Television and the Public Interest

Vulnerable Values in Western European Broadcasting

Modern broadcasting policy faces a number of challenges: how to regulate the growing commercial sector; the position and funding of public service television; and finding appropriate forms of public accountability in a changing media environment. Television and the Public Interest examines these challenges and how they are being addressed in the media systems of eight European nations. The contributors identify the basic values regarded as vulnerable and the safeguards developed for protection from market pressures. Students and scholars in communications and media studies will appreciate the wealth of information found in this significant volume. "The authors of this work have developed an analysis tool for broadcasting system performance - the identification and clarification of social values - that has not appeared before. Together with the historical material they present, they provide a helpful look at European broadcasting." --Communication Research Trends "This book should be in the personal library of those interested in comparative media systems. It would also make a suitable text for an international course examining changes taking place in European radio and television." --Journal of Communication "The book is an important contribution to the growing post-Reagan/Thatcher literature on the problems of the public interest in broadcasting and the contemporary challenges to public culture. But the book carves out new ground in its attention to the changing regulatory regimes among its several subject countries and in what those developments tell us about the associated struggles over public accountability. . . . It opens up an important new line of inquiry into European broadcasting and communications policymaking. . . . Television and the Public Interest is an important contribution to the literature that is trying to make sense of broadcasting in the changing global conditions of the late 20th Century. It works hard to remind us of the rich tradition of public service values historically associated with broadcasting in so many countries. However, it is not merely nostalgic, as it carefully grounds its analysis in a clear-eyed understanding of the extent of the changes that former monopoly public broadcasters have had to confront. What is notable about this book is its attempt to help find a way through the contemporary thicket and to preserve the socially progressive aspects of public broadcasting in the new order." --Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media "The book's attention to its subject matter is timely and welcome." --Sociology "My first and virtually only negative criticism of this effort is that the title and subtitle of the book should be transposed: I am concerned that potential users will miss the subject of this important publication while examining a Sage catalogue. . . . Television and the Public Interest should be in the personal library of those interested in comparative media systems. It would also make a suitable text for an international course examining changes taking place in European radio and television." --Douglas A. Boyd, University of Kentucky