From flabby to fit: Restructuring the public broadcasting system in Egypt

The Egyptian public broadcaster, newly named the National Media Council (NMC), has been under pressure to undergo comprehensive restructuring. Many changes have taken place recently to enable this transformation. Through analysing financial reports, evaluating the new regulatory framework and conducting in-depth interviews, this study examines the likelihood of the NMC adapting to the recent changes and the extent to which the new regulatory framework promotes a public service system suggesting a model for implementation. Findings show that the NMC must respond to four main challenges: lack of strategic vision and identity, a centralized regime power structure, an acute financial deficit, and a weak digital presence. Interviewees evaluated the new regulatory framework as inexhaustive with an intention to maintain grip on power. Interviewees proposed an integrated decentralized model that combines the public service mission with private partnership.

Contenidos infantiles convergentes, identidad latinoamericana y los desafíos de las televisiones públicas

Before the pandemic crisis, the irruption of the convergent scenario and the television digitalization forced the Latin American public television to develop strategies that consider new forms of audiovisual consumption and to make the resources profitable, such as the development of digital platforms and co-production with independent creators. Pakapaka, TVN and Señal Colombia coproduced children television programs with Chilean filmmakers that achieved a high audience and received acknowledgements at audiovisual festivals for their quality, their contribution to the local identity and Latin American own nature. Based on a content analysis carried out on tv shows aimed to children, present in both Chilean public digital platforms: CNTV Infantil (former Novasur) and TVN Kids, this study describes the collaborative model from the media literacy perspective, with emphasis on the diversity of children’s programs, considering their origins, acquisition, financing, and characteristics of the protagonist’s characters. The results indicate that the contents are varied and that the presence of female protagonists, native peoples and migrants, although incipient, constitutes a contribution to the identity of the continent’s childhoods. In conclusion, it is essential that public service television can count on permanent funding that promotes the realization of relevant content for children, in accordance with their public service mission, especially in today pandemic crisis and confinement.

Determinants of judges’ career choices and productivity: a Polish case study

The goal of this paper is to identify factors which affect judges’ productivity and career choice motives with the view of increasing judicial efficiency. Specifically, the investigation focuses on such aspects as judges’ remuneration, promotion, threat of judgment revocation, service/mission, periodic assessment, the threat of a complaint about protracted proceedings or of disciplinary proceedings, the threat of destabilization of the employment relationship, status/prestige of the profession, power/authority, social recognition, leisure, as well as administrative supervision and self-monitoring. To this end, a survey was conducted among judges of three of the largest Polish regional courts and subordinate district courts. The descriptive and statistical analyses show that judges’ care for the number of cases resolved, proxying for their productivity, is significantly correlated with self-monitoring of their adjudication activity. The stability of employment, the status/prestige of the profession and a relatively high remuneration are the most important factors in terms of judges’ career choices. In their care for the number of cases resolved remuneration is, albeit, no longer a relevant factor. Judges monitor their productivity due to reasons other than remuneration, possibly the sense of service/mission and the threat of various adverse consequences, the evidence for which is, however, also rather weak.

Combining Nonprofit Service and Advocacy: Organizational Structures and Hybridity

Facilitating political engagement is a vital function of the nonprofit sector. While some public charities engage in political activities like policy advocacy, many focus exclusively on their core service mission. Current nonprofit research does not adequately theorize the inherent tension between service and advocacy activities. We conceptualize nonprofits engaging in service and advocacy as hybrid organizations that incorporate two distinct logics. Using the organizational hybridity literature, and empirical data from a survey of Massachusetts nonprofits, we examine how the logics of service provision and political advocacy are combined and managed across a sample of nonprofits. We find that nonprofit service–advocacy hybrids adopt an array of organizational structures to accommodate these logics, including decoupled, segregated, outsourced, and blended structures. Our results suggest that compartmentalization may be a common strategy and that certain organizational structures are related to the presence of mission integration, funding reliance, competition, and advocacy objectives.

The University as Engine of Development?

The idea of the ‘developmental university’ was popularised on the African continent in the post- independence period, but has recently returned to view on account of the positioning of the university in the newly agreed United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The developmental model is characterised by service to society, application of knowledge, non-academic benefit and prioritising the most marginalised. Yet to what extent are these goals and characteristics coherent and viable given the nature of the university as institution? While the developmental model per seis limited to a few experiences, the implications of these questions are much broader, given the public service mission held by many if not most higher education institutions around the world. After outlining its historical emergence, this article presents a conceptual exploration of the model, highlighting three major limitations, in spite of its highly positive intentions: its positioning of the university as an ‘adaptable factory’, its encroachment on a distinctive space for the university in relation to society, and its particular and contested conception of development.

From ‘secret’ online teen drama to international cult phenomenon: The global expansion of SKAM and its public service mission

This article addresses the production, distribution and global expansion of the online teen drama, SKAM/SHAME (2015–2017), produced by the Norwegian public service broadcaster NRK. The article combines perspectives on transmedia storytelling with production studies and studies of public service broadcasting to investigate the distinct production, publishing and promotion models underpinning SKAM, as well as its public service mission. Furthermore, it addresses SKAM’s transition from a ‘secret’ online teen drama targeting young Norwegians in season one to a global cult phenomenon with viewers and fans in all age groups and on all continents in seasons three and four, and relates this expansion to recent shifts within the television industry.

The Future of Business Journalism

This chapter explores the specific steps needed for business journalism to evolve to serve a broader audience. These steps include using the tools and techniques of trade-press reporters to examine businesses and hold them accountable while targeting a more general readership. The chapter describes a market for accountability business journalism where some media owners who value the public-service mission of journalism were also able to make money. The chapter describes how newsroom culture, ownership structure, business model, and in-depth focus on an industry are items that can help transform production of business journalism so that it serves the public interest. A focus on investigative journalism and collaboration with other news organizations are also central to this evolution.