THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
A RESEARCH CONCEPT IN THE INTEREST OF PUBLIC VALUE
Thomas A. Bauer, University of Vienna, Austria
MEDIA IN CRISIS – CRISES IN MEDIA
III. COMMUNICATION FORUM BRATISLAVA
2. – 3. 12. 2010
Research Questions – general
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
• What is the character and what is the reason of the crisis of Public Service
Broadcasting (PSB)
• Why is the concept of Public Value (PV) a concept of critical analysis
• What is the specific core of the discussion on „Public Value“?
• What is the relevant focal point that has to be worked out in the scientific
analysis of Public Value in respect to the Austrian situation?
• What structures have to be developed in order to create a PV friendly
media environment?
Research Questions – specified
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
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What constitutes the public additional benefit of the program of ORF and und how can it be
quantified?
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Who shall measure/quantify and who shall control the public value ? Which institution has to
be established fort hat? What sanctions must be developed?
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Is Public Value generally definable or must there be developed a special definition for each
country – according to their specific cultural and media environments?
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What are the legal, structural and economic frame conditions for the public broadcasting in
Austria?
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What are the EU- institutional frame conditions for the public broadcasting in Austria?
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What are the frame conditions fort he public broadcasting systems in other EU countries
(comparative studies)?
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Which Public-Value-Models can by found in other countries? What are the experiences with
them?
Research Questions – Quality Factors
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
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Journalistic Independence:
how can this be guaranteed within Public Broadcasting Systems?
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Target Groups:
How can the Public Broadcasting System reach young people to shape out the future
audience?
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Technology:
How far are technologies decisive in the development of future strategies fort he Public
Broadcasting System?
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Content:
What program innovations will be need for future of a Public Broadcasting System regarding
the content of media communication? (Discussion: news or/and entertainment)?
Research Questions – Media Management
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
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Media:
What role does the concept of Public Value play in respect to the self-representation of
media?
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Quality Management:
Which methods for quality management and evaluation needs the concept of Public Value?
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Quota Management:
What is the meaning of quota in respect to Public Value? How economically successful
should a Public Broadcasting System work, in order to give space to PV- programs?
Audience:
What is the strategy of media management to understand needs of the audience and to
decide for do’s and don’t’s in shaping out the program
Finance:
What are the models of financing a media program that foster PV at its best: Fee, Tax, Pay per
view?
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Research Questions – Acteurs and Participants
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
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Journalistic / Non-journalistic formats:
What are the achievements of journalistic, what those of non-journalistic content from the
perspective of the audience? Which PV impact is in news, entertainment, service,
educational or cultural programs? What are the PV competences of citizen journalism, blogs
and other new models of public communication?
Audience:
What is the level of media literacy of the audience (restrictive versus elaborated levels
according to the conditions of stratification and of migration status) and what is the media
awareness in respect to political topics and society-relevant discourse (direction of agenda
setting)?
Representation:
According to what measures are which societal groups represented in the program? Fairness
for Minorities? Culture of Diversity?
Participation:
How is ensured the participation of all groups and stratifications in program development,
program organization and program creation?
Grid of Coordinates for a Research Approach
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
• Debate Provoking Factors:
• Democracy Development / Democracy in Transition
- increasing mediality of democracy: society in the habitus of media:
attention, display, staging, effect
- civil society as a new mechanism of public trust
• Social Change:
- black-out of frames of reference: nation, language, history, heroes
- discovery of weakness of institutions
- new categories in constructing identity: mobility, migration,
diversity
• Media Change:
- technological development
- media literacy / media use / media culture
- media convergence
Grid of Coordinates for a Research Approach
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
• Debate Environment:
• Public Broadcasting Systems as public institutions
- different categories of description over public valuable
- functions / relevance of public-private-model-distinction?
• Public Value a value of democracy competence:
- capacity, reference and responsibility
• Public Value as a theoretical concept:
- describing the added value generated in context of macro-economy
(empirical perspective)
- referring to the principles of negotiation of social trust (criticaltheoretical perspective)
- reminding public institutions of public expectations for democratic
habit (normative perspective)
• Public Value Test:
- done as a branding of/for BBC ?
