The Show Must Go On: How Public Television’s Instant Analysis of Televised Debates Covers Debate Results and Shapes Voters’ Opinions

Carsten Reinemann, Marcus Maurer

Department of Communication, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany

Abstract

Public service TV stations are usually considered to carry more, more balanced and more accurate political information than their commercial counterparts. However, some studies show that the gap between German public and private stations has narrowed in the past 20 years as far as, for example, the amount of political coverage during prime time is concerned. In addition, some studies suggest that some public service TV news-programs have become more and more emotionalized, personalized and show a trend towards scandalization.

Following that trend, public and private stations established televised debates between the leaders of the two major parties in German national elections in 2002. Since then, the national debates are followed by TV specials containing instant analysis of the debate. Here, results of representative opinion polls are presented and political experts (journalists, politicians) and laymen are asked for their opinions. From the television broadcasters’ point of view, these programmes are especially successful: In 2002, both of the two debates were watched by about 15 million viewers. In 2005, more than 20 million viewers watched the single debate broadcasted by two public and two private channels. The TV specials immediately following the debates on all of the four programmes were followed by the overwhelming majority of debate viewers.

The fact that prior studies have shown these instant analyses to be especially influential regarding viewers post-debate verdicts of who won the debate as well as subsequent voting decisions leads to the question of how public service and private stations come to terms with their responsibility to provide their post-debate audience with an unbiased and high-quality reporting.

Against that backdrop, this paper investigates how public and private TV stations covered the televised debates in their instant analysis before the 2002 and 2005 German national elections. We compared (1) the topics of public and private stations’ post-debate TV specials, (2) how they used experts and opinion polls as sources, (3) how the performance of the candidates was evaluated by journalists, experts and in the results of opinion polls and whether these evaluations were balanced, biased, or misleading. In addition we use data from an accompanying survey to show that differences in the tone of the TV specials did in fact influence viewers’ opinion formation.

Paper not available.

A Key Resource for a Key Player? The Use of Interlingualism in Public Service Media

Thomas Petzold

ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries & Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Abstract

“It is an interesting paradox,” said Alastair Campbell in a speech at London College of Communication, “that though we have more media space than ever, complaint about the lack of healthy debate has never been louder, with fewer stories and issues being addressed in real depth in a way that engages large audiences.” Although Campbell’s statement must be understood from his background as former Press Secretary to the British Prime Minister and may in itself be contradictory, he certainly makes an important point, not at least in the context of public service media. However, the complex consequences of our novel kinds of interconnectedness are, in fact, more difficult to grasp than is commonly appreciated. This is why we need to understand whom public service media is speaking to.

In a German study, Mau et al. (2008: 3) found ‘transboundary interaction a mass phenomenon’ with almost half of all German citizens regularly communicating with a foreign country. Moreover, they corroborate the assertion that “there exists a strong causal path from transnational experience to cosmopolitan attitudes” (ibid. 17). However, transnational experience must not generally lead, as the authors suggest, to a cosmopolitan attitude as boundary crossings can also encourage disorienting experiences in a variety of ways. Thus, whether we are now indeed faced with a real massification of transnational/translingual citizens remains yet to be seen. What can be concluded nevertheless is that a lived experience of transboundary interaction is becoming more ordinary for an increasing amount of people. This, in turn, places emphasis on the significance of interlingualism as a key resource.

This is important to public service media because a “continued emphasis on the national mission prevents it from adjusting more fully to the more pluralistic, globalizing environment in which it now operates” (Curran 2002: 211). These ambivalences do not only become more blatant in times where audiences no longer mainly rely on singular sources for the translation and formulation of different perspectives and events. Moreover, diversity-complex societies and regions put public service media seriously to the test. It becomes clear thus that contemporary PSM, for all its sophistication, needs an answer to this highly complex issue. To intervene in this vital public issue, this paper will attempt to alleviate the problem, if ever so slightly, by discussing the potential for innovative and readable (i.e. engaging larger audiences) ways of interlingualism. In doing so it draws from a comparative study on Australian and European public service media and will look on practical consequences as well as strategies.

