Accountability And The Public Interest In Broadcasting

Against a backdrop of great change in technology and the economics of broadcasting and new media, this timely survey of contemporary attitudes to accountability and the public interest in broadcasting is based on over fifty interviews conducted in four democracies: India, Australia, the UK and the US.

This book provides guidelines, tools, and real world examples to help assess and reform the enabling environment for media development that serves public interest goals. It builds on a growing awareness of the role of media and voice in the promotion of transparent and accountable governance, in the empowerment of people to better exercise their rights and hold leaders to account; and in support of equitable development including improved livelihoods, health, and access to education. The book provides development practitioners with an overview of the key policy and regulatory issues involved in supporting freedom of information and expression and enabling independent public service media. Country examples illustrate how these norms have been institutionalized in various contexts.

This book provides guidelines, tools, and real world examples to help assess and reform the enabling environment for media development that serves public interest goals. It builds on a growing awareness of the role of media and voice in the promotion of transparent and accountable governance, in the empowerment of people to better exercise their rights and hold leaders to account; and in support of equitable development including improved livelihoods, health, and access to education. The book provides development practitioners with an overview of the key policy and regulatory issues involved in supporting freedom of information and expression and enabling independent public service media. Country examples illustrate how these norms have been institutionalized in various contexts.

As federal funding for public broadcasting wanes and support from corporations and an elite group of viewers and listeners rises, public broadcasting's role as vox populi has come under threat. With contributions from key scholars from a wide variety of disciplines, this volume examines the crisis facing public broadcasting today by analyzing the institution's development, its presentday operations, and its prospects for the future. Covering everything from globalization and the rise of the Internet, to key issues such as race and class, to specific subjects such as advertising, public access, and grassroots radio, Public Broadcasting and the Public Interest provides a fresh and original look at a vital component of our mass media.

This volume offers 16 essays, most original, offering varied broadcast industry views on the role of the public interest in changing business. Editors Powell and Gair, respectively a long-time member of the Northern Illinois University communications faculty and an Illinois broadcaster, provide a brief contextual introduction to each contribution and give the background of each author. The book, according to the preface, is intended to offer `candid and genuine descriptions of what the public-interest obligation actually means to the practitioner [broadcaster]'. . . . The volume is best seen as an indicator of the changing public-interest perceptions of broadcasters amid a rapidly changing marketplace. As such, it is useful for undergraduates interested in today's communications industry. Choice This volume presents a broad cross-section of views on an issue of central importance to the broadcast industry: Can the broadcast industry serve both the public interest and corporate and stockholder interest? How do the leaders and successful professionals of the broadcast industry interpret and implement the public interest obligation? A cross-section of American broadcasters--from network executives to small market radio station managers, from the president of the National Association of Broadcasters to a former FCC Chairman, from communications attorneys to retired broadcasters--offer personal interpretations of these and other questions on the public interest issue. Among the contributors are Arthur C. Nielsen, the retired Chairman of the A. C. Nielsen Company, which has been the arbiter of American network television success or failure since the advent of the medium; Edward O. Fritts, a small market radio group owner who became President of the National Association of Broadcasters; Newton N. Minow, a communications attorney who is perhaps the best remembered FCC Chairman because of his vast wasteland speech; broadcast pioneer and innovator Ward Quaal; and network insider Gene Jankowski, President, CBS broadcast group.

Regulation of the media has traditionally been premised upon claims of 'the public interest', yet the term itself remains contested and generally ill defined. In the context of technological development and convergence, as well as corporate conglomeration, traditional 'public service' values in British broadcasting are challenged by market values. With such ongoing trends continuing apace, regulators must increasingly justify their interventions.The communication industries' commercialisation and privatisation pose a fundamental threat to democratic values. Media Regulation, Public Interest and the Law argues that regulators will only successfully protect such values if claims associated with 'citizenship' are recognised as the rationale and objective for the regulatory endeavour. While such themes are central to the book, this second edition has been substantially revised and updated, to take account of matters such as European Directives, the UK's Communications Act 2003, the process of reviewing the BBC's Charter, and relevant aspects of the reform of general competition law.Key Features*Identifies and examines the rationales underlying media regulation and the current challenges to them.*Considers fully the actual and potential utility of legal mechanisms and principles in the design and activities of regulatory institutions.*Fully updated to take account of the European Union's 2002 New Regulatory Framework and the UK's Communications Act 2003.*Accessible to a wide readership in media studies, journalism, broadcasting and law.Praise for the First Edition"e;A detailed and critical assessment of the problems and confusions of recent media regulation in the UK including digital television franchising and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission... it is well organised, and should be a useful resource for more advanced students and academics...for updating the public regulation case with vigour and clarity this book is to be welcomed."e;THES