PUBLIC MEDIA

- Lecture 7

The last Bastion of long-form public media?

Public media is a rather refreshing form of media as its main focus is… oddly enough the PUBLIC. Rather than the profit driven, die-hard aspects of commercial media, public media strives to support the public in terms of providing news platforms and distribution mechanism, as well as upholding the democratic processes.  Essentially, it’s all about public service, value for money in terms of licensing fees and, public collaboration with consultation. 

The functions of public vs. commercial media are very different, commercial media encompasses their ethos around aspects such as propaganda, profit, pay-walls and of course other forms of commercialism where as public media focuses on National building, heritage, identity and conversations. This is not to say however that public media cannot turn a profit, so long as the ultimate purpose remains on public service. 

This ethos of public service is ingrained into the ideologies of public media. Organizations such as the ABC and SBS have created many well-known and successful television programs and radio stations using the communication styles of the press, entertainment, propaganda, utility and social aspects.

The ABC was founded in 1929 as a ‘nation building project’ and since then they have created a media empire, which totally harnesses the view of public service.They have created such television programs as ABC news, Australian story, The Chaser’s War on Everything, Compass and Catalyst. Statistics say that 41% of Australians get their news from ABC and 12.6 million Australians watch ABC TV programs. ABC also has such radio station as ABC local radio, National radio, Jazz, Classic FM, and Country and of course the well known Triple J.

SBS boasts such television programs as Housos, Rockwiz, The world Game, living black and World news Australia.

There are however both pros and cons when considering public media.

The ups and downs of Public Media

Public media is usually credited with the delivering of serious, hard-hitting topics and current affairs and where the importance of the event out weighs the ability of the event to elicit public interest and sensationalism.  The information which is published is considered to be reliable, holding validity and the sources are checked, giving public confidence in their commitment to deliver the correct information.

Public media makes use of the Broadsheet style which supplies considerably less sensationalist than the tabloids – giving facts first not enticing morsels to attract sales.

Broadsheet vs. Tabloid?

“Public media is such a special vehicle for voices to be heard ... for visions and viewpoints ... ignored by commercial media.”

-Robert Richter

Take Tripple J – A personal favorite!  - You’ve got to ask yourself, How absolutely refreshing is it to listen to talk radio with out leaky bladder infomercials and other intrusions of dysfunction!!! Sustaining listener numbers is a result of great programs, good music, quirky and articulate presenters and no Adds!

There is however a number of challenges that face public media, the content is often accused of not being as entertaining as the commercial competitors. The demographics that the public media targets is also considered to be on the verge on being rather elitist, not for the man in the street so to say and not always in touch with the young upwardly progressives who have broad interests and are dependent on instant details and quality technology. Public media is charged with having limited interests, being rather poorly presented and actually out of touch with modern standards.

In their defense, the Public media is constantly trying to better itself by producing high quality programming that is relevant, informative and engaging to the public whilst trying to be independent.  The independence is the difficult part, maintaining neutrality and warding off allegation of bias is hard for the public media to achieve when the legislation controlling them stipulates what they can and can’t do and how they are to spend the Government funding. This creates a perception of compliance from opposition viewer and indeed mistrust when it comes to it acting as a watchdog of government happenings when it is the government that funds them. When they do, it may well be said that they are perhaps “biting the hand that feeds them.”

What ever the media – one fact holds true and that is bring on the competition! Competition breeds progress, quality, accountability and democracy. Qualities that in the first world we hold as a norm and are very grateful that we as the journalists of the future are allowed to grow in an environment of free speech and civil liberty. The government may well hold the purse strings of the public media in this country but they cannot and should never own the content!