This paper explores how the Socratic method, implemented in an AI-chatbot, can be used to stimulate citizens’ critical thinking, and consequently fight disinformation. In the Horizon Europe project TITAN, we are scrutinizing this opportunity. A prototype of the Socratic AI-chatbot was tested in four Co-Creation Labs with citizens. The findings presented in this paper indicate that there is potential and provide guidance to improve the effectiveness of the Socratic AI-chatbot in stimulating critical thinking and recognizing disinformation.

This paper aims to provide insights into the concept of ‘user empowerment’ in current –digital and connected- media industries. We start by defining empowerment as a concept rooted in certain research traditions that focus on user behaviour and capabilities in dealing with digital and connected technologies and the production, aggregation, distribution and consumption of content. We then oppose ‘user empowerment’ to ‘audience commodification’, a concept that highlights how the audience and its members are exploited by the media industry through their usage of digital and connected technologies. This research tradition typically looks at the meso-level of media usage and how it is embedded in the media industries. In light of this paper on media innovations, we then argue that the concepts of ‘empowerment’ and ‘commodification’ are strongly embedded in the underlying social imaginaries. This helps us to redefine ‘user empowerment’ and ‘audience commodification’ as interactive processes underlying innovation within the (commercial) media industry. We use the case of Flemish commercial television to demonstrate this hypothesis.

The living lab methodology is widely used in innovation projects to drive user-centered development. While its benefits, such as co-creation and real-world validation, are well known, its implementation presents challenges that remain underexplored. This study examines these challenges by using the Horizon 2020 Möbius project as a case study. While the Möbius project itself aimed to modernize European book publishing through an immersive reading application and a data visualization tool, this study reflects on the implementation process of the living lab approach within that context, using an action research approach. After project completion, a structured brainstorming session reviewed identified challenges and mitigation strategies. Findings highlight three key challenges. First, misalignment between assumed and actual stakeholder needs hindered industry engagement. Second, recruitment was complicated by the ambiguous use of “prosumer”, causing confusion among participants. Third, communication gaps and personnel changes disrupted the integration of user feedback into development cycles. These challenges underscore the need for early and continuous stakeholder alignment, adaptive communication, and structured knowledge management. Based on these findings, the study proposes strategies to improve engagement and integrate user insights more effectively, ultimately enhancing the impact of living lab-based innovation projects.

In a fast-evolving news media landscape, journalists are exploring the potential of Extended Reality (XR) technologies to connect with their news consumers and to attract new audiences. Our research focuses how Social XR can contribute to establish social interactions between journalist and news consumers in a shared virtual environment (VE). Derived from four qualitative co-creation workshops with both user groups, we present a set of user requirements to keep into account for the creation of a user-centred Social XR environment where such engaging interactions occur.