult online. We, as Liaison Officers, notice this in our work as well. After all, our main task is to establish and maintain communication between AEGEE and another organisation who is relevant to AEGEE, whilst at the same time providing expertise about AEGEE and search for opportunities for the two aggregates to co-operate and exchange best practices. This includes cultivating external relations and representing AEGEE and its interests towards the respective other organisation. However, it does not need six months of online communication to notice that the outcomes cannot be compared to real-life attendance of an event. For instance, more informal communication opportunities with speakers during real-life conferences, stakeholder hearings, workshops and the like are manifold: During coffee breaks, on the way to the facility or after a presentation or panel. Events that are held online are very often on a platform that complicates direct interaction with the speakers. Questions are filtered by a social media team that decides within seconds which questions or interpellations are worth being brought to the virtual table. This is not ideal because it is undemocratic. Furthermore, informal talks among the participants themselves do not happen. Yet, it is
“Our main task is to establish and maintain communication between AEGEE and another organisation who is relevant to AEGEE, whilst at the same time providing expertise about AEGEE and search for opportunities for the two aggregates to co-operate and exchange best practices” usually during those informal conversations – be it with a speaker or with another participant – that connections are made because they are far more authentic, personal and first and foremost: they are more flexible. In addition to that, incidents like losing a National Education Minister in the middle of a dialogue or trying to read the President of the General Assembly’s lips in order to discern the words he might be saying due to technical difficulties, puts everyone’s patience and focus to the test. AEGEE, a youth organisation, has shown more expertise in information technology than its more adult counterparts. Being geographically distant, we are used to holding meetings online and our members are eager to learn and are open to face new technological challenges to make online communication smoother in most cases. Nonetheless, even AEGEEans do not have an ideal solution for the lack of more informal face-to-face interaction. We need to find solutions both for technical issues and for more face-to-face interaction, even if they need to be online. Because after all, Communication is Key to establishing and maintaining contacts, Communication is Key to AEGEE, Communication is Key to Europe.
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