The first PLURILINGMEDIA general conference, Media and Language Vitality, took place on 4–5 December 2025 at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. Over two intensive days at the Staszic Palace, researchers and practitioners explored how media practices shape the vitality and future of minoritised and regional languages.
The conference opened with remarks from Nicole Dołowy and Craig Willis, followed by a keynote address by Elin Haf Gruffydd Jones on resilience, rights and revitalisation, and on what contemporary media developments reveal about the prospects for linguistic diversity.
Across six parallel sessions, participants addressed themes including translation and accessibility, multilingual families and identity, minority-language media audiences, AI and the digital divide, the printed press, and virtual “breathing spaces”. Case studies ranged from Welsh, Basque and Irish to Kashubian, Mansi and Ladin, highlighting shared challenges as well as context-specific strategies.
The second day focused on language ideologies, stigma and media discourse, alongside the role of journalists in times of conflict. A roundtable discussion on content creation in minoritised languages brought together community practitioners and researchers.
The Warsaw meeting showcased the breadth of research within the PLURILINGMEDIA network and reaffirmed the network’s shared commitment to strengthening language plurality in Europe’s evolving media landscape.
