摘要 :
Structural changes in the media world, including an increase in competition and commercialization, mean that the topicality and urgency of the notion of social responsibility in the media are increasing. Analogously, the discussio...
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Structural changes in the media world, including an increase in competition and commercialization, mean that the topicality and urgency of the notion of social responsibility in the media are increasing. Analogously, the discussion of the social responsibility of companies and organizations becomes a central concern in the business world and within government, as the relatively new concept of 'good governance' shows. In recent years we have seen that the absolute belief in the free market is once again under debate. Rather than a return to a controlling government as the main provider of a context in the complex 'ecology' of communication policy, possible solutions are now sought in greater responsibility for the media actors themselves (media companies and organizations, citizens, supervisory boards and commissions) and in self-regulation in the media profession. This article assesses accountability mechanisms currently in existence in the Netherlands and provides a comparative overview of interesting practices in other geographical contexts. This contribution also examines the academic reflection upon and conceptualization of such notions as social 'responsibility' and media 'accountability' in the division of labour throughout the market, the government and civil society. We are thinking of mechanisms for accountability such as a contract between the government and the broadcasters, an ombudsperson, forms of self-regulation, supervisory bodies, forms of public consultation, and the profession seeking contact with the citizens (e.g. civic journalism).
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摘要 :
Background: The Canadian government allocated $595 million in subsidies over five
years to news media in 2019, but the bailout was based on questionable data. Financial
losses were exaggerated; a think tank report was criticized...
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Background: The Canadian government allocated $595 million in subsidies over five
years to news media in 2019, but the bailout was based on questionable data. Financial
losses were exaggerated; a think tank report was criticized for using data selectively; data
from a university research project differed sharply from annual industry counts; and job
loss figures were disputed.
Analysis: Hard data can diverge markedly from soft data accepted in pursuit of policy
outcomes.
Conclusions and implications: A second campaign under way on behalf of entertainment
industries could yield a bailout several times larger than the first. Closer scrutiny
should be exercised of media narratives and offered data. An independent media research
centre should collect and verify data for policy purposes.
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摘要 :
Contemporary media in all their guises support and sustain an unprecedented platform for communication and public discussion- for those who are able to participate. Creating an environment in which media can flourish is the domain...
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Contemporary media in all their guises support and sustain an unprecedented platform for communication and public discussion- for those who are able to participate. Creating an environment in which media can flourish is the domain of public policy. The media policy framework and the possibilities that it provides are terribly misunderstood. That does not mean that media policy should be cast aside. Using a range of historical and contemporary issues and examples, this article explores how people and their public institutions can create the conditions that enable media and communication technologies to serve the public good.
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摘要 :
A knowledge brokering model of news media is proposed to explain the influence of news media on public policymaking processes. The model identifies five distinct knowledge brokering functions through which news media regulate the ...
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A knowledge brokering model of news media is proposed to explain the influence of news media on public policymaking processes. The model identifies five distinct knowledge brokering functions through which news media regulate the flow and exchange of policy relevant knowledge among policy actors who occupy the same policy ecosystem. The model also explicates the causal mechanisms that explain the nature, scope, and timing of news media's influence on policy actors and the public policymaking process. The contributions of this model to advancing theory and research on the media-policy link are discussed.
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摘要 :
In 2007, the British media regulator Ofcom began to implement new restrictions on the television advertising of food and drink products to children, as part of the government's broader attempts to combat child obesity. This is the...
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In 2007, the British media regulator Ofcom began to implement new restrictions on the television advertising of food and drink products to children, as part of the government's broader attempts to combat child obesity. This is the first of two linked articles that explore the issues at stake in these developments, and their broader implications for the study of media and cultural policy. The focus here is on the ways in which evidence from research was used by the various contending participants in the debate about food advertising and children in the years leading up to Ofcom's decision. The emphasis is not so much on the validity of the research itself, but the political uses of research (or of the claims made about research), and the relations between research and policy-making. This analysis is set within a broader discussion of the nature and limitations of 'evidence-based' policy-making.
