Public Service Broadcasting - Essay Example

Public Service Broadcasting based on the concept of nation and national identity: Drawbacks of this approach 2009 The idea of nation and nationality is ambiguous. In an age of political and economic boundaries being ill-defined, not the least because of globalization, the idea of nationality is becoming more and more hazy. Anderson (1991, first published in 1983) developed the idea of nation as “imagined community” because, according to him, “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion”. Anderson elaborated that the development of such imagined communities has been furthered through the media, which, through the process of targeting a mass audience, creates images and texts that addresses a generalized audience. The concept of nation is essentially limited in the sense that no community, however large, encompasses the universe. The nation is an imagined community because, even with the inequalities that prevail in each community, there is some sense of comradeship that exists within it. Perhaps the most significant of such a media platform that creates uniform images is the public service broadcasting (PSB), which, despite addressing both the major and the ethnic communities, typically develops a uniform tone and nature that is consistent with the notion of nationalism. However, in the current context of media corporatization and globalization, the utopian nationalism of the PSB is getting increasingly difficult to adhere to as commercialization of the media, the convergence of the interests of media and businesses and globalization have made it difficult for the PSBs to retain its original characteristics. British broadcasting industry has essentially been regulated on the basis of public service requirements in the program range and quality, viewing audience, reception, reflection of national and minority identity. It is expected to be impartial to controversial issues and to provide a civic forum. The maintenance of public service image of television has drawn large investments for documentaries on social issues, history, science, technology and environment, particularly those aired in BBC2 and Channel 4, which are within the state-owned British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) group. While BBC1 (which airs only news programs) and BBC2 (which airs documentaries) are the most typical PSB platforms, Channel 4, which can commission and buy documentaries but not make its own, has an annual budget of 30 million pounds - 6 percent of its total budget - for PSB programs. The federal grouping of 15 regional television companies, Independent Television (ITV), also has important public service requirements that it has to adhere to (Rowan, 2005). BBC has for years been the epitome of public service broadcasting as this medium is typically considered as the voice of the nation. Yet, despite being publicly owned, the PSB approach has been challenged since the early mid-60s with the advent of the private broadcaster, ITV, which cater to the mass market – so long neglected by BBC – and following a friendly and informal format, which led BBC’s viewer drop by as much as 28 percent (Blumler, n.d). BBC responded to changes in the viewer pattern and since then has been aggressively producing or buying documentaries made by independent producers, reflecting many alternate ideas and formats that may not always adhere to the idea of nationalism. Changes in consumer tastes have further modified the quality, content and format of broadcasting. The television industry in the UK is gradually making a transformation, with a greater role of the private sector. Cable and satellite television, BskyB (40 percent of which is owned by global media giant, Rupert Murdoch) has made inroads into British homes despite the requirement of set top boxes. BskyB has already gained 3 ½ million subscribers and attracts 10 percent viewers in the country. Thus, independent programmers in the UK now have a much larger platform including the PSBs as well as private broadcasters. In order to capture the mass market, the format of programs has changed, often trivializing or sensationalizing issues. Particularly, since ITV is a conglomeration of a number of regional companies, programming has become more wide-based, incorporating regional and global issues and not necessarily national issues. Also, financial crunch in the 1980s forced the British television industry to be more market-oriented and less regulated by government authorities. This, of course, has also meant that the market for serious, educative programs have been diminishing while that for sensational “stories” is growing. In the 1990s, BBC, too, adopted an aggressive expansion policy of expanding into international markets, thus expanding the program content base from the regional to the global. As a result, more programs on travel, cultures, global politics and so on are now aired (Blumler, n.d). Television journalists have taken to the production of analytical documentary making with a great vigor particularly in the modern period of globalization and political uncertainties. As a result, the rigid framework of PSBs that typically catered to national political interests cannot be followed. Greater openness and freedom on content have provided journalists to test uncharted waters. One example of such bold initiative is the three-part 2 ½ hour documentary, The Power of Nightmares by Adam Curtis, aired on BBC1 on October 20, 2004 (Blumler, n.d). The documentary questioned the post 