Covid-TV: Routes to Content during Covid-19
POLICY BRIEF
Covid-TV
Routes to Content during Covid-19
University of Huddersfield | Prof. Catherine Johnson
Published: 2020
What does the impact of Covid-19 on TV viewing tell us about the future of public service broadcasting (PSB) in the UK?
Shining a Spotlight on Media Freedom?
REPORT
Shining a Spotlight on Media Freedom?
Media Coverage of the Global Campaign for Media Freedom
City, University of London; University of East Anglia | Martin Scott, Mel Bunce, Mary Myers
Published: 2020
In our first project report, we analyse English-language, online news coverage and Twitter commentary about media freedom. Specifically, we ask whether the Global Campaign for Media Freedom (GCMF) has succeeded in ‘shining a spotlight’ on media freedom in its first year of activities, from July 2019- July 2020.
Funding Journalism in Israel: Secrecy and Political Influence
WEBSITE
Funding Journalism in Israel: Secrecy and Political Influence
Center for Media, Data and Society | Central European University
Published: June 2020
Unusual opacity is the most salient characteristic of the media system in Israel, where the involvement of political figures in media operation raises serious concerns.
At first glance, the Israeli media market seems a diverse mix of old and new, public and commercial, cable and satellite, and increasingly dominant, if not ubiquitous, digital media. But beneath the appearance of this growing diversity, there is little pluralism…
Text sourced from CMDS | CEU
Who Finances India’s Journalism?
REPORT
Who Finances India’s Journalism?
Center for Media, Data and Society | Central European University
Published: June 2020
Commercial advertisers are the largest players in terms of funding spent in the media in India, but the state has also a significant role, financing the country’s public service broadcaster, shelling out public advertising money to commercial media and holding a monopoly over the news radio market.
The news media market in India is regionally and linguistically fragmented but ownership is concentrated within a handful of large players, more so in regional geographies. It is significant that the news business is largely run and owned by individuals (and families) with primarily non-media business interests and assets…
Text sourced from CMDS | CEU
Soft Power, Hard News: How Journalists at State-Funded Transnational Media Legitimize Their Work
JOURNAL
Soft Power, Hard News: How Journalists at State-Funded Transnational Media Legitimize Their Work
Kate Wright, Martin Scott, Mel Bunce | Sage Journals
Published: May 2020
How do journalists working for different state-funded international news organizations legitimize their relationship to the governments which support them? In what circumstances might such journalists resist the diplomatic strategies of their funding states?
We address these questions through a comparative study of journalists working for international news organizations funded by the Chinese, US, UK and Qatari governments. Using 52 interviews with journalists covering humanitarian issues, we explain how they minimized tensions between their diplomatic role and dominant norms of journalistic autonomy by drawing on three – broadly shared – legitimizing narratives, involving different kinds of boundary-work. In the first ‘exclusionary’ narrative, journalists differentiated their ‘truthful’ news reporting from the ‘false’ state ‘propaganda’ of a common Other, the Russian-funded network, RT. In the second ‘fuzzifying’ narrative, journalists deployed the ambiguous notion of ‘soft power’ as an ambivalent ‘boundary concept’, to defuse conflicts between journalistic and diplomatic agendas. In the final ‘inversion’ narrative, journalists argued that, paradoxically, their dependence on funding states gave them greater ‘operational autonomy’. Even when journalists did resist their funding states, this was hidden or partial, and prompted less by journalists’ concerns about the political effects of their work, than by serious threats to their personal cultural capital.
Journalism Thrives in Slovakia Despite Growing Oligarchic Control
REPORT
Journalism Thrives in Slovakia Despite Growing Oligarchic Control
Center for Media, Data and Society | Central European University
Published: May 2020
Slovaks have access to a plethora of news platforms, but many of them are in the hands of powerful financial corporations, closely linked with political groups. Nevertheless, swelling demand for accurate, quality information boosts the country’s independent journalism.
Slovakia is a voracious news consumer, with almost two thirds of people reading news portals, newspapers or news magazines. Much of this news appetite was stirred by technological advancement. Over 86% of people use the internet, which is a big leap from less than 30% in the beginning of the 2010s…
Text sourced from CMDS | CEU
Small Screen: Big Debate
WEBSITE
Small Screen: Big Debate
Ofcom
2020
Join the conversation on the future of public service broadcasting in the UK
This website will allow you to access a wide variety of research, learn more of our work in this area and submit your views directly to us on the future of public service broadcasting and media.
Reporting facts: free from fear or favour
REPORT
Reporting Facts: Free from fear or favour
UNESCO | Marius Dragomir
Published: 2020
Preview of In Focus report on World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development
Countering Disinformation
WEBSITE
Countering Disinformation
Cardiff University | Arts and Humanities Research Council
2020
“Disinformation is a growing risk to the health of many democratic systems. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, this project will assess how leading UK public service media are counteracting it in news reporting.”
This project is the largest of its kind in the UK and focusses on the content produced by The BBC, Channel 4 ITV and Sky News. It aims to provide a “comprehensive understanding of how British public service media and audiences are developing practices to address and counter disinformation. “
Organisational Culture of Public Service Media: People, values, processes
REPORT
Organisational Culture of Public Service Media: People, values, processes
Dr Michał Głowacki and Professor Lizzie Jackson
2019
In 2015-2019 Dr Michał Głowacki and Professor Lizzie Jackson investigated the internal organisational cultures of ten successful high technology clusters in North America and Europe to identify strategies to support the evolution of Public Service Media worldwide.
Four media clusters were located in North America: Austin (Texas), Boston/Cambridge (Massachusetts), Detroit (Michigan) and Toronto (Canada). European clusters included London (UK), Warsaw (Poland), Copenhagen (Denmark), Brussels (Belgium), Tallinn (Estonia), and Vienna (Austria). To answer the question ‘what people, values and processes’ should Public Service Media embody going forward we found there is an urgent need for adaptation. Without internal change there is likely to be a decline in the ability of PSM to survive within the fast-evolving contemporary media and communications production and distribution landscape.