The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research

Hilde Van den Bulck, Manuel Puppis, Karen Donders, Leo Van Audenhove, Hilde Van den Bulck, Manuel Puppis, Karen Donders, Leo Van Audenhove

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030160647
• eBook ISBN: 9783030160654
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Public Communication Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Research covers the craft that is and the methods used in media and communication policy research. It discusses the steps involved in conducting research, from deciding on a topic, to writing a report and everything in between and, furthermore, deals with a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis. The handbook invites researchers to rediscover trusted methods such as document analysis, elite interviews and comparisons, as well as to familiarize themselves with newer methods like experiments, big data and network analysis.

For each method, the handbook provides a practical step-by-step guide and case studies that help readers in using that method in their own research. The methods discussed are useful for all areas of media and communication policy research, for research concerning the governance of both mass media and online platforms, and for policy issues around the globe. Assuch, the handbook is an invaluable guide to every researcher in this field.

Part IMedia Policy Research

© The Author(s) 2019

H. Van den Bulck et al. (eds.)The Palgrave Handbook of Methods for Media Policy Researchhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16065-4_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Media Policy and Media Policy Research

Manuel Puppis¹ and Hilde Van den Bulck²

(1)

Department of Communication and Media Research, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

(2)

Department of Communication, Drexel University, Philadelphia, USA

Manuel Puppis (Corresponding author)

Hilde Van den Bulck

Media policy analysis sets out to ‘examine the ways in which policies in the field of communication are generated and implemented, as well as their repercussions or implications for the field of communication as a whole’.

(Hansen, Cottle, Negrine, & Newbold, 1998, p. 67)

Despite Bock, Velleman, and De Veaux’s (2015, p. 1) warning not to call the first chapter “Introduction” because ‘nobody reads the introduction’ (which they felt safe admitting in a footnote ‘because nobody reads footnotes either’), we dared to do so because we believe in our readers. And, apparently, we were right: you even read the notes!

End Abstract

The Subject: Media and Communication Policy

Media and communication policy may not get the same attention from policy-makers, media and the public at large as migration or transportation policy. Yet, it is a policy area involved in what is at the heart of contemporary society: information, news and cultural production, meaning creation and content curation and the distribution of content and services to individuals. In the following, we present definitions of media and communication policy and related concepts like media regulation and governance, discuss the different dimensions of policy and focus on peculiarities of media and communication policy.

Media Policy, Regulation and Governance

Traditionally, media as a policy field was defined by—what we now call legacy—mass media: print, broadcasting and, to some extent, cinema, and was clearly distinguishable from telecommunications policy (Pool, 1983). However, digitization led to technological convergence which, combined with political, economic and cultural developments, rendered this distinction obsolete and tore down the boundaries between media, telecommunications and other aspects of communication and information. As Price, Puppis and Verhulst (2013) state, ‘the boundaries separating other policy fields, such as telecommunications policy, communications policy, information technology policy, and even cultural policy, are becoming increasingly porous as the digitization, convergence, and globalization of communications technologies blur traditional technological and regulatory distinctions’.

Debates regarding the appropriate focus and terms continue. While some scholars prefer the term communication policy and view it as encompassing policies for both mass and individual communication, others argue that media policy is a more useful concept as it focuses on media organizations and mediated communication without excluding questions of technology, infrastructure and online communication (Puppis, 2010b). By now, both terms are often used synonymously. In another attempt to delineate the field, Braman (2004) mainly focuses on the distinction between media and information. While information policy is engaged with policy-making relating to ‘an information production chain that includes information creation, processing, flows and use’, she considers media policy as a distinct subfield that relates to ‘those technologies, processes and content by which the public itself is mediated’ (Braman, 2004, p. 153). Accordingly, information policy is a far wider-reaching concept than media and/or communication policy.

Scholars are not only confronted with different concepts of policy but also with different terminology. Terms like media policy and media regulation are sometimes used interchangeably; new concepts like media governance may add to the confusion. Yet making a distinction between, on the one hand, the more abstract ideological level of policy paradigms by which media policy is informed, and, on the other hand, the level of media policy implementation through regulation and governance, is meaningful (Van den Bulck, 2018; see Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Policy paradigms, media policy and media regulation

Indeed, media policies emanate from and are reflective of more abstract paradigmatic views on the relationship between the state, society and media. Policy paradigms provide ‘an overarching set of ideas that specify how the problems are to be perceived, which goals might be attained through policy and what sorts of techniques can be used to reach those goals. […] they structure the way in which policy-makers see the world and their role within’ (Hall, 1992, pp. 91–92). Thus, policy paradigms and the cognitive, and normative ideas they entail, play an important role in explaining media policy and its guiding principles (Künzler, 2012; see also Napoli, 2001). Paradigms and guiding principles shape, for instance, the role of government deemed desirable in organizing local, regional, national, inter- and transnational media systems. The ‘Four Theories of the Press’ (Siebert, Peterson, & Schramm, 1956) could be considered as such overarching paradigms. For instance, media policies based in a liberal paradigm favor so-called free market principles and oppose market-intervention going beyond safeguarding economic competition, possibly resulting in intensified commercialization of the media system. In contrast, policies working from a social responsibility paradigmatic view will emphasize the responsibility of the state, which may result in a media policy that favors public service media institutions and subsidies for the press.

Several authors have tried to distinguish phases in the history of media policy and argue that they are dominated by particular paradigms. For instance, van Cuilenburg and McQuail (2003) suggest three phases: the paradigm of emerging communications industry policy until World War II; the paradigm of public service media policy lasting until the 1990s; and the current phase characterized by technological and economic upheaval. However, even in a time period dominated by public service media policies, there are other policies being developed informed by different policy paradigms, for instance combining strong public service media with a responsibility to support the commercial media landscape (e.g. Van den Bulck & Donders, 2014) or with free market principles with regards to the press or telecommunications. As such, a media system’s collective media policies at one point in time feature policies developed from within various paradigms that policy researchers need to identify.

Keeping the influence of policy paradigms in mind, media policy can be conceptualized as ‘the broader field in which competing ideas and assumptions about the desirable structure, conduct, and performance of media systems circulate’. It ‘encompasses the formulation and implementation of collectively binding rules and decisions that aim at shaping media systems’ (Puppis, 2016, p. 2; see also Freedman, 2008). The definition emphasizes that media policy is not only about the output of policy-making but also about the process of formulating and implementing rules (implying the involvement and interaction of different actors pursuing potentially competing objectives) which takes place within specific institutional structures (Freedman, 2008). It is thus useful to distinguish three dimensions of the political (Kaid & Holtz-Bacha, 2008; Patzelt, 2003; Puppis, 2010b), namely polity (the political structures), politics (the political process) and policy (the resulting political decisions).

• Polity refers to the structural and institutional conditions that enable and constrain political action, i.e. the way a political system is organized. It thus reminds us of the different models of political systems that shape media policy-making, for instance, Lijphart’s (1984) seminal differentiation of majoritarian and consensus-style political systems. Polity is the metaphorical riverbed in which the political process flows.
• Politics denotes this process of formulating and implementing rules as well as the power struggle between various actors with differing interests and ideologies that all try to influence political decisions. To quote Fre...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• Part I. Media Policy Research
• Part II. Research Design
• Part III. Methods of Data Collection
• Part IV. Methods of Data Analysis
• Part V. Reporting and Disseminating Media Policy Research
• Back Matter