9/11 fear of terrorism as a deliberately hyped up issue. It asserted that the war on terrorism has been fuelled by the politics in the United States and Britain, creating an unwarranted fear among the people. The bottom line of the documentary was that George W Bush, Tony Blair and the neo-conservatists in both countries deliberately fuelled this fear for their own political agenda. It found many similarities between the fear psychosis that was fueled by the neo-conservatists in the United States in the 1940s against the Communists and the projection of the fearful image of Osama bin Laden and al-Queda. The phantom of fear, which the documentary claimed the political bigwigs were projecting, had become a big issue for even the media in the United Kingdom, particularly since the Terror attack in New York in 2001. Television channels had been vying with each other for sensational documentaries like these. In the process, the researchers for the documentary went back in history to understand the link between the current incidents and the past record of the US military establishments in fueling illusions. Such bold statements, equating the War on Terror with the Cold War, could not perhaps be possible to be voiced on the BBC a decade back, when the television in the UK was more controlled and functioning like a duopoly hence following PSB guidelines was easier. The opening up of television, the multi-channel framework and the entry of cable television has altered the ballgame entirely. At the same time, there has been a tendency of trivializing content on television to grab eyeballs in the both the government controlled as well as private channels. Yet, these documentaries have attracted much controversy and criticism from within the industry. There are accused of staging events and faking images, often camouflaged as the reality. The 1997 docusoap aired on BBC1, Driving School, was first accused of having invented scenes. The character, Maureen, who failed the driving test a number of tests, apparently set her alarm clock at 4a.m but the shot was taken later. Hence, the documentary was accused of ‘faking’ the shot and camouflaging it as true. The media, which hounded the documentary, did not distinguish between reconstruction of the event and distortion of truth. It is accused of “abusing public trust”, something that is grossly against the principles of PSB (Winston, 1999). In the age of globalisation, media has essentially come to be linked with the capitalist economic system in which the market is the ultimate arbitrator. Most western economies, like the United States, United Kingdom and Australia have been engaging in media reforms that enable greater competition in the sector, thus reducing the role of PSB (Hitchens, 2007). As Herman and McChensey (1999) media reforms that promote the market-based system of concentrated media provide content that is also dictated by the rules of the market. As a result, the audience is provided with a flood of information through the market but the subjectivity of the information depends on the business interests of the conglomerates. Neo-liberal proponents of free media assume that the commercial market-driven media system is fundamentally efficient and does not require to be regulated by the state. This neo-liberal stand is similar to that which is advocated for free markets for industries. It goes unnoticed that the commercial media feeds the audience content that it wants to. The core problems of media reforms in western democracies, according to Herman and McChensey (1999), are the result of “a profit-driven, advertising-supported media system: hypercommercialism and denigration of journalism and public service”. Media reforms that result in a commercial, concentrated and global media have crucial implications for the nature of the PSB. While the traditional approach to the role of the media, and more particularly PSB, is to be a channel between the citizens and the government, so that the citizens’ opinion can be voiced, the more radical approach harps on its association with partisan and investigative journalism (Dahlgren, 1993). In a situation that media becomes a tool for business interests, neither of these roles remain valid any longer. In the traditional sense, the media becomes a channel of information flow between the business and the consumer. In the radical approach, a business-associated media has no interest either in public service content or in investigative journalism. In this scenario, the commercial media market can be classified as the content market, the advertisement market and the consumer market. The classification runs across the value chain of the media industry, through investment, production, distribution to end users and consumers. The end-use consumer looks for interesting content that the program houses provide the distributor. The advertiser also looks for the same interesting content on which it can advertise its products and impress the consumer. Hence, content provides the key competitive advantage to the market dynamics of the media market. In the United States, public service media has always been subservient to private media, which is considered to be the unbiased representation of public opinion. Yet, since the 1980s, growing concentration in the media industry has provoked criticism of oligopoly of media firms and greater business-media connections even further. The number of corporations that control the media industry in the United States has steadily decreased since the 1980s, particularly after