INFOCIVICA CONFERENCE IS BUILDING AN EUROPEAN PUBLIC SERVICE POSSIBLE? AFTER

THE LISBON TREATY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTSTurin, 24.09. 2009

Beata KlimkiewiczInstitute of Journalism and Social Communication,

Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland

SOME REMARKS ON THE PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA REFORM: THE CENTRAL AND EAST-

EUROPEAN PERSPECTIVE

INTRODUCTION

Does policy-making process concerning PSM reflect democratic expectations?

Does it evolve towards a converged pan-European model driven largely by a commercial logic, but still effectively controlled by party politics rather than forces of representative democracy?

Poland and CEE as a laboratory case Public Service Media’s phases of development –

introduction, growth, maturity and decline – marked by different length and intensity than in other European countries or regions

THREE LIMITATIONS Public Service Media (PSM) in Poland and Central

and Eastern Europe (CEE) born as a product of a profound media system change starting in 1989

‘new’ PSM preserved institutional continuity of former state media

despite availability of other options, dual system was transposed from West European media landscape and policy tradition

the starting point of PSM institutional birth in Poland and other Central European countries overlapped with enhanced critique and PSM crisis in the Western part of Europe

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

REGULATORY new regulatory bodies have emerged across the

region the establishment of the Office for Electronic

Communication in Poland in 2005 advertised as a super-regulatory ‘make-up’

‘Old’ distinctions between traditional media sectors still reproduced through distinct policy mechanisms implemented by ‘old’ and ‘new’ regulators

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS FINANCING

financing of PSM solely from licence fees appeared unaffordable in Poland

during the last ten years, licence fee revenue has oscillated around 30% in total revenues

the Act on Public Tasks in the Area of Audiovisual Services (2009)

public service tasks will be financed from the state budget

state subsidies for PSM will have to be negotiated each year, which can result in a political bargaining over the budget allocations at the expense of editorial independence

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

PUBLIC SERVICE PROVISION implementation of public service mission

increasingly criticised across the region high-quality programming profile abandoned at the

expense of high market shares 2009 Draft Act proposed ‘institutional’ division for

the public service provision: also commercial and private broadcasters can receive public funds to produce public service programming

public service media framed and seen - less as institutions and quite homogenous centres of a media system- and more as services and applications available in fragmented communication networks

a new discoursive space where justification of a centralised institution seems more difficult

Does it make sense to talk about a European public service broadcasting?

we should stop to talk about broadcasting exclusively move from a traditional model of television toward a

network structure of various media businesses and services including internet TV, news portal, social web services, digital platform

a formerly centralized institution modified into a whole net of interlinked services: the center of gravity located not in the institutional elements of the system, but rather relations and connectiveness between different service areas

What would it mean for today's national public service broadcasters to set up a European, or pan-European

public service broadcaster? a failure to create transnational pan-European public service

TV is largely embedded in cultural, linguistic differences in Europe (Chalaby, 2002)

the view of nations as old, deeply integrated, and integrated through communications between their members, has been dominant (Bourdon, 2007)

the use of television is very much affected by formation of geolinguistic regions, not defined by geographic or political proximity, but by a community of language and culture (Sinclair, 2000; Amezaga Albizu , 2008)

REPORTING EUROPE MORE?

there is certainly need to offer more targeted and focused options

a new generation of Europeans, children raised in multicultural environments, migration patterns

stable national structures of settlement have changed with intra-European mobility and EU enlargement

Is it still correct to maintain the peculiarity of a mixed public-private system that historically characterised the old continent

on a national level? Do we need the public service at all?

new technological conditions pose new risks: media users suffer from information overload and the loss of ‘traditional’ information filters

there is often no way to differentiate quality information Internet content produces levels of audience concentration

greater than those in traditional media although there is a great potential in diversity of new online

services, this potential has not been fully used by users

NEW TASKS to adapt old principles to new circumstances

a system of mandated links to quality content and opposing viewpoints so as to create ‘deliberative domains’

to strengthen media user and equip him/her with technological facilities and media literacy skills in order to better use the potential of online and digital services

alternative routes toward richer empirical and normative understanding of PSM, both in terms of institutions and services offered across national or pan-European political and cultural space

THANK YOU!

beatakl@hotmail.com