JOUR1111- Week 7

Public Media:

This weeks lecture introduced the concept of public media, the form of media that thankfully operates in stark contrast to the topic of last week's lecture, commercial media.

Public media serves to inform and engage the public through reporting on issues that hold significant public value. Public media is not profit driven and while it may turn a profit the proceeds must be recycled into the furthering of future public media. It is these values that I believe allow public media to provide a far more beneficial and purposeful influence upon democratic society. It aims to support the needs of the public rather than the wants adhered to by the often vapid and trivial reporting of commercial media. 

The lecture covered a variety of elements and issues surrounding public media however there were a few defining points which I found particularly resonant. 

The defining principle of public media is the concept of "Public Value". This concept underpins all public media institutions. 

To have public value media must:

Have an embedded "public service ethos".

Employ value for licence fee money.

Weigh the public value of media against its market impact.

Allow for public consultation. 

The guidelines laid in 1985 by the Broadcasting Research Unit show a further variety of characteristics central to public media. 

Geographical universality - everyone in Australia should have access to programmes, i.e; Preschool.

Universality - content should cater for all tastes and interests.

Special provisions for minorities.Have a special relationship to the sense of national identity and community.Distanced from all vested interests.Universality of payment.Competition in good programming rather than competition for numbers.Guidelines should liberate rather than restrict.

Of these guidelines I find a few of them truly embody the differences that I notice between commercial and public media.

First and fore-mostly I notice the distancing from vested interests and the way this differentiates public media from the specifically financially driven programming of commercial media. 

The second prominent indicator of public media to me personally is the association with national identity and heritage. While commercial media is aimed on an international scale that doesn't seek to address concerns and interests of a national community, public media differs from this. It associates itself with a distinctive national identity and caters its programming to address Australian culture. 

Without public media the world of journalism would be devoid of any long form investigative journalism. It is public media that investigates and uncovers various incidents that are of a concerning nature or are beneficial to the national community to be reported upon. The competition in public media is primarily based upon quality of reporting rather than viewer ratings. This results in a far more meaningful and nationally pertinent programming. 

One of the main issues faced by public media is the issue of financing while remaining unbiased and unattached to any vested interests. Due to the majority of public media broadcasters sourcing their funding directly from the government, it is financially irresponsible for them to remain politically independent The phrase” to bite the hand that feeds” can be used to describe the tentative nature that public media must take when investigating politically oriented stories. Despite this clearly significant challenge, public media remains the most nationally concerned and beneficial source of media.

Public media, while not necessarily the oligopoly run cash crop that commercial media has become, is still refuses to abandon its core principles and remains a driving force for the cause of investigative journalism.