Grid of Coordinates for a Research Approach
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
• Development in Europe – For example Austria:
• Broadcasting System: Dual System (support system fro comm and private)
• Public Value Obligation: ORF (demand fees)
• Public Value Competition between PSB, commercial and free channels
• Outcome Interests: Public Value redefined
• Moral level : PV as intrinsic model of value
• Critical-theoretical level: new concept of public sphere based on
participation, not on power
• Critical-emancipative perspective: PV concept based on principles of
communication ecology: sustainability of communication values
• Practical level: fair distribution of resources in production (quality
management) and consumption (media competence development)
Grid of Coordinates for a Research Approach
THE CRISES OF PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING
• Research Perspectives
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Political and Cultural Context: decrease of political influence
European Context: harmonization
Media Context: media and media culture change
Structural Change of Society: migration, mobility
Globalization Perspective: cultural convergence
Debate Environment: Media Policy
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
New discourse quality on PV in Europe:
from ideological or strategic level to research level):
• Public Broadcasting Systems:
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loosing institutional trust (general de-institutionalization
of political society)
PBS - not longer the “natural holder” of PV-certification and credibility,
since PBS as well help themselves with commercial strategies of
program development and market power
• Public Value Test
A strategic tool of verifying the legitimacy of public media institutions: start with
BBC: The Public Value Test made the concept of PV becoming the factor of
affirming the PBS
Debate Environment: Media Theory
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
PV –
a value of democratic responsibility of media within a
media-organized society usable as a crucial factor for evaluation of public
relevance of programs
• as an invention of a complex of parameters for the EU
harmonization program in media politics
• as a result of market competition within the triangle: fee,
commercials, quality
• as a public model of media communication to be discussed
and reformed in respect to the social change / media change
Debate Environment: Knowledge Concept
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
Public Value as an empirical concept on theory level –
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a market-economical term based on the concept of
natural justice:
it is a term - taken from political- and micro-economy –
referring to goods of which the monetary value is too open
and too diverse to be quantified exactly, though their
existence makes the life of citizens worth living: clean air,
freedom of speech, and other abstract goods of which the
value is acknowledged in civilian societies - functions
expected by citizens from state. To relate PBS to the
sphere of PV seems to be evident in respect of
communication and media society (Marcus L. Blömeke)
Debate Environment: Knowledge Concept
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
Public Value as a critical concept in theory level –
- a model of social/societal trust:
modern societies are based on the principle of anticipation
and fulfilment of trust:
trust constitutes the value of abstract goods. In that
theoretical environment PV is a model of social trust and a
model for public quality of organizations and their product,
embedded either
- in public law institutions
- in private law organizations
- or in commercial companies
Debate Environment: Knowledge Concept
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
Public Value as a normative concept on theory level -
- a model for the democratic habit of media communication:
since PV is a model for abstract goods generated and
negotiated as a barter trade, in the context of media
communication PV is not just a good managed by media
management or through journalism (quality of production),
but more the political dimension of the participation model
within the structural system of social practice of
medialized social interaction: productionconsumption-negotiation – contextual complex
Debate Environment: Knowledge Concept
THE CHALLENGE OF PUBLIC VALUE
Public Value as a concept of emancipative Interest of knowledge
- a model of and for ecological media communication values:
sustainability effects of media communication:
establishing critical interest in meaningful discourse
maintaining a participation habitus ( Bourdieu – Chomsky:
generative ability)
developing Knowledge : indeepening and differentiation
transparency of production and quality factors
media literacy and communication competence
connecting communication interests
Example Austria:
• Dual Broadcasting System – Organizational Versions
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Public Law constituted Broadcasting : ORF
Commercial TV stations: ATV, Puls4, go-tv, Austrian windows RTL, Pro7
Free (non-commercial) Media Projects: Okto Community TV, Radio: Orange 94 and
others (local)
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PV parameters for arguing a PV holding position (ORF):
5 values defined as constitutive for PV (ORF Public Value Competence in
information, entertainment, education):
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Individual value: trust, service, entertainment, knowledge, responsibility
Social value: diversity, orientation, integration, close to citizen, cultural assignment
Austria-Value: identity, creation of value, federalism
International Value: European Integration, global perspective
Business Venture Value: innovation, transparency, competence
Connected to that just see the scope of interpretation -especially: identity, integration,
diversity and heterogeneity of society
Example Austria:
• ORF: By Public Law Constituted Broadcasting System
50 % public fee, 50 % commercial income, assignment by public law:
duty of provision of all parts of population, program duty: objectivity,
diversity, balance in relation to political parties and societal
arrangements in groups, comprehensiveness, preferences for news,
education, science, culture, art, religion
As a public law institution ORF claims to fulfil the conditions of Public
Value through its institutional character – and thus legitimates the
privileged collection of charges
Example Austria:
• ORF Position:
Broadcasting is a public assignment (BVG Rundfunk 1974), providing
the whole country with quality program, covering Austria as a
discourse and as an event, Building Austrian Identity, resp. European
Identity in Austria, High Quality Standards in program management
and program production, often against quota reasonability, serves
especially social, ethnic, cultural marginal groups and minorities, the
coverage is at about 38% share in the market.
Special factor in Austria: many irradiating same language programmes
coming from Germany
Example Austria:
• Okto Community TV: Participative TV Programme
Program produced by community teams on voluntary basis
no commercials, support by City of Vienna, but free of any dependency
brings communities, populations and topics on screen that are
underexposed in mainstream tv programmes,
special social effects: integration, transcultural understanding, societal
cohesion among groups being in conflict at origin region, contribution to
development of culture, multi-language programme, learning media
competence / media literacy
Example Austria:
• Okto - Position:
Arguments for a PV standard and because of that for a 2% part of charge and
extraordinary public support: engaged in integrative communication
Okto is according to a research of Cathren Edwards (30 community programme
stations worldwide) a program most affiliated to the diversity of social groups,
most engaged and involved in cultural affairs and very close to a highly
sophisticated program. It reaches 2.4 technical coverage
Example Austria:
• The commercial programme providers (Puls 4, ATV etc)
also claim for recognition in partially producing Public Value containing
programme (news on RTL Austria, also in parts of documentaries, political talkshows and even entertaining program) in same time criticising that the ORF has a
comparably much more comfortable starting position having the fee and in
somehow the same amount income by commercial business. This, so the
argument of commercial programs, by trend causes a market distortion.
Referencies
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Bauer, Thomas A : Wertegemeinschaft und Mediengesellschaft. In: Bauer, Thomas /Ortner,
Gerhard E. (eds.): Werte für Europa. Medienkultur und ethische Bildung in und für Europa.
Düsseldorf
Hepp, Andreas/Höhn, Marco/Wimmer, Jeffrey (2010): Medienkultur im Wandel. Konstanz
Karmasin, Matthias, ed. (2002): Medien und Ethik. Stuttgart
Luhmann, Niklas (1968): Vertrauen. Ein Mechanismus der Reduktion sozialer Komplexität.
Stuttgart
Luhmann, Niklas (2004): Die Realität der Massenmedien. Wiesbaden (3.ed)
Schmidt, Siegfried J. (2003): Geschichten & Diskurse. Abschied vom Konstruktivismus.
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Thomas, Tanja, ed. (2008): Medienkultur und soziales Handeln. Wiesbaden