No discussion of politics, economics, war, culture or everyday life today lacks attention to the media. Not only are the media major centres of investment and power virtually everywhere, they are the focus of attention for most people in the advanced countries taking up more time in their lives than any other waking activity besides work. The media set agendas, orchestrate pleasures, shape and limit the conversational commons, elevate and demolish careers.
Yet convulsions of technology and control in the media are met publicly with little more than mystification and blur. Instead of sober reflection on the significance of changes in media structure, journalism gives us gee-whiz accounts of where each deal was done and speculates about who will come out on top, while academics tend to write self-enclosed prose strictly for one another.
We hope in this debate to get a fix on the major trends, and to assess media strategies in relation to politics, society, and technology. Our method will be open, reasoned debate; dialogue, not demonisation. What unites us is the presumption that a clarification what is at stake in actual and proposed changes could help us, as a democratic public, get beyond sleepwalking.
This strand will start with two central topics of debate.
First, public service broadcasting is in the dock. What justifies it now? Originally defended as a way of dealing with the limits of 1920s technology, it now operates in a world where there is no technical limit on the number of broadcasting channels, and where new technology offers the prospect of ever greater choice and freedom of expression.
Once defended on the grounds that it alone provides programme diversity, it now confronts expanding choice through the markets niche channels. Once supported in the name of programme quality, it now struggles to define just what quality is. Once defended as a way to umpire pluralistic debate, it stands accused of cosiness with government and corporate centres of power.
So is the ideal of communication independent of both government and market misguided or obsolete? Is it so far from realisation in practice? Does new technology offer new ways to renew and redefine the mission of public service broadcasting? Can and should a new deal be struck between public and market values? If there is a place for public service broadcasting today, what is it? If not, what should replace it? How do different nations approach these questions and can we learn from each other?
Second, huge media corporations stand accused of excessive power, though they justify themselves as nothing but conduits to supply what the public demands. Does this justification have merit? Are media behemoths bound to promote right-wing politics? Do they necessarily pander to ignorance? How shall we assess the transnational deals that are today routine? Must there be corrupt links between media tycoons and governments?
Are independent professionals doomed to subservience and corruption? How shall they approach the huge power of their organisations? What are their rights, and how shall these rights be secured? What are the rights of minorities? Should concentration be legally regulated, and if so, how? Or rather, can the normal workings of the market and technological change meet the desires and needs of viewers both as citizens and consumers? Are we heading toward a healthier cultural variety or a degradation of democracy?
These debates belong to readers as well as contributors and editors. How good they are depends in part on the quality of your contributions. We very much hope that, if you have time, you will participate directly (in contributions of up to 800 words) to make this an exciting new form of global discussion.
