Media Pluralism and Diversity

Concepts, Risks and Global Trends

Peggy Valcke, Miklos Sukosd, Robert Picard, Peggy Valcke, Miklos Sukosd, Robert Picard

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781137304292
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137304308
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Law Theory & Practice
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Adopting a truly global, theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective, Media Pluralism and Diversity intends to advance our understanding of media pluralism across the globe. It compares metrics that have been developed in different parts of the world to assess levels of, or threats to, media pluralism.

Part I

Media Pluralism in Europe: Conceptualization and Dimensions in the European Media Pluralism Monitor

1

New Media Ecology: Reconceptualizing Media Pluralism

Karol Jakubowicz

Introduction

Brown and Duguid (2000) note that the rise of the information age has brought about a good deal of ‘endism’. New technology, they say, is predicted to bring about, among other things, the end of the press, television and mass media; politics; government; and the nation-state. Napoli (2009) stops short of foretelling an Armageddon, but says that converging media technologies, the globalisation of distribution networks, and unprecedented fragmentation and interactivity dramatically affect established theories, analytical approaches and policy priorities. Does this extend to media pluralism concerns, as well?

This is one of the questions we will look into in this chapter. And if these concerns do (and legitimately should) persist, should they be reoriented and redefined in light of all the unfolding change? And finally – is there still any scope for public policy intervention for the purpose of safeguarding or promoting media pluralism?

We will proceed from the assumption that the answer to the first question is both positive and negative: yes, media pluralism theories are seriously affected by the general process of media change, but no – ‘endism’ does not apply here and pluralism concerns are not going to disappear. As for the remaining two questions, the answer in both cases is, we believe, positive. Yes, practically every aspect of media pluralism (including the term itself) needs to be reconceptualized. As an example, Jeremy Hunt (2011), then UK Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said in a speech to the Royal Television Society that new technologies require a new approach to ‘media plurality’ (on media plurality see also Gardam and Levy 2008):

Firstly we need a new framework which is platform-neutral. In an age when consumers are moving freely from platform to platform we should not be restricting media operators from developing products that can follow their customers from TV to internet to smartphone to tablet. But by the same merit we should measure their influence based on a sensible aggregation of consumer contact through those different types of media.

And yes, as evidenced by Jeremy Hunt’s request that OFCOM propose options for measuring media plurality across platforms (Ofcom 2011), there remains scope for public policy intervention, with the use of both traditional and new methods.

What purpose this public policy intervention should serve depends on the circumstances prevailing in the particular media system, but primarily on the view of whether media pluralism is seen as an end in itself, or as means to another end (see e.g. McQuail 1992, p. 143) and on the normative framework for deciding what this other objective should be. According to Karppinen (2006), the discourse of consumer choice has become prevalent. He argues that ‘there is a need to reclaim the concept of media pluralism from its technocratic and reductionist uses for the critical purpose of identifying and evaluating new forms of power, exclusion, dominance and concentration of communicative power that are emerging in the contemporary media environment’ (Karppinen 2010, p. 22). Therefore, he says, media pluralism should be understood more broadly in terms of the distribution of communicative power. Instead of consumer choice or a blind celebration of all multiplicity, the principle of media pluralism would thus be associated with the aim of balancing existing structural asymmetries in communicative power and supporting political equality.

In this approach, communicative power can be defined as the capacity of a social actor to mobilize means of communication for the purpose of influencing other social actors. This includes political and economic as well as symbolic and discursive influence. Asymmetries of communicative power thus refer to the simple fact that some social actors are always better placed than others, both materially and culturally, to express their views and participate in public life through the media.

The adoption of this perspective would mean that media pluralism would need to be re-imagined more broadly as a normative value that refers to the distribution of communicative power in the public sphere, as a way of challenging inequalities in communicative power and creating a more democratic public sphere.

This is one possible way of extending the meaning and implications of media pluralism, but it is a useful one in terms of our discussion below of the way information and communication technologies (ICTs) affect prospects for media pluralism.

Karppinen (2010, p. 44) identifies three broad traditions or categories of democratic theory that are pertinent in this context:

1. Liberal pluralism. Contemporary media politics and the debate on media pluralism in particular are still largely grounded in the basic values of political liberalism, such as individual freedom, personal development, dispersion of power and self-government. One of the best examples is the metaphor of ‘the free marketplace of ideas’, which today is one of the dominant models for conceptualizing the value of pluralism and diversity in the media, as the contemporary ideological belief is that market behaviour paradigmatically represents freedom.

2. Deliberative democracy. One of the central ideas of deliberative democracy is the attempt to reconcile disagreements and the fact of pluralism through the idea of a rational-critical public sphere and discursive formation of public opinion. However, there is tension between the framework of deliberative democracy and its pluralist critics, who argue that the emphasis on rational deliberation and consensus ignores unequal relations of power, the depth of social pluralism and fundamental value differences. For these reasons, the deliberative approach is increasingly read in media studies as a defence of an outdated and overtly pessimistic ideal that has little practical relevance in contemporary societies.

3. Radical pluralism. Radical-pluralist or agonistic theories of democracy refer to theories in which the public sphere is conceived as a site for political struggle and conflict, and not only as a site for the formation of common will or consensus. Radical democratic pluralism provides a fundamental critique of the deliberative approach to the public sphere and democracy.

