ECREA16-Abstract

Saturday, November 12

1 6 : 0 0 – 1 7 : 3 0

PN 329

Political Interference with Public Service Media – But What for?

P. Bajomi-Lazar

Budapest Business School University of Applied Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

The Television Across Europe studies and other expert analyses show that the adoption of the BBC model of public service broadcasting in the former

communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe after the political transformations in 1989–91 was largely a failure to the extent that many of the gov‑

ernments of the day took control of and politically instrumentalized public service television, which, as a result, could not become independent agents

of news production and dissemination. At the time of the broadcasting monopoly of the state throughout most of the 1990s, analysts mainly attributed

political interference to efforts at influencing public opinion and hence voting behavior in favor of the incumbent governments. Yet the rise of satellite,

cable and digital terrestrial commercial television channels and the resulting fragmentation of the audiences in the post-transformation period have largely

undermined public service broadcasters’potential impact on the public. Even so, recent developments in Hungary and in Poland under the second and third

Orbán Governments and the second Kaczynsky Government suggest that neo-authoritarian political elites continue to show a marked interest in controlling

public service television. This paper asks the question of what benefits political control over public service broadcasting may bring under such conditions,

and suggests that government control over PSB may serve the multiple purposes of 1) elite-to-mass communication, including electoral mobilization

via downright propaganda, 2) the curtailing of government transparency via censorship, 3) the limitation of the visibility of political rivals, 4) elite-to-

elite communication, including advertorials and kompromat, 5) party patronage, including clientelism and the extraction of financial resources for party

benefits, and 6) the influencing of policy and economic decisions. Drawing on research by Rupnik and Zielonka, Örnebring, Stetka, and others, it argues

that the ‘colonization’of public service media and the resulting distortion of its normative function is rooted in the specificities of the political cultures and

party systems of the former communist countries. In an attempt to demonstrate the points above, this paper will rely on a case study of Hungary, including

a recent content analysis of public service broadcasters’news programs.

PN 330

PSBs Taking the Power Back: How to Construct a 'Public Service Broadcaster Participatory Model' to Defend the Public Interest

in the Western Balkans PSBs?

S. Trpevska

, I. Micevski

Institute for Communication Studies, Skopje, Macedonia

In this paper we affirm the idea that one of the main reasons for the unsuccessful transformation of the Public Service Broadcasters in the Western Balkan

countries should be sought in the difficulties embedded in the political and media systems.‘Political parallelism’is one of the strongest features of the media

systems in this region. Political pressure over the media has turned from concealed to direct and unidirectional. In such a setting the PSB inevitably becomes

a contested institution and any democratic arrangement of the PSB appears unrealistic. The question we put forward here is whether PSBs in the Western

Balkan countries have any prospect of overcoming the obstacles so they can regain the core values in the process of transformation: citizenship, universality,

quality and trust. Here we claim that one promising path to follow is towards strengthening a solid, stable and most importantly, direct connection between

the PSB and the Public. Our proposition to move towards a‘Public Service Broadcaster Participatory Model’opens possibilities that could reestablish the idea

of the Public Interest in the Western Balkan PSBs – an idea that has been lost in the process of their transformation. ‘Participation’as a concept has strong

basis in political and communication theory. However that idea needs to be further operationalized in the Western Balkan context. We have started our

analysis with the conceptual framework developed within the comparative media systems, while in the attempt to detect the future ways of transformation

of PSB from the Western Balkans we relied on the arguments of media policy scholars who claimed that PSB could persist with the same mission, adapted

to the new technological environment (adding to broadcasting). Of the three media policy models in the post-communist democracies, it seems that

the Balkan countries have followed the ‘atavistic’ one. However, we claim here for revisiting the ‘idealistic’ model and for discussing the conditions under

which some of the early ideas about a direct communicative democracy or socially controlled broadcastingmight be feasible in theWestern Balkan societies.

PN 331

Technology, Digitization and New Media

K. Murphy

Dublin Institute of Technology, School of Media, Dublin, Ireland

The process of digitization represents one aspect of a cross cutting set of dynamics rapidly altering media systems and the contexts for public service media.

Along with globalization of media and the contextual shift to informational economies, digitization represents a set of challenges for public service media

(PSM) that are not only technological and strategic but also existential. Digitization and the transition to the digital media environment have presented

four related challenges for the institutions of PSM: 1. Transferring the medium of broadcasting into a digitized universe i.e. the digital transition, 2. Ne‑

gotiating the convergence of broadcasting with the networked digital media environment of the Internet, 3. Developing appropriate content and services

against a backdrop of scant resources, increased competition and media proliferation, and, 4. Negotiating relationships with new digital intermediaries and

gateways that are now significant gatekeepers for access to content. The current paper will address some of these issues within a critical policy analysis and

social shaping of technology framework. It will evaluate the interplay of technological development and public policy at the level of the European Union.

Whereas PSM has garnered some degree of political support as a vehicle for myriad policy goals, the re-positioning of broadcasting as an institution and

medium within an expanded digital universe raises significant challenges to how PSM can continue to meet those goals. The digital agenda, the focus on