This week we dealt with the role of Public Media in the general cultural milieu. This included Australian public media outlets such as ABC and the SBS; as well as international institutions like BBC and the PBS. These state owned bodies co-operate and compete with other community bodies such as 4ZZZ and Briz 31. Community broadcasters such as the aforementioned are funded by commercial advertising in a similar model to commercial stations, but have not-for-profit charters committing to a role of a 'public' broadcaster.
We talked about public media's role in a democratic society as a protector of the democratic process (in exposing corruption, informing the voting public) as well as a vehicle for fostering the national conversation. In terms of news and current affairs, public media (especially in Australia where the great majority of media is owned by the Fairfax-News Corp. oligarchy, see last post) has a special role in the media landscape as an impartial (non-commercially motivated) reporter.
The challenges faced by public media both historically and currently are manifold; from achieving true independence from political forces, to staving off future budget cuts and remaining relevant in a world of fast-paced technological change, most significantly in the media industry. However, public media has advantages that the commercial world does not: being able to seamlessly merge into the field of online journalism without a complete rearrangement of the subscription model (that is, that they do not have one).
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