Tag Archive for media plurality

Project round up: Online resources and next steps for media plurality research

Our media plurality project, based at University of Westminster’s Communication and Media Research Institute (CAMRI) and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), is now formally coming to an end and we want to thank everyone who engaged with us online, or participated in any of our events over the last 18 months. The project has benefited hugely from the knowledge, experience and contributions from all those who generously gave their time and commitment.

We want to draw your attention to some of the outputs and resources which emerged from the project and which we hope will continue to provide useful material for continuing research and policy debates on media plurality in the UK and in other countries. This issue is becoming more rather than less urgent, with implications for media freedom and diversity in virtually every democracy in the world. In the UK, we are hopeful that it will now be recognised as sufficiently important to feature in party political manifestos for next year’s general election.

Our main resource is this website, mediaplurality.com, which includes:

We will also be publishing next year an edited collection of essays by 13 national and international scholars addressing the policy themes raised during the project. We are hoping to stage a major event in May/June 2015.

We would also like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding this project and our colleagues at University of Westminster, and other organisations with which we collaborated, for their support. We hope you will continue to find the website and its associated resources useful for ongoing work in this area.

For more details of media and communications research at University of Westminster please visit the CAMRI website.

#Mediaplurality14: Onora O’Neill on media plurality, diversity and the interests of owners

Introductory remarks by Baroness Onora O’Neill at the Media Power and Plurality conference at City University London on Friday 2 May, jointly hosted by University of Westminster’s Media Power and Plurality AHRC project and the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City.

The Post Leveson Context

It is nearly three years since the Leveson Inquiry was established, with its dual remit

a) to investigate the culture, practices and ethics of the press, including contacts between the press and politicians and the press and the police;

b) to consider the extent to which the current regulatory regime has failed and whether there has been a failure to act upon any previous warnings about media misconduct.

In practice, as we all know, ongoing criminal investigations and prosecutions limited what could be investigated or considered by the Inquiry. Nevertheless the Leveson Report emerged and recommended a two tier structure—self regulation by the media, the standards achieved to be audited by a body that is independent of the press. The political parties have come together on this. So has Parliament. And the public support it.

Self Regulation with Standards?

As I think everyone here will also know, the seemingly archaic structure of a Royal Charter has been used to set up an audit body that any future government or parliament would find it hard to alter. What nobody knows is whether this will work: at present the only self regulatory body in existence is IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation), aka ‘son of PCC’, which has indicated that it will not seek recognition or audit by the Royal Charter body. This is thought by some to indicate that their preferred form of self-regulation remains self-interested regulation. We don’t know yet whether there will be other self regulators that will seek recognition by the Royal Charter body —IMPRESS (Independent Monitor of the Press) may do so. But it is not clear what the upshot will be: about a month ago at question time I asked “Does the Minister consider that the Leveson recommendations will be adequately implemented if the only self-regulatory body declines to seek audit by the royal charter body?” The Minister tried two answers and the house spluttered (which by Hansard’s convention has to be rendered as ‘Oh! Oh!’). So, as everyone here knows, these matters are not done or dusted. But today other matters are central.

Regulating Content, Act and Structure

Regulation of the media can focus on several matters, including speech content, speech acts and media structures. For example, the regulation of speech content may require or prohibit the publication of some sorts of material, so is of limited use if there is to be a free press; it but can be used by exception, for example by prohibiting sexualised content in children’s programmes. Regulation of speech acts can take many forms, running from prohibitions on defamation, fraud or perjury to requirements for truth in advertising, disclosure of relevant matters in legal disputes, and requirements for accuracy in filing income tax returns. Regulation of media structures can aim to secure plurality without directly requiring or prohibiting specific types of speech content or speech acts. (However, somewhat confusingly, regulating media structures by requiring specified amounts of certain types of content, as in the regulation of public service broadcasting is often called ‘content regulation’ (e.g. by Ofcom) although it does not however mandate or prohibit specific speech content.

Discussion of media plurality

Discussion of media plurality was to some extent set aside during the period of the Leveson Inquiry, but has now assumed greater importance as shown by the DCMS consultation, by Ofcom advice to DCMS, by the recent HoL Committee on Communication report on Media Plurality published in February, and by several other analyses, including Steve Barnett’s instructive paper on the subject. But I think that it nevertheless remains somewhat unclear what media plurality is and is not, so I shall make a few comments on the point or purpose of plurality, and leave it to others to say more about some possible forms that it might take. What I shall try to say is intended only as a stimulus, or if you will a target, for discussion today.