Paper not available.

Network Journalism: Moving Towards a Global Journalism Culture

Ansgard Heinrich

Department of Media, Film and Communication, University of Otago, New Zealand; School of Culture & Communication, University of Melbourne, Australia

Abstract

Today’s globalized network communication shapes new interactive formats, relevant not only for the dissemination, but – increasingly – for the production of news. The ‘one-way’ flow of news from a news outlet to the audience has been replaced by a network structure. Following Manuel Castells’ concept of the ‘Network’ (1996; 2001) as the central model of information structures in our 21st century Information Age, I argue in this paper that networks transform the professional journalism sphere in many world regions in quite similar ways and create new forms of journalistic practice. A globalized journalistic network sphere is taking shape which involves mainstream journalistic outlets and bloggers, independently operating journalists in various corners of the world and so-called “user-generated content”-providers alike.

Within this sphere, an increasingly global flow of news is evolving which can be characterized by a new form of connectivity which establishes new (and continuous!) links between journalists, their sources as well as their audiences. I discuss the strategic and organizational implications of these transformation processes for the management of broadcast news outlets and analyze how Public Service Broadcasters are being challenged through these new journalistic ‘network’ practices, as the roles of journalists in this revised news sphere change.

Based on key results of a comparative study of news organizations such as the world’s leading Public Service Broadcaster BBC in the UK and the peer-to-peer news and information network Current in the United States, this paper addresses parameters of new network models in news organizations and proposes ideas for a repositioning of Public Service Media platforms in this new journalistic sphere. I argue that PSB outlets can be repositioned as ‘supernodes’ within an evolving globalized network journalism culture that is characterized by ‘interactive’ practices of newsgathering, production and dissemination.

Paper not available.

Changing Patterns of Media Use: Public Broadcasting within the Media Repertoires of Different Social Milieus

Uwe Hasebrink

Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research, University of Hamburg, Germany

Abstract

The proposed paper sets out to deal with the question, how people from different social milieus integrate public broadcasting programmes into their media repertoires and how this has changed over the last 25 years. The concept of media repertoires refers to how users combine different media and thus create comprehensive patterns of media use (see Hasebrink & Popp 2006). The relevance of this approach is due to the fact that audience research has been predominantly focused on single media. Thus there is a lack of research on the question how media users integrate different media. This perspective is particularly relevant with regard to public service media (PSM), since the main point of reference for them is not to maximise their respective market share but to contribute to an overall system of public communication, which serves the needs and interests of the public and the democratic system. Against this background it is important to know how public service media are combined with other media.

This question shall be analysed from two perspectives:

1. How does the position of PSM within the media repertoires change over time? In referring to the period from 1980 until 2005, the paper refers to two relevant structural changes: the start of commercial broadcasters in Germany in the mid eighties, and the development of online media since the mid nineties.

2. How does the position of PSM differ between different social milieus? While it is well known that some social groups are particularly interested in PSM (e.g. “the well educated”) or just the opposite (e.g. “the young”), there is almost no evidence of the media repertoires of the respective milieus and thus the specific role which PSM play for them.

Empirical evidence is based on secondary analyses of six waves (1980 until 2005) of the German long term study “Mass Communication”. Based on representative samples, these surveys provide information on how often and for how long people use different media (TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, books, video, audio CD, and the Internet). In order to understand how public broadcasting media have entered the media repertoires of different social milieus, we analyse the correlations between the media for each group. Then, by means of cluster analyses, we describe the resulting media repertoires.

Paper not available.

IPTV – The New Dimension of Television Consumption and Business Models

Mike Friedrichsen

Stuttgart Media University, Germany

Abstract

For over half a century, the television (TV) has been influencing our society and social live with growing importance. Upon closer analysis of the opportunities and changes associated with this bland abbreviation, it will turn out that IPTV will have a much greater impact than the introduction of coloured motion pictures has ever generated.

