Governing the backbone of cultures: broadcasting policy (original) (raw)

Media Policy and Globalization, 2006

Abstract

A whole generation of urban young people now in their 20s grew up with only a vague memory of a media system that consists of two or, at a maximum, three television channels. In Europe, children born in the 1980s have reached young adulthood with MTV and to a significant extent have learned about human relationships — and fashion — through Friends, Frasier, Big Brother and Sex and the City. The idea alone that their media lives could be limited to wildlife and historical documentaries seems absurd. The very thought that they — or more possibly their parents, since they still live at home — have to pay monthly fees to receive channels they do not watch is illogical. The suggestion that, not so long ago, there used to be a state monopoly over television seems archaic at best. Often, in the classroom it is difficult to generate support for Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) among students, who although they may know to appreciate that private television is largely about Hollywood and imitations thereof, do not necessarily have PSB on their agenda of glamorous entertainment. In the United States, where the project of public service television seems to be financially suspended in a vegetative state, because of the firm hand of commercial broadcasting, the whole concept ]of non-commercial broadcasting has been pushed to the margins of public discussion. This is not to say that Americans or young Europeans are oblivious to the politics of commercialization of the media. However, in the eyes of Hollywood-raised audiences, non-commercial media have not managed to escape the dry language of their past, the same way that criticism of the big bully — Capitalism — has not escaped its association with colourless and monotonous left-wing politics that have ceased to inspire and excite young blood. Whether the above described images correspond to reality or stereotypes is possibly relevant to the ways in which the questions about public service broadcasting and publicly owned media in general have been framed. Is Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony in maintaining the domination of capital pointing to a haunting

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