scholarly journals Public Service Media, Old and New: Vitalizing a Civic Culture?

1999 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Dahlgreen

Abstract: By the mid-1990s, the crisis in public service broadcasting in Sweden had passed and a new stability had emerged. In this situation, the two non-commercial television channels share the airwaves-and the public-chiefly with the new commercial terrestrial channel, TV4. This channel manifests a form of "popular public service." Yet the new stability is being challenged by social and cultural developments in Sweden, especially various forms of social fragmentation. The main argument is that a key role of public service broadcasting must be to enhance the democratic character of society. This can best be achieved by promoting what is called a civic culture, and the text discusses what this entails. The discussion concludes with some reflections on the emergence of digital television and how it could best further the public service project. Résumé: Au milieu des années 90, la crise dans la radiodiffusion de service public en Suède prend fin et une nouvelle stabilité s'instaure. À ce moment-là, les deux chaînes de télévision non-commerciales partagent les ondes-et le public-principalement avec TV4, une nouvelle chaîne terrestre commerciale. Cette dernière offre une forme de «service public populaire». Aujourd'hui, cependant, certains développements sociaux et culturels, surtout sous diverses formes de fragmentation sociale, sont en train de bouleverser cette nouvelle stabilité. L'idée principale est qu'un rôle clé de la radiodiffusion de service publique doit être de mettre en valeur la nature démocratique de la société. La meilleure façon d'accomplir cet objectif est de promouvoir ce qui s'appelle une culture civique, et l'article discute de ce qu'une telle culture comporterait. La discussion prend fin avec certaines observations sur l'émergence de la télévision digitale et la manière dont celle-ci peut faire avancer le projet de service au public.

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Dhoest ◽  
Hilde Van den Bulck ◽  
Heidi Vandebosch ◽  
Myrte Dierckx

The public broadcasting remit in the eyes of the audience: survey research into the future role of Flemish public service broadcasting The public broadcasting remit in the eyes of the audience: survey research into the future role of Flemish public service broadcasting In view of the discussion about the future position of public service broadcasting, this research investigates the expectations of Flemings regarding their public service broadcasting institution VRT. Based on the current task description of the VRT, a survey was effectuated among a representative sample of Flemings (N=1565). Questions were asked about the content (broad or complementary to commercial broadcasting), audience (broad or niche) and distinctive nature of public service broadcasting. The analysis shows that, overall, Flemings are in favour of a broad public service broadcasting institution with a strong focus on entertainment (besides information), oriented towards a broad audience. At the same time, they believe the institution should distinguish itself from its competitors, through quality, social responsibility, cultural identity and (particularly creative) innovation, among other things. Cluster analysis shows that the call to prioritize culture and education over entertainment, which dominates public debate, is representative of only a minority (20%) of highly educated Flemings.


2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 907-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karl-Heinz Ladeur

The present German media structures are subject to a fundamental process of self-transformation due to technological as well as societal dynamics. This is especially the case for public service broadcasting. In the post-war era, the public service networks were one of the central intermediary institutions of organized pluralism, serving both the state and society at large. It is not only the growing competition between public and private broadcasters that has led to dramatic changes to the role of public sector broadcasters. The public sector is also being challenged by the rise of the entertainment economy and a shift in focus from public to private affairs. This paper describes the hitherto established role of public service broadcasting and its present crisis. The paper then proposes a proactive legal and political regulatory strategy, which might help find a new role for public broadcasters in a much more fragmented society. The proposed strategy follows the paradigm of proceduralization, which is also prevailing in many other parts of the institutional structures of postmodern society.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Håkon Larsen

Abstract The present paper examines the debate on the future of public service broadcasting (PSB) in Norway and Sweden in the 2000s. I have analysed the discourses on PSB that dominate the public debate in the two countries, the cultural policy related to PSB, as well as the legitimizing rhetoric of the Norwegian public service broadcaster Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) and that of the Swedish public service broadcaster Sveriges Television (SVT). Theoretically, the analysis draws on normative theories on the role of PSB in promoting democracy, culture and a well-functioning public sphere, as well as theories on democracy and the public sphere per se.


Author(s):  
Amanda D. Lotz

This chapter considers the need for traditional broadcasters to essentially invent public service media. Although broadcasting will continue to play a role in the public service media project, continuing to think only in terms of public service broadcasting is to ignore a situation of great opportunity. There have never been public service media — in the UK or elsewhere — despite a century of public service broadcasting experience. The arrival of Internet distribution technology with different affordances and limitations has left those in both public service and commercial television feeling unmoored and uncertain of the present and future. It is argued that instead of a regular reappraisal of public service broadcasting, the context of the development of a new mechanism of video distribution requires the more exhaustive task of identifying the ways in which the affordances of Internet-distributed video require the abandonment of the broadcast paradigm and creation of a public service paradigm that embraces the opportunities and characteristics of Internet distribution.


