A Fractured and Weaker Public Service Media: Territorial Organisation, Public Media Policy and Economic Crisis in Spain

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 308-324
Author(s):  
Josep Àngel Guimerà Orts ◽  
Montse Bonet
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Public Media

Mission impossible? Research praxis and activist interventions in New Zealand media policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-244
Author(s):  
Peter A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Interactive Media ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Vested Interests ◽  
Research Praxis

Over the last two decades, public media arrangements in many countries have been eroded by unsympathetic governments cutting subsidies/license fees or, in some cases, actively dismantling their institutional arrangements. The proliferation of online/mobile/interactive media has legitimated a view among some policy-makers and vested interests within the private media sector that public service provisions are an anachronism in the digital media ecology. In such a context, critical media scholars whose research is intended to not only inform the academic community but influence public policy face significant challenges. Drawing on the author’s own experience of praxis in the New Zealand media policy sector, the article presents three case studies: the campaign to save TVNZ7, the campaign to unfreeze Radio New Zealand’s funding and the Fairfax-NZME merger. These serve to highlight some of the practical and normative challenges for research praxis, particularly those encountered by scholars who engage with pro-public service media advocacy coalitions. In doing so, the analysis will identify several points of tension that arise when research praxis attempts to extend beyond describing the world to trying to influence the policies and practices being studied. These include questions of whether it is possible/desirable to sustain academic objectivity/neutrality in seeking to develop stakeholder relations or whether commitment to an ideological or politically partisan position is necessary or problematic. The complexities and compromises of seeking access to policy-makers as an ‘insider’ as opposed to neutral ‘outsider’ are also considered. The analysis concludes that there is no necessary contradiction between critical praxis and scholarly independence and, indeed, that praxis may serve to improve the quality of academic scholarship through stakeholder engagement.

Welfare State Values and Public Service Media in the Era of Datafication

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaarina Nikunen ◽  
Jenni Hokka
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Welfare States ◽  
Social Solidarity ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
The Public ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Data Practices ◽  
Public Media ◽  
New Public

Welfare states have historically been built on values of egalitarianism and universalism and through high taxation that provides free education, health care, and social security for all. Ideally, this encourages participation of all citizens and formation of inclusive public sphere. In this welfare model, the public service media are also considered some of the main institutions that serve the well-being of an entire society. That is, independent, publicly funded media companies are perceived to enhance equality, citizenship, and social solidarity by providing information and programming that is driven by public rather than commercial interest. This article explores how the public service media and their values of universality, equality, diversity, and quality are affected by datafication and a platformed media environment. It argues that the embeddedness of public service media in a platformed media environment produces complex and contradictory dependencies between public service media and commercial platforms. The embeddedness has resulted in simultaneous processes of adapting to social media logics and datafication within public service media as well as in attempts to create alternative public media value-driven data practices and new public media spaces.

Euroatlanske integracije i savremeni izazovi razvojne politike javnog komuniciranja u Bosni i Hercegovini

2017 ◽  
pp. 33-50
Author(s):  
Mirza Mehmedović
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Information Needs ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Many

In the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Bosnia and Herzegovina is at the crossroads of political, economic and cultural revitalization of the society as a country that declarative aims for application of European principles of political organization and the membership in the European Union. On this way there are many open issues that are the result of twenty years of political and economic stagnation or collapse of all elements that should be the foundation for the stabilization of a modern democratic society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The internal reconstruction of the political system and the revitalisation of the institutions of the government or different holders of political reforms means at the same time the fulfilment of the conditions of accession to Euro-Atlantic integration. The development of a unified media policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the establishment of public media service in accordance with the requirements of the European Union and the interests of all citizens are the top issues among the many current challenges that we have to deal with in the future. But for Bosnia and Herzegovina it is not exclusively the interest of communicational research. It must be necessarily seen in the wider context as a political, cultural and economic issue, because the establishment of a single media/communication system is one of the key requirements for a political compromise, the integration of society and the harmonization of other common (primarily economic) interests for all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the key requirements for defining a unified media policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina is agreeing / reconciliation of all complex (heterogeneous) cultural characteristics, as well as the specific characteristics of modern communication situation in a model that would respond to the specific information needs of citizens and the standards applied by the European Union.