Diversity First

It is quite widely agreed that plurality is not a goal in itself, but a means to an end, such as a well functioning democratic society, or a vibrant culture, or limiting the concentration of media power. Plurality may help to ensure that there is a diversity of viewpoints is available, and perhaps accessed. Plurality may prevent any single owner or controller gaining too much power or influence.

Why, one might ask, if the real aim is either diversity or limiting media power, should we focus on plurality? I think there is a very basic reason why diversity is not the immediate target of regulation. It is that any attempt to impose or demand diversity of content might require a degree of dirigisme and control of the media that was incompatible with rights to freedom of expression, and specifically with media freedom. Diversity has, so to speak, to be secured by oblique methods. It may (as noted) be possible to ensure some diversity of types of content by controlling structures and prescribing limits to the quantity or proportion of content of certain types (e.g. News coverage, religious broadcasting, sport, contemporary music), but go too far in regulating content and you end up without press freedom.

By contrast, some sorts of plurality requirement are no threat to media or individual freedom of expression. In particular, classical anti monopoly provisions do not work by controlling content. Even if a powerful media organisation is required to divest itself of an asset, there need be no threat to freedom of expression, or to diversity. (I note, however, that there was considerable resistance to the thought that plurality mattered at the time of the passage of the Communications Act 2003, and that Ministers insisted that size would matter in the digital world.)

Which Sorts of Plurality?

Plurality is therefore an attractive surrogate for diversity because it does not dictate content, yet seems likely to secure some or quite a lot of diversity. But which sorts of plurality actually matter, and which are likely to contribute to which sorts of diversity? There are a lot of possibilities: a plurality of organisations (publishers, broadcasters); a plurality of owners or controllers; a plurality of political orientations; a plurality of platforms; a plurality of content providers, a plurality of media products. However, I suspect that the awkward reality is that none of these forms of plurality will guarantee diversity, although lack of plurality may jeopardise diversity, as notably in societies where the media are wholly state controlled.

Plurality without Diversity?

Plurality does not guarantee diversity because a plurality of publishers, or owners, or content providers, may produce remarkably similar content, hence little diversity. This may happen if they are chasing the same demographic, or if a particular type of content is cheap, or popular or profitable.

I remember years ago, at a conference on media and democracy in Washington DC, a delightfully cynical old hack asked his audience to say was the best sort of radio programme. We were non-plussed, but he pointed out that it was obviously a programme about water safety for boy scouts. Those programmes were ideal because they could count towards the educational and the public service quotas, and because they were so thoroughly worthy and uncontroversial that they could not lead to litigation. Blandness did not matter, but being controversial or failing to meet one’s quotas did. Here one can see an example of plurality requirements reducing diversity. Or consider the Hollywood studios in their heyday: plurality, but limited diversity. Plurality of various sorts is compatible with convergence of content, lack of diversity, indeed dreary repetitiveness. So what matters is to work out which sorts of plurality are likely to have which sorts of effects in actual circumstances.

Plurality and Ownership

Questions about plurality of ownership will no doubt be a central theme for discussion today, but I want to mention one other aspect of plurality that seems to me rather often overlooked, and that is less plurality of owners, than plurality of their interests. One of the interesting features of UK newspapers today is that while there is a plurality of owners, they share certain interests. Many are not UK citizens (e.g. they include citizens of the US or Russia); others who are citizens, are not UK residents or (presumably) tax payers. In these respects they do not share their readers’ interests or fate, yet their newspapers comment extensively and influentially on matters such as UK taxation and membership of the EU. This is fairly unusual, and in many other jurisdictions foreign ownership of the news media would be prohibited or restricted. Opinions will differ on whether a lack of plurality of interests among newspaper proprietors is likely to have material effects. But consider this scenario: If at some future time Mr James Murdoch decides that British newspapers are not profitable enough and sells off some titles, would it matter the new owners increased the proportion of the UK media in foreign ownership, by adding added (say) a Qatari or a Chinese owner of a major title to our current list of expat owners? There is nothing to prevent that.

Onora O’Neill combines writing on political philosophy and ethics with a range of public activities. She comes from Northern Ireland and has worked mainly in Britain and the US. She was Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge from 1992-2006, President of the British Academy from 2005-9, chaired the Nuffield Foundation from 1998-2010, has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000 (Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve). She currently chairs the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission and is on the board of the Medical Research Council. She lectures and writes on justice and ethics, accountability and trust, justice and borders, as well as on the future of universities, the quality of legislation and the ethics of communication, including media ethics.