New and manifold fields of activity are developing for established as well as new market participants, which will dramatically change our way of TV consumption. Because the Internet protocol (IP) and the Internet has an open and commonly used network, it will be difficult to maintain artificial barriers to the merit good called television in the long-term. However, innovative models by content providers and producers are promising approaches. The existing back-channel capability of the Internet and related interactivity is the crucial advantage of IPTV. A lot of findings show that the establishment of IPTV will dramatically change TV consuming habits and therefore have an immense impact on daily lives. In order to adequately prepare for this future, this presentation will elaborate recommendations and potential activities to be pursued by market participants. Due to the vertical integration of content producers, the market will remain highly competitive in the future. The telecommunication industry is therefore suggested to focus on their core competencies and provide a powerful communications medium. A lasting gatekeeper function within IPTV is not likely to last.

For the television stations, a bright future can be forecasted in the drawn scenario. They have new opportunities to offer their customers an attractive programme. This statement is applicable both for the advertising as well as the recipient market. Their advertising customers will deal with lower divergence losses, a more accurate coverage measurement and new advertising space as well as new ways of advertising with interaction made possible for the recipient. In addition to interacting with advertisers, the recipient has the possibility of creating his own programme or influencing the existing one. It can be assumed that due to the increasing diversity of TV viewers the large and established television stations will lose market shares to the new entrants, while the market shares however will settle down within a few years at a new level. A similar trend was seen in the 1980s, when the private broadcasters entered the market. Within nine years, the four major television stations levelled off in a range of 1015% market share, and ever since this redistribution no significant changes have occurred. Now the market is apparently back in such a phase of redeployment. Therefore it is now of crucial importance to set the right accents.

For the public broadcasters, it is time for a new programme which is more appealing to young people. Following the successful establishment and experience of some youthful radio stations, similar actions should be taken for the TV channels. The quality level of our television programme must be raised, and therefore also keep the potential to influence the orientation of our society in a positive way. In addition, an attractive programme for the young people could significantly improve youngsters’ attitude towards the public TV stations and consequently GEZ (German Television Licence Collection Agency). The establishment of an attractive educational television is likewise necessary. The educational mandate is an essential part of public broadcasting and deeply-seated in the legal framework of the public broadcasting. This must be of higher priority again in today’s entertainment-dominated television domain.

Thus the mass medium television has a great influence on the direction of our society and therefore on the country’s future. Whether that influence is positive or negative is within the hands of the active market participants. It is important in an ever faster rotating world to keep and not neglect the long-term and substantial perception. The danger is present that because of the rising amount of content providers, the quality of the broadcasted material is reduced even further. The desired target group is young, dynamic and successful. The future non-linearity of the media has potentially a positive influence, but only if the possibilities of the medium are exploited by a critically acting human. Therefore, the advertising industry and broadcasters should be keen on taking an active role in the areas of education and culture, influencing society in a positive direction.

Paper not available.

A Colossus Under Siege: The Trial By Fire of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

David Taras, Marc Raboy

University of Montreal and University of Calgary, Canada

Abstract

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is one of the world’s venerable public broadcasting institutions. According to OECD statistics, it is also one of the most underfunded. Public expectations of the CBC run high, but audience figures are low. The CBC is meant to be all things to all Canadians, but it is increasingly absent in local and regional markets. The CBC is an innovator, pioneering specialized television channels and Internet programming. But its regulator, the CRTC, would like it to focus on conventional services. The CBC has both friends and enemies in high places, and a public which clamours for more and for better from the CBC.

