Public Media

Lecture seven discussed the topic of public media, something I suppose you could call the opposite of last week’s lecture on commercial media. Public Media is media whose mission is to serve or engage a public, its ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not turn a profit. The public media in Australia consists of the ABC and SBS, in both tv and radio. Internationally, public media broadcasters include BBC and channel 4 in the UK and PBS and NPR in the US. Public media can also include community media. The aspect I found most interesting in this lecture was looking at the role of public media and the ethos of public media. The public value, according to the BBC, is to embed a public service ethos, provide value for licence fee money and weigh public value against market opinion. It seems from this that public media could be considered quite ideological, however when put into practice, it appears that public media broadcasters adhere to this standard. Take for example, the ABC. According to information given in the lecture, 41% of Australians get their news from the ABC and 85% don’t believe they project any bias. This lack of bias is vital, as whilst being majority funded by the government, the ABC have a responsibility to present quality and bias free stories regardless of which party is in power. And as Dr Redman said in the lecture, as soon as the ABC stops enraging politicians, then we are in trouble.