Upcoming event: Media Power & Plurality conference, 2 May 2014

Policymakers throughout the world recognise the need to protect a diversity of voices and views in a democracy, but what does media plurality require in practice? How do you legislate to prevent undue concentration of media power? What interventions are needed to help new players flourish? How do you reconcile sustainable media businesses and a sufficiency of voices? How should policy approaches differ at national, regional and local level?

The government’s consultation last year focused on media measurement, but there are far broader policy issues at stake and possible lessons to be learned from other countries. This conference, in the wake of recommendations from the Leveson Inquiry and from the House of Lords Communications Committee, will explore UK policy on media ownership and diversity, as well as possible manifesto commitments in the forthcoming general election. Other panels, featuring a range of leading academic, industry and policy practitioners, will look at UK and European policy, options for local and hyperlocal initiatives, and the potential for “charitable journalism”.

The conference is organised by the University of Westminster’s AHRC-funded Media Power and Plurality research project and hosted by the Centre for Law, Justice and Journalism at City University London (Room A130, College Building).

Tickets for this event are free and will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Reserve your place here.

#mediaplurality14

Programme

8.45 – Registration

9.15 – Opening remarks

9.30 – Keynote

10am – Panel 1 – Priorities for national policy

11.30 – Coffee

11.45 – Panel 2 – Subsidies, non-profits and charity: ideas for regeneration

1pm – Lunch

2pm – Panel 3 – Local media plurality: is it all doom and gloom?

3.30 – Tea

3.45 – Panel 4 – What can the UK learn from other countries?

5.15 – Close / thanks

[Oxford Media Convention] Plurality begins at home: policies for invigorating local media

In a preview of his upcoming remarks at the Oxford Media Convention 2014, Steven Barnett, University of Westminster, shares preliminary findings from a collaborative study on hyperlocal media and argues for policy to enhance its role in sustaining media plurality. An abridged version of this post can be found at the LSE Media Policy blog.

While much of the headline debate on plurality tends to revolve around undue concentration at the national level – how to define it, how to measure it, how to prevent it – a growing local problem  risks being ignored. While local newspapers struggle with a failing business model, local radio stations centralise their newsroom operations, and fledgling local television stations are yet to demonstrate any appetite for original journalism, members of the public are increasingly starved of vital civic information. According to Press Gazette, more than 240 local newspapers closed in the seven years from 2004 to 2011 and some areas of the UK “are no longer covered by professional journalists”.

The implications for local democracy are profound. Issues of enormous relevance to citizens in their everyday lives – about their local hospitals, local schools, local transport, police forces, businesses and courts – are simply not being addressed. Local government officials, business leaders, and local politicians are not being questioned or held to account. Information required for knowledgeable participation in local elections is either not available or less reliable.

In the struggle to promote more editorial diversity and a more informed local citizenry there is, however, some room for optimism from the burgeoning number of new hyperlocal initiatives. The rise of online connectedness and broadband has made it easier for small, independent media enterprises to set themselves up and report to their local communities without massive capital outlay. The number of these sites is impossible to count precisely, but closest estimates suggest that around 500 are active in the UK.

As part of our Media Power and Plurality project at Westminster, we collaborated with Cardiff and Birmingham City universities in the UK’s first comprehensive survey of hyperlocals, with responses from around 180. While many of these are shoestring operations, more akin to a parish newsletter than hard-nosed journalism, our preliminary analysis shows that many are still capable of professional, independent local reporting. We found impressive evidence not only of important informational work but of investigative and campaigning journalism normally associated with mainstream news publishers: crusades over road safety and declining council standards, investigations over breaches of national emission limits, illicit council use of a greenfield site, and campaigns on over-spending on a local rail station development, cuts to the local youth service and plans to turn primary schools into academies.

Given the potential role of these sites in reinvigorating editorial diversity and local democracy, we should be asking serious questions about the kinds of policy interventions that would support them. Here are three, all of which have so far had little traction on the policy arena.

1. Charitable status

There is currently very limited scope for allowing journalism enterprises to secure the reputational and financial benefits that go with charitable status. According to the 2011 Charities Act, a charity must have a public purpose and be run for the public benefit. It lists 13 such purposes, two of which are potentially appropriate for local journalism: the advancement of education; and the advancement of citizenship or community development.

While the public purpose hurdles might, therefore, be negotiated at local level, the public benefit test is trickier. It is not enough simply to state or to assume that an enterprise will be beneficial; the public good has to be identifiable. This raises the spectre of finding measurable evidence that, for example, residents are better informed about local issues or more likely to participate in local elections after the launch of a local news initiative than before.

