In 2021, The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto called for PSM to provide acounterweight to the existing platform universe by establishing a digital commons, a digital open space adhering to public service values. Four years later, this call seems more urgent than ever, given global threats to democracy and the heightened scrutiny of platform power in relation to geopolitical shifts.
This Research Round-Up presents three recent academic contributions to the debate on how public service platforms could provide a viable alternative platform ecosystem.
A ‘Public Service Internet’— Reclaiming the Public Service Mission
Helen Jay |
The Political Quarterly, 2024
Focusing on UK media policy, the article explains how the concept of a public service remit in the field of media has failed to evolve beyond its broadcasting origins. The author demonstrates that even when initiatives to translate the concept of public service to the digital realm have succeeded, they have remained bound to audiovisual media content rather than encompassing other components of the platform world, such as social networks and search engines. The article argues that, rather than being associated only with the necessity to minimise harm — a tendency it found predominant in policy debate — an alternative platform landscape should convey a more positive vision of the digital world and society more broadly.
Read the full article here.
Citizenship on the Public Service Internet: Citizens’ Media Contribution to Reimagining Digital Democratic Communication
Luciana Musello |
Media Influence on Opinion Change and Democracy (edited by Manuel Goyanes and Azahara Cañedo), Palgrave Macmillan, 2024
Taking the ‘Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto’ as a starting point, this article outlines a public service platform universe with active citizenship at its core. Proposing a radical democracy vision of the public service internet, the author argues that PSM should provide infrastructures, funding and resources for digital community media, with the ultimate goal to enable citizens to participate in political decision-making, rather than only in the deliberation process leading up to it. This proposed shift from audience engagement to participation and from content circulation to citizen empowerment draws on Latin American thought on citizenship and communication.
Read the full chapter here.
Economic Perspectives on Redefining Public Service Media in the Digital Era: Broadcasting to Media Platform
Maxi-Josephine Rauch, Jürgen Rösch and Björn A. Kuchinke |
List Forum für Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik, 2024
The article presents a case study of the recent debates in Germany surrounding platform models for PSM. Taking on an economic perspective, the authors categorize a total of 21 different proposals for the future of PSM in a platform environment into five conceptual clusters. They found 1) a public media & civic collaboration platform cluster, 2) a European public media & civic engagement platform proposal, 3) a European sovereignty & civic engagement platform model, 4) a supply side synergy platform cluster and 5) a public streaming portal model. The article identifies key challenges related to a reinvention of public service media as media platforms. These include funding issues, but also regulatory concerns and the implementation of public service values into existing platform economics.
Read the full article here.