Last June (2003), a parliamentary committee reported that “the CBC continues to represent an important public policy instrument that not only nurtures, but helps to promote Canada’s vibrant and diverse cultures.” It concluded that “the time has come – and that it is entirely possible – for Canada’s national public broadcaster to be re-invigorated with a new mandate – one that would meet with general acceptance from Canadians.” The Committee made a series of precise recommendations designed to address some of the dilemmas the CBC has faced over the past dozen years or so. As required by law, the Government responded to the parliamentary committee report, reaffirming “that the CBC is a unique and essential instrument in the Canadian broadcasting and cultural landscape”. In line with the committee report, the Government further stated “that it is particularly important that the CBC better communicate its plans and priorities, and that its accountability for results to Canadians be improved.

The issues facing the CBC underscore the central problem of performance measurement and justification of public support that face all national public broadcasters in the new media environment. The Canadian situation may be a harbinger of things to come for public broadcasters everywhere. The proposed paper will examine these issues in depth, with a view towards better understanding of the role of public broadcasting in the 21^st century.

Paper not available.

New standards for radio news?

Ib Poulsen

University of Roskilde, Denmark

Abstract

In Denmark nation-wide news on radio has been dominated by PSB since the very beginning of radio news broadcasting. The main reason is the monopoly maintained by Danmarks Radio for almost 80 years. Last year this situation changed. On November 15, 2003, two nation-wide commercial radio stations went on air: Radio 100FM, owned by the Dutch Talpa, and Sky Radio, owned by Rupert Murdoch. According to the franchise, Sky Radio in particular is under the obligation to broadcast news on public service conditions.

The aim of the paper is, first, to examine how this is done in the news programmes from Sky Radio, and second to compare the news from Sky Radio with the news programmes of Danmarks Radio’s P3, the public service radio channel which is the chief competitor for Sky Radio. The examination of Sky Radio’s news programmes will include selection of the news, what is told and how, as well as the addressing of the listener by the news reader. This examination will be compared with a similar examination of the news from P3 within the same period of time.

Based on the results of analysis, discussion will address if this new competitive situation seems to set new standards for radio news, and to what extent radio news of this kind are able to meet the claims of public service news addressing a modern, heterogeneous and complex society.

Paper not available.

Public Service Broadcasting in the Information Battlefield: The Cultural Commons in the Massless Flow of the New Media

Tony Sampson

University of East London, UK

Abstract

This paper argues that increasingly congested digital media, an arena of competing signals and messages, is a problem for public service broadcasting (PSB). The established identity of PSB as a mass communicator is blurred in an overabundance of competing channels and payment options. Its mission to nourish a cultural commons of shared meaning could well be abandoned in an information battlefield. The mass communicator is faced with the dilemma of justifying itself to a demassified paying public. Its role as a producer of “meaningful” content, which relates to the mass, appears misplaced in the evolution of media and society. Subsequently, this paper argues that to survive the battlefield, PSB needs to be re-envisaged in terms of the ebb and flow of information. This marks a shift away from a traditional analysis grounded in a cultural politics of meaning-production towards a restoration of a cybernetic model of communication focused on the massless flows of the new media.

The paper begins by locating and then challenging two dominant media traditions that have rejected the cybernetic model. On the one hand, the Political Economy of Information (Schiller, Mosco & Wasko, Webster) looks to the effect of a marketized media on the social. On the other hand, the Cultural Studies tradition (Williams, Hall) identifies the struggle for cultural hegemony and meaning making as central to its media analysis. These two standard bearers have clearly rested on two distinct structures – economy and culture. However, both approach the problem of the digitisation and commercialisation of media channels, and subsequent threat to PSB, from a shared belief that media meanings can shape the social. To be sure, both traditions have discarded a cybernetic approach with its technical denunciation of the centrality of meaning. Political Economy rejects cybernetics for its ‘tendency to operationalize the (social) system in mechanistic terms’ (see Schiller, D in Mosco and Wasko (eds), 1998 p. 29) and exclude the ‘issue of meaning’ from the debate (Webster, 1995 p. 27). Cultural Studies considers information and meaning to be the same thing. However, this paper argues that Shannon’s 1948 model of communication is key to the future development of a cultural consensus in modern communication systems.

