LECTURE 7 REVIEW: PUBLIC MEDIA

Last week we talked about Commercial Media. For this week, we covered Public Media.

So, what is Public Media?

Public Media is a media whose mission is to serve or engage a public. It is publicly-funded and taxpayer supported. It may be for profit, as long as its ultimate purpose is to serve the public, not turn a profit. This definition is from with the WGBH Educational Foundation Conference.

Unlike Commercial Media whose aim is just for money, the role of Public Media is to serve the public. It should not be concerned about profits but instead, bringing across programs that serve public interests (i.e. what the public wants and needs). In a democratic society, the Public Media’s role is to be in support of public and democratic processes.

“Public Media should have PUBLIC VALUE.”

According to BBC, public value is:

• Embedding a ‘public service ethos’
• Value for licence fee money
• ‘Weighing public value against market impact’
• public consultation

The Broadcasting Research Unit in 1985 defined public service broadcasting as involving:

1. geographical university
2. university of appeal
3. special provision for minorities
4. special relationship to the sense of national identity and community
5. being distanced from all vested interests
6. university of payment
7. competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers
8. liberate rather than restrict.

Basically what it means is that programmes should be available to everybody, they should cater to all kinds of tastes and interests. Disadvantaged minorities should not be ignored as well. In particular, the government should not get involved in public service broadcasting. The users should directly fund the broadcasts instead.

There are 4 basic functions of Public Media:

• nation building
• national heritage
• national identity, and
• national conversations

This being said, there can be a commercial dimension of Public Media as well. For example, BBC has BBC Worldwide, ABC has the ABC Centre in bookstores and ABC Comercial.

Another key mechanism of Public Media is NEWS. The news “style” of Public Media is serious and has a ‘broadsheet’ style. Importance of news precedes interest. News delivered are considered, not quick and unchecked. YET, it can be side to be ‘boring’ and elitist. News covered is of limited interest to the public and sometimes poorly presented. It can also be out of touch (especially with what the public wants and its interests).

Yet, Robert Richter stepped forward with words of wisdom; he says that Public Media is important because it is the last bastion of long-form investigative journalism:

“… is a special vehicle for voices to be heard… [for] visions and viewpoints… ignored by commercial media.”

Essentially, Public Media does what Commercial Media ignores because its goal is not for profits.

The communications style of Public Media is:

• ‘The Press’ – basically the news
• entertainment – programmes that provide entertainment like drama series etc
• utility – weather reports etc
• social – cooking shows etc
• propaganda – some programmes, although not publicly expressed, tend to be bias and promote certain ideologies and viewpoints

What challenges does Public Media face nowadays?

Firstly, though Commercial Media and Public media are different, they both need AUDIENCE. To get audience, Public Media needs to:

• Produce quality
• Make themselves relevant
• Engage with the democratic process
• Inform the public
• Be independent

Also, they need to ensure that the content presented are essentially neutral. Opinion plays a huge part. For example, ABC journalists are always briefed to avoid bias. Personal opinion is basically “taboo”. Lastly, there is the issue of funding. What is Public Media to do to get money? If they get funding, will their views be influenced? Also, will there be a shift to privatization? Public Media has to answer all these questions.

To go back to being independent, the differing ground rules of Commercial and Public Media is the independence. Public Media should not be ‘owned’ by the government. Instead, it should be held in ‘common’ by the people. There is a tension between being a watchdog of the government, whilst receiving funds from it. It’s like “biting the hand that feeds you”. The perceived lack of political independence means more control and targeted funding. Yet, there is a relationship between the federal government and public broadcaters. The government can exercise indirect control in 2 ways – legislations and funding. Do keep in mind though, that there will always be the allegations of bias and agenda.

As what Jeremy Paxman says:

‘I’m always asking myself, “why is this lying bastard lying to me?”.’

The future of Public Media lies in “Public Media 2.0” (sound familiar?). To quote, “… places engaged publics at its core… educating, informing, and mobilizing its users… an essential feature of truly democratic public life… media both for and by the public.”

Public should be engaged more – that’s taking a step forward for Public Media.

To conclude, I will draw on the differences between Commercial and Public Media. In a nutshell, Commercial Media is profit driven while Public Media is there is serve the public. Commercial Media is concerned with money as opposed to the public while Public Media should be concerned with the public rather than the money.

The next quote pretty much summarises everything.

“The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens.”

~Nigel Milan

And that’s all folks, for both Commercial Media and Public Media.

Cheers