In its 2012 report on Investigative Journalism, the House of Lords Communications committee recommended that the Charity Commission “provide greater clarity and guidelines on which activities related to the media, and in particular investigative journalism, are charitable in the current state of the law”, particularly in light of the financial pressures and journalism’s democratic significance. The Charity Commission has yet to respond, but there is scope for a more relaxed approach, both in terms of its interpretation of the current legislation and – conceivably – in terms of an amendment to the Act aimed specifically at promoting local journalism.

2. Subsidies

There are already explicit and implicit subsidies for local media, a legacy of traditional print and broadcast regimes. The Community Radio Order of 2004 enables Ofcom to license not-for-profit community radio stations according to strictly defined criteria relating to “social gain”. These stations (231 by the end of 2011) receive small grants of around £15,000 out of a Community Radio Fund administered by Ofcom, which in turn comes from DCMS. That fund was worth £321,500 in 2010/11.

Given the rationale for that investment – in particular, to facilitate discussion and a better understanding of the local community – there is little sense in confining such direct subsidies to the medium of radio. It should be possible to expand both the technology scope and the pot: these are tiny amounts of money in terms of government expenditure, but with potentially massive benefits for resourcing local journalism.

Similarly, there are hidden subsidies for the national and local press both through VAT exemptions and through the regime on statutory notices. Figures from a Reuters Institute report put the value of VAT exemptions at £594m per annum in 2008 (though it’s difficult to know what proportion of that benefits the local press). In addition, the statutory duty on local councils to place notices in the local paper on planning, licensing and traffic orders is likely to be worth around £45m per year. It is surely an absurd anachronism that in the 21st century online world councils and other public bodies are obliged to use tax-payers’ money solely to advertise in local hard copy newspapers which in some geographical areas no longer exist.

3. The BBC

Finally, BBC Director General Tony Hall has indicated that partnerships – where the BBC acts as enabler rather than “senior” partner – will play an integral part of its future as the UK’s leading cultural institution. This is very different from top-slicing, which takes money away from the BBC and therefore weakens its effectiveness. At the local level, such partnership could enable those running hyperlocal sites to take advantage of BBC expertise in editorial, web design, legal advice, promotion and marketing. As with the redirection of subsidies, any such initiative would inevitably attract hostility from the major newspapers groups, and would require both central and local government support.

In fact, each of these initiatives will require serious investment of time and energy by those who are concerned about the inexorable decline in local media plurality. Policy thinking in this area – whether on Community Radio, newspaper subsidies or the role of the BBC – has always been predicated on the democratic and citizenship value of local media to their respective communities. That thinking now lags well behind real-world media activity, and takes little account of emerging forms of local and community online initiatives. It is time that changed.

See:

 

Lords Communications Committee report on Media Plurality: two cheers

The House of Lords communications select committee publishes its report on media plurality today [Tuesday]. While there are a few holes in its policy approach, the recommendations provide a practical basis for a long overdue upheaval of the UK’s plurality framework, argues Professor Steven Barnett

There are two ways of looking at the House of Lords select committee’s report on Media Plurality, published today. The less charitable view is that it has ducked the crucial issue of how Parliament should lay down clear, unambiguous guidelines to prevent undue concentrations of media power. In doing so, it leaves a hole in the central plank of its proposals for reform, and breaches the very specific advice given in evidence by Chris Goodall, a former Competition Commissioner now working with Enders Analysis: “Whatever you decide to propose, I hope you leave no discretion to anybody.”

The more charitable – and probably fairer – view is that the report has provided both the philosophical and practical basis for a long overdue upheaval of Britain’s plurality framework. Since the positives outnumber the negatives, I will start with those.

From the beginning, there is a welcome and unambiguous declaration about the need for a dedicated plurality policy within a democratic society. In an important passage which sets the context for the rest of the report, there is a clear exposition of why plurality cannot simply be left to the market or to competition policy: “we believe that determining clear demarcation lines between plurality and competition policy is crucial”.

There is also common sense and restraint in dealing with the BBC, where the committee rejects any suggestion that the BBC should be subjected to plurality “control measures” from outside its own regulator. It floats the idea of a more creative role for the BBC, in which the next Charter might give it explicit responsibility “to stimulate consumption of diverse viewpoints from different external sources”. That is wholly in line with Director General Tony Hall’s recent pronouncements about the BBC’s potential contribution to fostering partnerships. Moreover, in a powerful rejection of top-slicing, the committee urges Government “to support our view that the licence fee should be for the BBC alone”.

