Suchergebnisse

Berlusconi, politics and the media -- Public service broadcasting and political independence -- The politics of broadcasting policy in Berlusconi's Italy -- Media pluralism in digital Italy -- Political journalism, Italian-style -- Internet politics and the rise of Beppe Grillo's Five-Star Movement

AbstractAs publicly funded organizations operating in a sector characterized by ever-greater private-sector provision, public service broadcasters need to build a robust case for their continuing legitimacy. This article examines the discursive strategies of the BBC in the United Kingdom in the context of the last three Royal Charter reviews. It shows that since the early 2000s, and particularly during the most recent Charter review, the BBC has deployed influential policy ideas on the creative economy to build a case that in keeping with the times emphasizes its economic contribution as well as its more traditional role in fostering political and cultural citizenship.

AbstractAs publicly funded organizations operating in a sector characterized by ever-greater private-sector provision, public service broadcasters need to build a robust case for their continuing legitimacy. This article examines the discursive strategies of the BBC in the United Kingdom in the context of the last three Royal Charter reviews. It shows that since the early 2000s, and particularly during the most recent Charter review, the BBC has deployed influential policy ideas on the creative economy to build a case that in keeping with the times emphasizes its economic contribution as well as its more traditional role in fostering political and cultural citizenship.

This issue of Westminster Papers in Communications and Culture (WPCC) presents a collection of essays primarily concerned with the examination of contemporary broadcasting policies and policy-making processes amid 'globalisation trends'. These latter are very broadly understood to encompass global economic, political and cultural shifts, technological change, and the regionalisation of regulation and policy-making loci.

This article examines the evaluation and regulation of public service broadcasting's (PSB's) contribution to home-grown children's content, a key marker of difference with commercial rivals. UK experience forms the core of the analysis, but throughout we connect findings
to experiences in other European countries. We concentrate on PSB's interventions in TV, but consider this within the wider scope of multiplatform and online activities that occupy increasing proportions of children's time. We start by outlining the rationale for children's
PSB, before briefly unpacking the pressures it faces. Using schedule analysis of children's channels in five European countries, PSB's distinctiveness from US transnationals is demonstrated by higher levels of domestic content. This opens up discussion about the value of domestic
content, as well as market failure in children's broadcasting. We consider different policy tools for ensuring domestic content and public service goals, before considering the effectiveness and evaluation of PSB approaches, which now extend beyond television.

Netflix and other transnational online video streaming services are disrupting long- established arrangements in national television systems around the world. In this paper we analyse how public service media (PSM) organisations (key purveyors of societal goals in broadcasting) are responding to the fast-growing popularity of these new services. Drawing on Philip Napoli's framework for analysing strategic responses by established media to threats of competitive displacement by new media, we find that the three PSM organisations in our study exhibit commonalities. Their responses have tended to follow a particular evolution starting with different levels of complacency and resistance before settling into more coherent strategies revolving around efforts to differentiate PSM offerings, while also diversifying into activities, primarily across new platforms, that mimic SVoD approaches and probe production collaborations. Beyond these similarities, however, we also find that a range of contextual factors (including path-dependency, the role and status of PSM in each country, the degree of additional government support, cultural factors and market size) help explain nuances in strategic responses between our three cases.

In this chapter we discuss recent developments and challenges in European media and communication policy, focussing on the period since the 2008 global financial crisis. We are especially interested in the implications of the financial crisis and its political repercussions nationally (austerity measures and cuts to public services as well as growing anti-politics sentiments and widespread dissatisfaction with free-market capitalism and representative democracy) for media and communication policy, understood here in a broad sense, so to include all electronic communications, such as the Internet, mobile communications, social media etc. Our overarching concern is with the implications of developments in media and communication policy for the democratic functions of the media in Europe.

Intro -- Foreword -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- List of Tables -- Part I: Foundations -- Chapter 1: Introduction: The Epistemic Turn -- References -- Chapter 2: Why We Need Epistemic Rights -- Why We Need Epistemic Rights -- Epistemic Rights: The Concept -- From Communication Rights to Epistemic Rights -- Three Phases of the Communication Rights Movement -- The New World Information and Communication Order -- Towards the World Summit on Information Society -- After the Geneva and Tunis Conferences -- Digital Rights? -- Lessons Learned from Past Movements -- Conclusion -- References -- Part II: Concepts and Issues -- Chapter 3: On the Need to Revalue Old Radical Imaginaries to Assert Epistemic Media and Communication Rights Today -- Introduction -- Liberal and Socialist Radical Social Imaginaries -- The Liberal Radical Imaginary -- The Socialist Radical Imaginary -- Public Interventions in Media and Communication Inspired by Radical Imaginaries -- Ownership -- Access -- Media Content -- Communication Infrastructures -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 4: Epistemic Rights, Information Inequalities, and Public Policy -- Introduction -- Advertiser Valuations of Audiences -- Media Ownership -- Digital Divides -- Journalism Divides -- Disinformation Divides -- Algorithmic Bias -- Conclusion -- References -- Chapter 5: (Re-)casting Epistemic Rights as Human Rights: Conceptual Conundrums for the Council of Europe -- Introduction -- The Council of Europe's System for Freedom of Expression -- A Central Emphasis on Democracy and Participation in Public Debate -- The Epistemic Underpinnings of Participation in Public Debate -- The Court's Incidental Appreciation of Epistemic Rights -- An Informed Public -- Facts and Value Judgements -- Historical Facts -- Duties and Responsibilities -- Specific Epistemic Rights as Human Rights?.

This open-access volume argues that in a functioning democracy, citizens should be equally capable of making informed choices about matters of social importance. This includes citizens accessing all relevant information and knowledge necessary for informed will formation. In today's complex era of digital disruption, it is not enough to simply speak about communication or even digital rights. The starting point for this volume is the need for 'epistemic equality'. The contributors seek to showcase the history and diversity of current debates around communication and digital rights, as precursors for the need for epistemic rights; both as a theoretical concept and an empirically assessed benchmark. The book highlights scholarship via academic case studies from around the world to feature different issues and methodological approaches, as well as similarities in academic and policy challenges across the globe. The goal is to provide an overview of issues that depict challenges to epistemic rights, extract both academic and applied policy implications of different approaches, and end with a set of recommendations for advancing policy-relevant scholarship on epistemic rights. This volume is intended as the first holistic response to an urgent need to address epistemic rights of communication as a central public policy issue, as an academic analytical concept, as well as a central theme for informed public debate. This book is open-access, meaning you have free and unlimited access.