the Telecommunication Act of 1996 that further reduced the barriers to cross-ownership. In 2004, only 5 large American companies controlled the entire US media market in contrast to 50 in 1983, 29 in 1987, 14 in 1992 and 10 in 1997 (Jolly, 2007). Concentration is pronounced most in radio broadcasting. While no single company owned more than 40 radio stations in the US before the passing of the Telecommunication Act of 1996, Clear Channel Communication owned 1200 radio stations in 2006 and had an audience of 1100 million (Jolly, 2007). Local interest programs, the mainstay of radio communication as well as PSB, has been eroded in the process. In the television market, 10 companies owned 299 stations in 2003, compared to 105 in 1995 (Jolly, 2007). As in radio, local programming content has been reduced also in television, with greater focus to reality shows, soap operas and docu-features. Broadcasters vie with each other to draw mass audience, particularly the youth who contributed a major share of the market. Various techniques have been used to attract audience, from subcontracting programming to independent producers, re-use old ideas by making new programs on traditional formats, innovate new formats and pushing related merchandise like books and DVD with programs (Sparks, 2007). Reality shows have emerged as a useful tool to capture audience interest as a result of the constant drive towards innovation since these could be made with little investment – actors and writers had to be paid minimum fees, at all; there were no need for rehearsals and elaborate sets; and there were no need for rights acquisitions. These have been projected as an alternative to the traditional drama and soap operas. Since independent companies produced these programs after test marketing in smaller markets, producers could bargain hard with the broadcasters. As a result, these are relatively more expensive than the previous types of reality shows. Even in news, commercialisation of media has meant that trivialities are sensationalised in order to remain politically safe. In an interview in 2005, Larry Bienhart, author of the book “Wag the Fog”, describes fog facts as the news that are trivia and should be highlighted actually disappear in the fog while the more important news get hidden (Holland, 2005). This is not any accident, according to Bienhart, but deliberately done as an exercise in media spin. Even in regulated political scenarios like that of China, the broadcasting industry has diluted public service goals. Till 1978, when economic liberalization was begun, the media in China was strictly regulated and funded by the state. The first attempt at commercialisation occurred in the country in 1979 when Shanghai TV station ran a 1.5 minute advertisement on medicine wine and China Central Television (CCTV) began to run 5 minute ad spots (China TV Report, 2003-04). Although the media industry in China, particularly television, remains controlled by the state, its commercialisation began with government policy shifting towards a socialist market economy in all spheres since 1992 (Bai, 2005). Spiralling advertising revenues resulted in a change in the institutional and journalistic mind-set that became more market-oriented than a mouthpiece of the Communist Party, as it had been so long. It was realized that the media had a commercial value besides the political one. Although the basic institutional structure of the Chinese media remained the same till the late 1990s, with the state polity ruling the shots, television stations by then depended more on advertising revenues than on state funding. Although the local governments continue to be the virtual owners of the media conglomerates – though this mechanism is also on its way out – private organizations are increasingly being roped in. Television stations are allowed to spin off programming companies that can associate with private organizations or enter into joint ventures with foreign companies. At the same time, with consolidation, the Party’s central propaganda system rather than the provincial governments regulates the media industry. Hence, curiously in China, the media industry follows the market dictates to attract advertising revenues yet is controlled by the political superstructure. As a result, the programming innovation has remained concentrated in the entertainment segment while news is still regulated. Also within the news segment, the focus has been on human-interest stories that are less controversial and also are potentially advertisement attracters. The fallout of this has been a rush towards entertainment programs that are more often than not copied from American or European television programs. Although Chinese television programming always had a fair share of entertainment even in the pre-1978 period, it was more in the nature of “high art” that focused on Chinese traditions. Today, there is a daily dose of soap operas that include Chinese versions of American soaps like “Survivor”, “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, “Oprah Winfrey” shows and so on. Reality television and call-in programs, like in western countries, has been as big hit in China. Even the boundary between entertainment and non-entertainment is fading, with newscasters and weather forecasters sharing glamour quotients in looks and attitudes to attract consumers. However, despite the commercialization of media in China, the dominant ideology of the ruling Communist Party is evident in the selection of official news, particularly crime