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摘要 :
Media use can empower people, provided that this is accompanied by a deeper understanding of the actors, processes and structures in the media sector - including media policy. It is, however, to be expected that media users' liter...
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Media use can empower people, provided that this is accompanied by a deeper understanding of the actors, processes and structures in the media sector - including media policy. It is, however, to be expected that media users' literacy of media policy is rather limited. This is problematic as the absence of such understanding makes it impossible for citizens to hold the politicians they elected accountable for the media policy they develop. This article explores what media users know about media policy, what they expect to know, and whether they care. We adopted a case-study approach, researching this question for the region of Flanders based on a combination of quantitative (representative survey) and qualitative (49 in-depth interviews) data. While the article focuses on the case of Flanders, its theoretical basis as well as conclusion section are relevant beyond that specific context.
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摘要 :
In 2007, the British media regulator Office of Communications (Ofcom) began to implement new restrictions on the television advertising of food and drink products to children, as part of the government's broader attempts to combat...
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In 2007, the British media regulator Office of Communications (Ofcom) began to implement new restrictions on the television advertising of food and drink products to children, as part of the government's broader attempts to combat child obesity. This is the second of two linked articles that explore the issues at stake in these developments, and their broader implications for the study of media and cultural policy. This article focuses primarily on the ways in which the figure of the child consumer was conceptualised both in the research that informed these developments and in the policy debates that ensued. It explores the assumptions that were made by the contending parties in the debate about children's competence as consumers, and specifically as users of television advertising. This analysis is set within a broader account of the role and function of the notion of 'media literacy' in contemporary debates about regulatory policy.
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This contribution analyzes government, opposition, public service media, media stakeholders and audience views regarding the role and remit of public service media in the run-up to and their impact on the renewal of the 2021–2025...
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This contribution analyzes government, opposition, public service media, media stakeholders and audience views regarding the role and remit of public service media in the run-up to and their impact on the renewal of the 2021–2025 management contract between public broadcaster VRT and the Flemish Government. Results show that, despite a shifting media ecosystem and academics and government pushing for fundamental reform, audiences and most stakeholders’ views stick to a centralised, broad and multiplatform public media institution. Moreover, they expect public service media to solve ever more media and societal issues (e.g. fake news) within a shrinking budget. The case illustrates how mature, evidence-based multistakeholderism pushes public service media to meet an increasingly challenging set of expectations, hampers both public service media and government to build a well-balanced, long-term vision of public service media's role and, instead, pushes them to pursue their own agenda. Lastly, an evidence-based process also suffers from issues of validity of the data.
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摘要 :
In-depth interviews conducted with leading Canadian mass media and new media managers, communication policy practitioners, and scholarly and professional media researchers reveal significant gaps in current Canadian media research...
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In-depth interviews conducted with leading Canadian mass media and new media managers, communication policy practitioners, and scholarly and professional media researchers reveal significant gaps in current Canadian media research. There are foreign sources but almost no Canadian contemporary sources for ongoing research in the following five broad areas: 1) Media usage; 2) Media ownership; 3) New media forms; 4) Media diversity; and 5) Media policy. These results were reported to the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) in 2007 and will shape its funding orientation and, perhaps, the direction for future Canadian media research more broadly.
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摘要 :
The concept of exposure diversity , the diversity of information that people actually access and use, has recently gained prominence in media policy debates. This aspect of media diversity, however, remains difficult to define, me...
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The concept of exposure diversity , the diversity of information that people actually access and use, has recently gained prominence in media policy debates. This aspect of media diversity, however, remains difficult to define, measure or implement in actual policy. In this article, we propose an empirical approach that operationalizes exposure diversity in terms of news and current affairs providers in the media repertoire of different social groups. This can be studied through cluster analysis of survey data on respondents’ combinations of use of different media providers and outlets. The article first discusses exposure diversity as a media policy aim. We then outline our proposal on how to take the debate a step further through empirical analysis of media repertoires, with an illustration of how such an analysis may be conducted using survey data from Norway.
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