Revamped framework

But the meat of this report lies in its suggestions for revamping the plurality framework. In what they call “the centre-piece of our approach”, the committee recommends a statutory periodic review of plurality, to be undertaken by Ofcom every 4-5 years. This idea was first floated by Ofcom itself, and is a wholly laudable and desirable proposal measure designed to account for organic growth in a dynamic and fast-changing market. At the same time, the committee recommends keeping the “transactional” review to be triggered – as now – by specific merger or acquisition activity.

Perhaps the most intriguing set of recommendations is the proposed regime for who should make the ultimate decision, with different approaches being advocated for the two types of review. For periodic reviews, a final decision would rest with the Secretary of State. Ofcom would rate any concerns across or within media markets (including the so-called digital intermediaries such as Google) on a three point scale from moderate to high to severe. Where it finds “immediate and pressing concerns resulting from organic change”, the report even allows for Ofcom to order divestment although it warns that the bar should be high, and would be subject to offers of mitigation. Moreover, with the final recommendations resting with a cabinet minister, it could of course still be overturned.

For transactional reviews, however, the final decision would rest with Ofcom. This is the most radical part of the report, including recommendations for “a new statutory responsibility for the assessment of a transaction’s impact on plurality”. It is a role for Ofcom which stems directly from the committee’s opening argument that competition policy and plurality policy are entirely separate concepts and that “a plurality assessment must focus on the interest of the citizen”. While the competition authorities would still have a role in assessing the competition aspects of a transaction, it would ultimately be left to the Ofcom board to reach a “Public Interest Decision” to resolve any conflict. The committee have therefore taken the perfectly logical view that, since decisions on plurality are ultimately about citizenship and democracy, the final decision should rest with the body which has a statutory duty to promote the interests of citizens as well as consumers.

Why no final decision on transactional reviews for the Secretary of State? Because, says the committee – clearly influenced by the evidence of Jeremy Hunt to Leveson as well as several witnesses to their own enquiry – “it is impossible for the Secretary of State to [make that decision] without the appearance of being influenced by political motives”.  There is some logic in making this distinction between periodic and transactional reviews, though the same political considerations will no doubt apply equally to any divestment recommendations stemming from organic growth.

Ofcom’s discretion

All those elegantly argued and positive recommendations are slightly diminished by the huge amount of discretion left to Ofcom and the measurement process in carrying out either type of review. Parliament should, says the report, lay down guidance for a new framework but “there should be flexibility for Ofcom to interpret statutory guidance, design the assessment framework and select appropriate metrics according to the circumstances at the time of the review”.  Although the report is not specific about the guiding framework for periodic reviews, it is essentially based around ensuring a sufficient diversity of viewpoints and preventing too much editorial influence. For transactions, it follows the same guiding principles and concludes that negative decisions should be based on the likelihood of a “material and unacceptable lessening of plurality”.

While Parliament’s role in providing a clear framework is essential, the discretion left to Ofcom to interpret that guidance, design an appropriate assessment framework and select metrics leaves it wide open to accusations of selective and subjective approaches. The biggest media companies are notoriously litigious; it is difficult to see either kind of review – if it results in recommendations for divestment or prevention of a transaction – avoiding lengthy legal challenges and judicial reviews.

Perhaps that is the nature of the plurality beast, and no set of proposals was ever going to fulfil what is by definition a difficult and contested policy aim. But while I sympathise with the sentiment that “a concept as complex as plurality can [not] legitimately be reduced down to one (measure)” – and indeed that proposals around behavioural remedies raise as many questions as they answer – I worry that a 21st Century Fox bid for Sky or a Google bid for ITV or an Associated Newspapers bid for the Independent would all receive an eventual green light whatever creative combination of metrics might be cooked up by Ofcom.

Local initiatives?

One further aspect of the report is disappointing. Although it mentions in passing the importance of new initiatives and interventions to stimulate media enterprises, particularly at the local level, there is little attention paid to the different creative approaches that might be feasible or the potentially enabling role of government policy. Apart from reiterating the charitable funding idea raised in a previous report, there is a missed opportunity to call for new approaches along the lines of existing small grants to Community Radio, or allowing hyperlocal sites to share revenue from statutory notices.

These, plus other ideas for generating revenue to help boost new local media, could have been included as complementary initiatives to the reformed regime for plurality reviews. Overall, however, we should certainly welcome a report which puts the citizen and Ofcom firmly at the centre of a new plurality regime.

