Media Freedom and Pluralism
Media Policy Challenges in the Enlarged Europe
Publication Year: 2010
Published by: Central European University Press
Cover
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pp. c-ii
Title page
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p. iii-iii
Copyright page
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p. iv-iv
Table of Contents
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pp. v-vi
List of Tables
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pp. vii-viii
List of Figures
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pp. ix-x
Introduction: Harmonizing European Media Policy: Supranational Regulatory Trends and National Responses
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pp. xi-xxvi
Media policy in Europe faces a twofold challenge. On the one hand, new technologies and media services such as digital television, satellite radio, mobile content applications, video on demand, and new Internet services are fundamentally transforming media environments and media use. On the other hand, the historical enlargement integrating...
SECTION 1: Media Policy Rationales and Models
Chapter 1: Towards Democratic Regulation of European Media and Communication
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pp. 3-26
Since the mid-1990s the media and communication landscape in Europe has experienced profound changes. Previously, the traditional commercial logic of the print media was contrasted with other functional logics, such as the universal service principle of telephony and the public service principle of broadcasting. As a result of the digitalization...
Chapter 2: Visions of Media Pluralism and Freedom of Expression in EU Information Society Policies
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pp. 27-44
Since the “information revolution” started to take hold in the 1980s and particularly in the early 1990s, a great deal of academic research has been published on information and communication technologies, convergence, and resulting impacts (e.g. Castells 1996, 1997, 1998; Webster, 1995; Schiller, 1999; Golding, 2000; Kellner, 1999). While...
Chapter 3: From Media Policy to Integrated Communications Policy: How to Apply the Paradigm Shift on a European and National Level
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pp. 45-58
A media policy paradigm has shifted from a media to a communication-oriented approach. At the same time the modern information environment requires different communicative competences from everyone. A comparison between EU communication and education policies reveals common elements, referring mostly to the individual’s ability to seek,...
SECTION 2: Content and Service-related Regulation
Chapter 4: New Media Legislation: Methods of Implementing Rules Relating to On-Demand Services
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pp. 61-76
The European Parliament adopted the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD ) in December 2007 (European Parliament and the Council, 2007). In this chapter I examine how the Audiovisual Media Services Directive handles new technological innovations. After a brief examination of the text of the Directive, I focus on the potential implementations...
Chapter 5: A Failure in Limiting Restrictions on Freedom of Speech: The Case of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive
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pp. 77-96
This essay will first describe justifications for freedom of speech. Second, it will critically analyze the reasons presented for extending the scope of the EU’s Television without Frontiers Directive by the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) Directive. Third, it will explore whether the general, non-media-specific rationale—the protection of “core societal...
Chapter 6: Struggling with Diversity: Objectives, Outcomes, and Future of the European Quota Policy in the Context of the Television Scene in the Czech Republic
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pp. 97-124
The legislative framework for regulation of the European audiovisual sector has recently witnessed a major innovation, represented by the “modernizing” of the almost eighteen-year-old Television without Frontiers Directive (89/552/EEC), last amended twelve years ago (97/36/EC). In light of the rapid technological development in the field...
Chapter 7: Television: The Stepmother?
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pp. 125-156
The virtual environment occupies a notable place in the interests of children. Studies show that they spend a substantial part of their time watching TV programs, surfing on the Internet, and chatting and texting on mobile phones. The products and services offered by the new information and communications technologies strongly compete with,...
Chapter 8: Challenges of Regulation of the Blogosphere
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pp. 157-172
The Internet in general, and the blogosphere in particular as a special branch of Internet-mediated public communication, have brought new regulatory challenges to public communication and challenges to our understanding of freedom of expression. In the case of blogs, one of the most difficult decisions is how much interaction, if any, should be...
SECTION 3: Structural Regulation: Media Pluralism, Concentration, Diversity of Content and Services
Chapter 9: Audience Resistance: Reasons to Relax Content Regulation
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pp. 175-192
Commercial television is unpopular and popular. It is unpopular in the sense that audiences tend to despise it for its “low quality,” “sensationalism,” and “disrespect” for privacy. And it is popular in the sense that it has a high audience share. In fact, more people watch commercial television channels than their public service counterparts in nearly all...
Chapter 10: From PSB to PSM: A New Promise for Public Service Provision in the Information Society
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pp. 193-228
There is no shortage of gloom-and-doom forecasts concerning the future of public service broadcasting (PSB), or rather the possibility that it may have no future. Thomass (2007) has noted that PSB is likely to celebrate its hundredth birthday in 2020, but only if it can renew itself by that time. This does not indicate great confidence in PSB’s future....
Chapter 11: Regulating Media Concentration within the Council of Europe and the European Union
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pp. 229-244
Media products are as much cultural/political goods and services as they are economic goods and services. Given media products’ dual nature, it makes sense to differentiate between concentration in the media economic market and concentration in the political and/or cultural...
Chapter 12: Which Governance for the European Audiovisual Landscape? A Multidimensional Perspective
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pp. 245-260
The increasing complexity of the contemporary media landscape, undergoing digitalization and convergence, has made it urgent to rethink the media change and to look at it beyond its simple technological dimension. 2 The “paradigm of the digital revolution,” employed to emphasize the transformative aspects of digital technology, has given way...
Chapter 13: The Link That Matters: Media Concentration and Diversity of Content
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pp. 261-274
In today’s information societies, the media are increasingly viewed as part of the service economy. They provide jobs and revenues, and they have strong lobbies against any policy that might reduce their profits, enhanced by integration tendencies that lead to market concentration. In addition to valuing the media’s role in the new information economies,...
Chapter 14: Developing the “Third Sector”: Community Media Policies in Europe
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pp. 275-298
The phenomenon of community media is not new to Europe. But recognition of community media as a formal “third sector” of broadcasting is emerging on the policy radar, as pressure for states and international bodies to expand, support, and develop sectors for “citizen” access to broadcasting continues to grow. Though specific definitions of...
Bibliography
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pp. 299-330
Contributors
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pp. 331-336
back cover
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p. bc-bc
E-ISBN-13: 9786155211850
Print-ISBN-13: 9789639776739
Page Count: 364
Publication Year: 2010