The return of public media policy in New Zealand: New hope or lost cause?

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter A. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
Media Ecology ◽  
Public Broadcasting ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Local Content ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Media

The formation of a new coalition government in New Zealand in the wake of the 2017 election ended three terms of National-led governments and raised the prospect of a significant shift in media policy. National had insisted that in the digital media ecology, the funding of public broadcasting institutions was no longer a priority and that platform-neutral contestable funding of local content would ensure the quality and diversity of content. This saw the demise of the TVNZ Charter and its two commercial-free channels (TVNZ 6 and 7), while both Radio New Zealand (RNZ) and the local content funding agency, NZ On Air, had their funding frozen. The 2017 election of the Labour-NZ First-Green government came with the promise of an additional investment of NZ$38m in public media, the expansion of RNZ’s remit to include a commercial-free television channel, and the establishment of an independent commission to assess funding needs for public media. However, the media ecology Labour now faces entails new policy complexities. Deregulation, financialization and convergence have not only intensified commercial pressures on the media, they have led to important shifts in the ways audiences discover and engage with media content. In turn, this complicates the traditional models of state intervention intended to deliver public service outcomes. Adopting a critical institutionalist framework this article will highlight key shifts in media policy trajectory since 1999 and highlight some key differences between the public broadcasting initiatives of 1999–2008 and the approach thus far of the incoming government. The article analyses how competing intra-party and inter-ministerial priorities have circumscribed the media policy options available and thereby highlight the way political–economic interests in the media ecology manifest in public policy.

Public Service Broadcasting and Social Networking Sites: The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation on Facebook

2013 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hallvard Moe
Keyword(s):  
Social Networking ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Social Networking Sites ◽  
Media Policy ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Service Broadcasting ◽  
The World

Social networking sites have become staples in everyday life in many parts of the world. Public service broadcasters have ventured on to such services, aiming to reach new users. This move triggers a line of question about the borders between the public and the commercial, the control of content and the shifting power in media policy. Focusing on the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation's use of Facebook, this article offers insights into what exactly is new about the challenges posed by social networking sites, and explores how this instance of hybrid arrangements impacts on our understanding of public service media.

scholarly journals PUBLIC SPHERE DISRUPTION: PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING AND THE CBC AT THE DIGITAL CROSSROADS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott William Baird
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Service ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Public Broadcasting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
Public Broadcaster ◽  
The Public Sphere

Public broadcasting is traditionally thought to be an essential element to public spheres. This paper charts how this relationship is formed, and then demonstrates how it is threatened in the Canadian context. Canada’s public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, has digital policies like Strategy 2020: A Space for Us All which suggests CBC is pivoting away from its relationship with the public sphere, and in some ways weakening the Canadian public sphere. Accordingly, this paper looks at the claims charged about this policy, particularly from Taylor (2016), and considers how it and similar digital policies affect the CBC as an element of the Canadian public sphere. While the paper finds CBC digital policies benefit the public sphere, the majority put into action hinder CBC’s relationship to the Canadian public sphere. Overall, this MRP highlights the importance of considering the philosophy of the public sphere when developing public media policy.

scholarly journals The Situation of National and Regional Public Television in Spain

2013 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 145-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Arriaza Ibarra
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Economic Situation ◽  
The Other ◽  
Public Television ◽  
Commercial Media ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Public Media ◽  
Public Broadcaster ◽  
The Government

Abstract Spain’s Public National Television (TVE) faces the uncertainty of defining its role as the main public broadcaster at a moment when neither the economic situation of the country nor the waning satisfaction with the citizens with TVE, make things any easier. Furthermore, the government announcement of TVE’s withdrawal of advertising in 2009 was widely commented, as there has never been any license fee in support of Spanish public media. On the other hand, the economic crisis that Spain is going through has posed the issue on the need of cutting down governmental expenditures on the desk of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Will these also include TVE, as it has happened with public regional media? Will Spanish citizens admit the importance of improving TVE now that two gigantic commercial media groups, Mediaset and Planeta, dominate the audiovisual landscape?

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