news, the representation of the police and officials (Xiao, 2003). The most significant element of the global broadcasting scenario is perhaps the emergence of trans-national media organizations that are the main drivers of globalisation in all industries. Theodore Levitt (1983) who coined the term ‘globalisation’, distinguished between multinational companies and global companies by saying that the former adapted to the local preferences in the countries that they operated while the latter "operates with resolute constancy . . . as if the entire world (or major regions of it) were a single entity." Hence, according to Levitt, global companies strive for a standardized product. As a corollary to this theory, global media companies like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation have produced standardized programming content with little adaptation of language and culture according to the countries. Five major players – News Corporation, Disney/ Cap Cities, Time Warner, Viacom and TCI – control global free market media (Shah, n.d). Thus, the concentration and privatisation of media in countries like the United States and Australia, and to some extent also in China, as well as commercialisation of news and other culture products aligned to the advertisement market in almost all countries, have resulted in “soft” media content that are generally uncontroversial and politically conservative (Shah, n.d). The content generally follows the US model of entertainment that is least controversial. Reality shows modelled on American shows are telecast in almost all countries. There is usually very little in the content that challenges the social, political and cultural status quo. Alternate views and opinions are suppressed in the urge to present neutral – often read as official – version of facts. Hence, the audience is left with politically safe yet titillating and sensational news and subjects.   Thus, globalisation has entailed a larger involvement of private enterprises in global media, both in the western democracies as well as in emerging economies like China. Private involvement necessarily results in a higher concentration in the media industry, thereby the media representing a narrow class interest and not that of portraying the national interest (Herman and McChesney, 1999). Also, full or partial privatisation of the media also necessitates dependence on advertising revenues. Together with ownership concentration, advertisement dependence makes the media organizations politically conservative. For example, Proctor & Gamble, the largest media advertiser closely monitors the media content that it sponsors across the world to ensure that there is no conflict of interest with its business in the programming on television (Herman and McChesney, 1999). Hence, the broadcasting cultures in most countries have tilted towards entertainment, following cues from the American media market, giving way to controversial programs, political debate, discussions and documentaries that are hard hitting and thought-provoking, even though the latter is the primary goal of PSB. Rarely does the commercial media broadcast programs that criticize the corporate or advertisers’ abuse of power. Therefore, commercialisation of media is seen as antithetical to promotion of public service broadcasting goals in all countries. Particularly as transnational business interests traverse national identities and cultures, the role of public service broadcasting in developing the concepts of nation and national identity has become subservient to the portrayal of the global culture. Works Cited Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition ed. London and New York: Verso Bai, R (2005). Media Commercialization, entertainment and the party-state: The political economy of contemporary Chinese television and entertainment culture, Global Media Journal, Vol 4, Issue 6, Spring Blumler, Jay (n.d) G. British Television, The Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/britishtelev/britishtelev.htm China TV Report, 2003-04. Retrieved from http://www.the-dma.org/international/articles/TheChinaMediaMarket.pdf Dahlgren, Peter (1993). Communication and Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere, Routledge Herman and McChesney, Robert W (1999). Rich Media Poor Democracy; Communication Politics in Dubious Times, University of Illinois Press Holland, Joshua (2005) Reality and Spin in the Media, Alter Net, December. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/29278/ Jolly, Dr Rhonda (2007). Media ownership deregulation in the United States and Australia: in the public interest? Parliament of Australia, 24 July. Retrieved from http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/RP/2007-08/08RP01.htm Shah, Hemant (n,d). Journalism in an Age of Mass Media Globalization. Retrieved from http://www.idsnet.org/Papers/Communications/HEMANT_SHAH.HTM Sparks, Colin (2007). Reality TV: the Big Brother phenomenon, International Socialism Journal, Issue 114, April 9. Retrieved from http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=314&issue=114 Winston, Brian (1999) The primrose path: faking UK television documentary, “docuglitz” and docusoap, November, http://www.latrobe.edu.au/screeningthepast/firstrelease/fr1199/bwfr8b.htm Winston, Brian (2000) Lies, Damn Lies and Documentaries, University of California Press Xiao, Li (2003). Ideologies of Crime News in China in an Era of Commercialization, Thesis for the fulfillment of Master of Science at the Texas A&M University Read More