Public Service Media and the Economic Theory of Collective Action
Published for 2008, RIPE@2008Christian Steininger
University of Salzburg, Department of Communication, Division of Media Economics
Abstract
The relationship between the market and public sphere, as addressed by early Zeitungswissenschaft (‘Newspaper Studies’) and also implicitly taken up by Jochen Röpke, highlights the need for a thorough examination of the theory of public goods in order to heterodoxically arrive at a theoretical concept of the public sphere. Elaborating the work of Mancur Olson in particular, on whose edifice of thought Röpke’s observations are largely founded, shows that neither the concepts of media or public sphere have, to date, been attributed to precise commodity segments. Yet it is precisely such a classification and assignment of marketability which allows a debate to be conducted on the paradoxy of a private (commercial), institutional and organizational form of public media.
It was Röpke (1970a, b) who, without explicitly referring to any of the classic works of economic theory, made a noteworthy — and still unjustly neglected — attempt to link elements of economics and communication theory, and to apply them to the question as to how far the workings of the market can create or sustain an open system of communication serving the democratic ideal. In addressing this question, Röpke deals with the public sphere, public opinion, democracy, competition, the market, media innovation strategies and the special nature of media products as economic goods. By öffentliche Meinung (public opinion) Röpke means media content that contributes to the formation of public opinion, as opposed to the content that offers selective incentives. In discussing the special nature of media products Röpke distinguishes between collective goods (opinion forming content) and private goods (selective incentives). Röpke was thus quick to apply Olson’s theory of public goods (1968) to the media. With the aid of these analytical tools he succeeded in arriving at a fully fledged theory of the various forms of media embodying the public sphere. Classifying media products according to their character as economic goods, and hence their marketability allows conclusions to be drawn about media content and its consequences for the creation of public spheres.
For markets to function, property rights must be defined and enforced. They will only work properly if the exclusion principle is feasible, i.e. economic actors can be excluded from using a good. Yet exclusion is scarcely central to the definitions of the public sphere offered by communication theory, and payment of the price demanded by the owner is not a necessary condition of access. From this it follows that marketization and competition legitimize PSM.