Each of these three approaches offers a distinct framework for understanding media pluralism. For liberal pluralists it is the marketplace of ideas and individual choice; for deliberative democrats pluralism is a means to improve the epistemic quality of public deliberation and discursive reconciliation of disagreement; and finally, radical pluralists criticize both as unnecessary idealizations and instead focus on the continuous contestation of power relations and hegemonic structures.

One case in point that illustrates the difference between some of these approaches, and by the same token their practical applicability in discussing media pluralism, can be found in the varying stances on the issue taken by the European Commission. The saga began in 1992 with the Green Paper ‘Pluralism and Media Concentration in the Internal Market’. In ‘An Assessment of the Need for Community Action’ (European Commission 1992) the issue was whether indeed there was any ‘need for action’. At that time, the European Commission was clearly guided by liberal pluralism, with entrepreneurial freedom seen as paramount, and everything else, including democratic public policy goals, almost a distraction.

After many twists and turns (Doyle 1997, 2002; European Commission 2007; EU MPM Study 2009; Christensen 2010), the saga has ended so far with the appointment, by the Commission, of a high-level group to provide it with recommendations for the respect, protection, support and promotion of media freedom and pluralism in Europe. Interestingly, following a recommendation from the European Parliament (2010), the European Commission (2011, p. 7) has strengthened the role of media pluralism as a condition of accession for new member states.

In terms of the interpretative framework proposed by Karppinen (2010), the European Commission has thus moved from a liberal pluralist to having a more democratic stance on media pluralism. The ability to apply the framework to this situation demonstrates its usefulness.

Below, we will seek to examine, also in terms of this framework, particular aspects of media pluralism to see how social and technological change in mediated social communication affects our understanding of the issues involved and requires a reconceptualization of the notion and of ways of pursuing this objective.

Let us be clear, however: at this stage there are more questions than answers, so the process of theorizing media pluralism in the Information Society is just beginning.

Media (?) pluralism

‘Media pluralism’, ‘media diversity’, ‘media plurality’ – these and other terms are often used interchangeably, but sometimes are also used to mean different aspects of the issue. The Council of Europe in its Recommendation CM/Rec (2007) 2 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Media Pluralism and Diversity of Media Content and Article 19 (2006, pp. 18–19) understands ‘media pluralism’ to mean structural pluralism of the media (see also Klimkiewicz 2010) and understands ‘diversity’ to signify diversity of media content or a diversity of voices in media content. Gibbons (2004) proposes to use ‘pluralism’ in the generic sense and for ‘diversity’ to indicate the more specific components of the concept (see below). According to Karppinen (2010, p. 13), ‘media diversity’ should be understood in a neutral, descriptive sense, and ‘media pluralism’ should be interpreted as a broader, socio-cultural and evaluative principle, referring more explicitly to a value orientation.

While all the attention has been on the second part of the term, the first – ‘media’ – until recently remained unchanged and unchallenged. That is no longer the case. The media as traditionally defined are no longer the only sources of content reaching the mass public. This has been officially recognized by the Council of Europe in Recommendation CM/Rec (2011) 7 on A New Notion of Media, stating in part that:

the functioning and existence of traditional media actors, as well as their economic models and professional standards, are being complemented or replaced by other actors. New actors have assumed functions in the production and distribution process of media services which, until recently, had been performed only (or mostly) by traditional media organizations; these include content aggregators, application designers and users who are also producers of content.

Conscious of the conceptual consequences of this in policy and regulatory terms, the Council of Europe encouraged member states in the Recommendation to adopt a ‘broad notion’ of media, encompassing some of the new sources of media or ‘media-like’ content.

ARTICLE 19 (Parmar 2011) argues that ‘new media’ should be deemed to encompass any media that allow on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device while allowing interactive user feedback, participation and community formation around media content (for more on the new media, see Lister et al. 2003). New media, ARTICLE 19 continues, allows the usage, creation, publication and distribution of media content by non-traditional media actors, notably ordinary people. They provide greater possibilities than traditional media for individuals to express themselves, communicate, create content (‘user-generated content’ – UGC) and access content.

It has been stated, for example, that the new technologies:

1. overcome limitations created by supply limitations in traditional media;

2. increase domestic and independent production;

3. improve minority and cultural group representation and communication ability;

4. develop regional and local media absent in traditional systems;

5. increase the number of information sources;

6. ameliorate effects of concentration and foreign ownership in traditional media;

7. provide alternative information views when political bias exists in media. (Picard 2009)

Of these, only item 4 can be said to relate to the media scene directly, though many also do so indirectly. All of them are sometimes invoked to argue that the ‘media pluralism’ issue has been resolved as the various new forms of social communication (individual self-expression on the Internet, user-generated content, social networks, ‘social media’, unprofessional or ‘pro-am’ communicators etc.) supposedly provide plenty of pluralistic content.

To get a better idea of what this means in practice, let us examine the various forms of UGC (Table 1.1).

From the point of view of media pluralism studies, the question is whether all these new sources of content should indeed be regarded as media. And can the sum total of all this content be accommodated under the rubric of ‘media pluralism’?

Table 1.1 Forms of user-ge...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• A Global Perspective on Media Pluralism and Diversity: Introduction
• Part I Media Pluralism in Europe: Conceptualization and Dimensions in the European Media Pluralism Monitor
• Part II Media Pluralism across the Globe: Comparative Perspectives on the European Media Pluralism Monitor
• Part III Media Pluralism 2.0: Future Challenges and Critical Perspectives
• Index