Steven Barnett is Professor of Communications at the University Westminster, and is currently leading an AHRC funded project into Plurality and Media Power. He acted as specialist adviser to the Lords select committee on four earlier inquiries.

Media Plurality Series: Interview with Robert Picard on policy priorities for a pluralistic society

For the last post in our special Media Plurality Series with the LSE Media Policy Project, LSE MSc student Emma Goodman interviewed Robert Picard, Director of Research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, on definitions and measurement of pluralism, the role of the internet and overall policy priorities.

P_28074512e9[EG] You have said that the UK tends to use a more narrow definition of plurality than that employed in other countries. Would you suggest a wider definition, and if so what would that be?

[RP] The question is: what are you trying to achieve? The definition of plurality used in the UK is designed to try to maintain an existing range of plurality, primarily in the press, and a range between Conservative party views and Liberal/Labour views. It doesn’t really worry about other parties’ views. It doesn’t really care if the Greens or UKIP have anything to say, so in that regard it’s problematic, because it’s essentially designed to maintain existing power relations among the parties, and that’s not a really effective policy. It only concentrates on political plurality and ignores all other aspects.

There are many other aspects of plurality and many other influences on plurality besides just ownership. If you’re not really looking at plurality in terms of how varieties of cultures and classes and varieties of ethnic groups in the country are covered, you are taking a very narrow view of what society needs to do to be able to discuss itself, understand its identity and explain its problems to each other. That is why I say there is too narrow a conceptualization in the UK. And it’s not that the ownership of the press isn’t a problem, that’s just part of the problem.

While citizens of a country all share a particular culture as national citizens, there are often several sub-cultures within a country that need to be well represented. For Britain this is a particular problem now, as we have devolution going on and other such things – how do you represent that but still maintain some sort of broader national identity? That’s a huge problem. You can only do that if you’re not just looking at politics.

Does increasingly widespread internet access make plurality of traditional media ownership less important? Is there inherent plurality on the internet?

There’s no question that there’s the opportunity for more people to express their views on the internet. But it does not increase the opportunity to be heard, and in fact much of what goes on on the internet actually restricts the ability to be heard. We know that the majority of people go to the sites that are primarily the big brands of offline media, and when you use search engines, the first results they give you are companies that pay them money – usually people with a good deal of money.

The second thing they give you are sites that don’t pay them money but are the most visible. So the algorithms tend to promote established powerful organisations rather than the alternatives. And when you get a page of search results, about 90% of people will go to the top 10 sites. A lot of people don’t realize how skewed those searches are because of the algorithms.

Are we better off than we were? Yes. Is it dramatically better in terms of what the other person sees and hears, no. The traditional media is still very, very important.

There has been a lot of focus on how to measure plurality – but more importantly: who decides, and on what basis, when it’s enough?

We, as human beings, tend to read the things that are most comfortable for us or tend to reflect our viewpoints the most. One of the terrible limitations of the human mind is that a lot of us don’t want to be confronted by other ideas, although of course there are some who seek out other ideas and want to hear debates. So you have a problem: can you force people to listen to views they don’t want to listen to? You can’t force people to read a particular newspaper or magazine. But you can ask broadcasters to make sure that they show a range of views.

Right now the range that’s demanded is pretty small, and in fact the broadcasters get yelled at if they go too far outside the normal range. UKIP, for instance, for all those people who think it’s racist and xenophobic and all of those things, does have some interesting arguments about whether Britain is losing sovereignty because of the EU – a reasonable question for any citizen anywhere to ask. But it’s hard of them to get their voices heard. That is problematic and it means that certain debates won’t take place. It’s very difficult in this country to have a debate about a topic like euthanasia, for example.

What should be the number one priority for policy makers going forward?

I think the biggest problem that policy-makers in the UK have to look at right now is what they are going to do about cross media ownership, the range of cross media ownership that is occurring and growing, and those who want to go further. Currently today nobody has effectively come up with a measurement system that really works. Some of the best ones, I think, ultimately come down to audience measures rather than ownership measures, because ownership isn’t the issue, the effect on the public is the real issue. So I think audience measures make sense, there are different ideas as to where the limits should be placed or how you should measure them – those are up for debate and should be discussed.

I think the second thing that needs to be discussed is how to meet the needs of many urban areas today where there are large communities of people who never see themselves in the press, or on television, unless there is a riot or some sort of problem. That is bad for society: somehow, we need to solve that. It’s not a peculiar problem for Britain. It is a problem for many countries, but it is one that needs to be addressed in policy because it is so important in a pluralistic society to make sure that they are represented. Because if they don’t see themselves in the media, in the news, in the issues that are put forward, they can never integrate, they can never fully become part of society.