As Terranova (2003) argues, the ‘informational battlefield’ positions a shared common sense of meaning and value as a residual factor. Indeed, Terranova concludes that ‘information is not simply the content of a message’, but the central element of the massless flows ‘within which contemporary culture unfolds.’ This paper interrogates meaningful cultural consensus with a need to understand effective message transmission in a crowded communications market. Furthermore, an analysis of the effectual transference of form between the sender and receiver is strategic to developing an understanding of the new media and PSB’s role in it.

Paper not available.

Why Should I Pay the License Fee? Issues of Viewers as Customers in the Twenty-First Century

Robert G. Picard

Jönköping International Business School, Jönköping University, Sweden

Abstract

This paper explores the context of viewer payments for public service television within the environment of a dual system of PSB and commercial broadcasting and the increasing reliance upon digital distribution services. It examines viewer license fees, service fees, hardware fees and their implications to viewers and public service broadcasters. The paper shows how the changing policies and technologies are altering the traditional relationship between public service broadcasters and viewers.

The author explores the nature of relationships between viewers and firms analyzing the bases of relationships and bonds between them and reveals how changes in contemporary society and media acquisition transactions affect the relationship between public service broadcasters and viewers. The author argues that the contemporary media environment is creating a clear consumer pay-for-service orientation toward broadcasting among viewers. This relationship and the variety of information and entertainment choices now available are increasingly empowering viewers and are reducing bonds to public service broadcasters.

The author argues that the new environment is increasingly making evident a disconnection between public service broadcasters and their viewers and that this situation will endanger broad public and political support for compulsory broadcast viewing licenses unless broadcasters employ improved methods to build, solidify and maintain stronger, positive relationships with viewers. If this disconnection is not addressed, the author argues, the central role of public service broadcasting in creating and nurturing a common cultural and social gathering point will be further diminished.

Paper not available.

Broadcasting National History to a Multicultural Society: Israeli Public Television at the Cusp of Change

Eric D. Saranovitz

Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Culture and Communication, New York University, USA

Abstract

Electronic media in Israel underwent rapid transformations in the early nineties, with deregulation, privatization and fragmentation of media channels.  At the same time, transformations in the social and political realms were quickly eroding long held ideas about the people as a nation, with a massive influx of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union, a growing self-awareness of Mizrahi Jews (Jews of North African/Asian decent), a widening divide between religious and secular Jews, and a peace process that gave new voice to Israel’s Palestinian citizens.  This burgeoning identity of Israel as a multicultural society, together with the influx of neo-liberal ideas and the expansion of commercial media enterprises, called into question the role of the Israel Broadcast Authority (IBA) in serving its national constituency.

With these developments in mind, this paper addresses the ways in which the inundation of commercial media and the changing political environment of the early to mid nineties affected decision making processes of the managers and policy makers of Israeli public television.  In doing so, it focuses on the emergent conflict within the IBA between producing for the nation as a whole and producing for groups within the nation.  It investigates the views that executive managers began to develop about the “multicultural audience” and the new forms of organization (borrowed from commercial and foreign models) that would structure the way they produced and broadcast for it.  With this, it asks whether it is possible for a public broadcast station, held in the hands of the social elite, to find a common ground among the diverse subcultures of its citizenry.

Specifically, this paper presents a case study of the production processes of a documentary series that dealt with the history of Israel since the founding of the state.  Taking five years to produce, this budget-draining program was thought (by IBA executives) to be the highlight of public television’s contribution to the Israeli public. The paper illustrates that as public television began to redefine its mission, it saw itself being pulled in two directions: popularism and elitism.  Forfeiting its former role as ‘entertainment provider,’ public television refortified itself as a bastion of high culture, as it unconsciously targeted an elite audience over newly acknowledged sub-groups and what executives considered the mainstream.  With this, the paper proposes that executives’ limited social imaginary hampered the role that public service television could play in creating a vibrant cultural commons in the newly emerging multicultural society.

Paper not available.