2014 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-15
Author(s):  
Leonie Rutherford

This article analyses the campaign to establish terrestrial digital children's public service broadcasting in Australia. It finds that the development of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's digital children's channel (ABC3), an initiative initially embraced somewhat opportunistically, enabled an expansion strategy for the public service broadcaster that ultimately helped determine the shape of its current digital channel portfolio. Contrasting the collective and divergent interpretations of future audience behaviours and needs developed by the Australian Children's Television Foundation (ACTF) and the ABC, it argues that both organisations developed strategies and made policy decisions that were influential in conditioning the current digital television ecology.


Author(s):  
Sven Stollfuß

This article investigates how platformisation changes the practices of content production and distribution through the case of the web series, Druck (tr. Pressure (2018–), for the public service content network ‘funk’ (ARD and ZDF). An analysis of the German adaptation of the Norwegian television and web series Skam (tr. Shame) (NRK3, 2015–2017) shows how public service broadcasting (PSB) in Germany is changing due to the influence of social media. To reach a younger audience, PSB has to meet them on third-party platforms. Consequently, PSB must provide content that fits the mobile media environment of social media.


2020 ◽  
Vol V (III) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Qaisar Khan ◽  
Syed Inam Ur Rahman ◽  
Amna Nudrat

The study analyses strategies and persuasive appeals in the public service messages aired on Pakistani TV channels during 2016-2018, that measures the effects of PSMs on audience behaviour. The PSMs fails to deliver messages due to dissimilar socio-economic backdrop and scope of the audience understanding. The purposive sampling of six selected PSM is on the bases of health themed PSM’s. Objective is to investigate the characteristics of ads, role of the message, major health issues, sources of the message and appeals. The AIDA model, persuasion theory and social responsibility theory used to filter the textual analysis of the selected PSMs. It was found that the PSMs presented health issues while using celebrity endorsement and persuasive message appeals as persuasive techniques. The PSMs such as breast cancer persuaded women for self-care, calcium deficiency PSM to calcium intakes, heat stroke PSM to precautionary measures during emergency situations, the malnutrition PSM to women healthy diet during pregnancy. The study recommends that advertisers, producers and TV channels should adopt audience perception based important strategies for social welfare, while the state must promote them.


2013 ◽  
Vol 146 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gay Hawkins

Is there anything left to say about public value and public service broadcasting (PSB) without lapsing into boosterism, special pleading, or wildly unsubstantiated claims about the role of PSB in making citizens and democracy? This article develops an alternative approach, one that considers publicness not as a pre-given or static value, but as something that has to be continually enacted or performed. Using recent debates in political theory, it examines the processes and ontological effects of what Latour calls ‘making things public’. It makes two assumptions. The first is that there is no such thing as ‘the public’ out there waiting to be addressed; rather, publics have to be called into being The second is that there are a multiplicity of ways in which publicness can be assembled, and the challenge for PSB is to establish why its strategies are better. The example used is the ABC's current affairs discussion show Q&A, which is investigated to see how it generates an ontology of publicness. In what ways is the notion of public address and assembly mobilised? How does the experience of a public as a form of what Warner calls ‘Stranger sociability’ extend from the live audience to the household viewer? In what ways are the notions of public reason and rational discussion enacted and disrupted? And how does this enactment of publicness generate a sometimes poetic, anarchic or ribald shadow reality tweeted in from anonymous participants competing for public attention? Finally, how does it both reproduce and reinvent existing institutional regimes of value within the ABC?


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lien De Cang ◽  
Katia Segers

How to serve the audience? The Belgian National Radio Institute (N.I.R.) in search of putting into practice the public service remit through its music and audience policy before the era of television (1930-1953). How to serve the audience? The Belgian National Radio Institute (N.I.R.) in search of putting into practice the public service remit through its music and audience policy before the era of television (1930-1953). This article questions in what way the Belgian radio-broadcaster was searching how to put into practice the central public service remit through its music and audience policy from the start of the institute in 1930 till the launch of television in 1953. Departing from a theoretical reflection on the concept of Public Service Broadcasting, this article presents the results of a qualitative content analysis of policy documents (minutes, annual reports) as well as writings of key members of the N.I.R.-staff. It reveals a shared paternalistic vision on the public service remit as well as oppositional views upon the audience and how to serve it.


This chapter discusses the skill challenges in the creative industries. The public service broadcasting (PSB) system is the driving force behind the UK's vibrant TV production sector. The PSBs are responsible for some 80 per cent of total investment in UK original non-news content. Independent producers are responsible for around 60 per cent of total commissioned hours on the five main PSB channels. As new platforms and formats emerge and old divides are blurred, there is a need for a holistic and collaborative approach across not just PSBs but all screen-based industries to ensure that the creative industries' talent base can compete globally. This requires upskilling and re-skilling with an integrated view and a systematic approach to tackling barriers to entry and enabling progression within an ever more casualized workforce.


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