Media Plurality Series: Fixed ownership limits proposed for transparency and accountability – Justin Schlosberg

Justin SchlosbergIn the second post of our media plurality series, co-hosted with the LSE Media Policy Project, Justin Schlosberg of Birkbeck, University of London discusses his latest research that examined civil society proposals for media plurality measures and models. He argues that such limits and thresholds could limit media power with minimal impact on the market.

What was exposed beyond any doubt at the Leveson Inquiry hearings was the scope of informal access to ministers enjoyed by major media groups, and their willingness to use those channels to ‘communicate’ regularly and intensely in the build up to plurality decisions. We now know that Jeremy Hunt at best misled Parliament about the personal contact he had with News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel in 2011, during the supposedly ‘transparent’ process of deliberation over News Corp’s bid to buy out BSkyB.  That was over and above the more substantive contact between his office and News Corp revealed to Leveson in a series of email exchanges. It is for this reason that the majority of civil society groups – and indeed the majority of the public – have come out strongly in favour of fixed ownership limits as a means of restoring transparency and accountability to plurality policy.

“Clear bright lines” are not “blunt instruments”

Ofcom – in line with commercial media interests – have suggested the opposite: that the power to decide when and how to act on plurality should instead remain with ministers. The arguments underpinning this view rest on a number of shaky assumptions. For one thing, it is often taken for granted that fixed ownership limits are ‘blunt instruments’: that they can unduly penalise groups who merely innovate or survive whilst leaving others untouched who are no less impacting on public conversation.

The sub-text here is that measures upon which ownership limits would be based (such as consumption or revenue metrics) cannot take account of contextual factors which can determine a media group’s ‘share of voice’ and may not be detectable through quantitative indicators of market share. What’s more, the argument goes, media markets are particularly dynamic and subject to rapid change which a static system of ownership limits would be ill-equipped to respond to.

These arguments fail to address the nuances of proposals for ownership limits, many of which stipulate lower and upper thresholds triggering a range of remedies according to specific circumstances and market conditions. My examination of six non-industry proposals[1] submitted to the Lords Select Committee on Communications inquiry into the issue found the following to be the most common:

A Possible consensual position based on most common positions in civil society responses

Civil society consensus table

The concept of ‘absolute limits’ is often assumed to denote a market share threshold at which companies would be forced to either divest or close down. But in fact, we can look at absolute or ‘ceiling’ limits in two distinct ways: an outright prohibition on any group or company that breaches the limit, or a prohibition on any controlling interest within a company that breaches the limit (Ofcom has already provided detailed guidance on how to determine a controlling interest in media companies).

If the latter framework is accepted for remedies in appropriate circumstances (i.e. where straightforward divestment would threaten the viability of a given title as a going concern), there is little basis on which to assert that fixed limits will act as deterrents to innovation of growth. And provided that any system of fixed limits is subject to regular periodic review, there is no reason why ‘clear bright lines’ in plurality policy cannot offer both flexibility and certainty so desired by the industry and Ofcom.

Media Plurality Series: Is Ofcom’s ‘Share of References’ scheme fit for measuring media power? – Steven Barnett

steven_barnettKicking off our joint media plurality series with the LSE Media Policy Project, University of Westminster’s Steven Barnett argues that the “share of references” method of measuring media power is not sufficient. 

At the heart of any discussion about plurality and media ownership lies the concept of power: for democracy to function properly, the exercise of power over public opinion, law-makers, opinion-formers and elite decision-makers must be properly distributed and not become concentrated in a small group of individuals or organisations.

Principles of media power

This essentially abstract notion of media power was implicitly addressed by the communications regulator Ofcom in its advice to the Culture Secretary on “Measuring media plurality” in June 2012. It defined plurality with reference to what it called “desired outcomes of a plural market” and suggested two overarching principles:

• Ensuring there is a diversity of viewpoints available and consumed across and within media enterprises.

• Preventing any one media owner or voice having too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.

These principles were adopted by the government in its consultation on Media, Ownership and Plurality in July 2013 and are generally accepted as a sensible interpretation of the democratic underpinnings of media plurality. They encapsulate the notion of power – over dissemination of news and opinion as well as over hearts and minds – and provide the philosophical basis for intervention in the market to promote a healthy and dynamic democracy.

Measuring media power – Ofcom’s approach

In order to gauge the nature and proportionality of that intervention – at what level concentration becomes dangerous and raises issues of democratically unacceptable power – it is necessary to generate some objective and justiciable criteria. Not only is this important for abstract reasons around justice and fairness, it is also essential for providing clarity to commercial enterprises making vital investment, employment and expansion decisions.

In an era when media sectors were discrete, convergence did not exist and there was little or no cross-ownership, it was relatively easy to impose sectoral limits by audience consumption: traditionally (though not necessarily logically) share of TV viewing, share of newspaper circulation, and share of radio listening. With convergent technologies and cross-ownership now an established fact, we need some kind of “currency” which permits measurement across sectoral boundaries.

Only one such currency has so far been proposed: Ofcom’s “Share of References”. In its June 2012 advice to government, Ofcom elaborated on the Share of References scheme it had first employed for its public interest test of News Corp’s proposed takeover of BSkyB in 2010. That scheme has never really been interrogated as a satisfactory proxy for measuring media power, despite its potential drawbacks.

A full explanation of how the scheme works is contained in Ofcom’s news consumption report published in September 2013. Briefly, share of references is calculated by asking respondents in a representative survey which sources of news they use “nowadays”, and how frequently. Each mention is counted separately and the figures are aggregated, culminating in a share for each news provider expressed as a proportion of all references for all news sources. In Ofcom’s words: “This produces a cross-media metric with consistent methodology and a consistent definition of news across all platforms.”

Share of References: why it is problematic

While superficially offering a solution to the perennial conundrum of cross-media measurement, this metric suffers from one fundamental flaw: by focussing entirely on consumption, it is bound by default to exaggerate the role of television and, in doing so, to distort the true picture of how media power is distributed in the UK.

In pure consumption terms, television’s dominance is clear. According to Ofcom’s 2013 News Consumption report, when asked about their news sources nowadays, 78% said television, 40% newspapers, 35% radio and 32% the internet. This ratio is a wholly predictable function of television’s ubiquity and accessibility, and of course the average 28 hours of weekly viewing. But does that really equate to power?

In three important respects, I believe this metric overstates the power of broadcast media and understates the power of the printed word, whether in hard copy or online.

First, it takes no account of the power to persuade, or the opinion-forming impact of print and online media.  The significance of “impact” was recognised by Ofcom in its 2012 advice to government, and in particular the significant influence which could be exerted by print media’s partiality and its agenda-setting role. However, Ofcom’s ideas for possible measurement “proxies” – importance, impartiality and quality of news source – all favour the television medium despite being, by their own admission, imperfect substitutes.

Impassioned, one-sided argument is an integral and powerful element of a free press. Our national newspapers are highly partisan, and the popular press in particular often elides news and comment.  While we cannot measure to what extent such editorialising drives popular opinion, intuitively a one-sided, opinionated approach will carry more weight than a carefully balanced approach. And yet the power to exercise that passion and thus to influence hearts and minds is entirely absent from this calculation.

Second, it takes no account of the power to set news agendas. Rigorous research is lacking, but there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that our national press plays a hugely important role in driving news agendas. Broadcast newsrooms are usually immersed in mountains of newsprint, and informal conversations with BBC journalists reveal a high level of editorial anxiety when bulletins are not covering a story which has featured prominently in the press.

Then there are the newspaper reviews: twice each evening on Sky and BBC News channels, at the end of every edition of Newsnight, on Sunday morning’s Andrew Marr show, and frequently mentioned on the Daily Politics and the Today programme. Both Sky and the BBC tweet the front pages of next day’s national newspapers every evening.

Third, it takes no account of the power to influence policy makers – parliamentarians, think tankers, civil servants, regulators. In his 2013 book Democracy Under Attack, former Guardian journalist Malcolm Dean published a meticulously researched account of how this press-driven influence has operated in a number of social policy areas. Moreover, evidence to module 3 of the Leveson Inquiry provided abundant evidence of how unduly powerful media corporations exert pressure on politicians and their policy-making. Four successive prime ministers admitted, either implicitly or explicitly, that they were bound too closely to News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch. That kind of power cannot be measured through share of references.

The conclusion is straightforward, even if the ramifications are not. It is inherent in Ofcom’s approach that television’s penetration and popularity equates to power. But that is an assumption which is at best unproven and at worst seriously misleading. If we adopt their Share of References schema uncritically, we may miss dangerous concentrations of power elsewhere. We therefore need to find ways of assessing media power in a broader sense than this limited cross-metrics approach will allow.

This post is adapted from a presentation to the Westminster Media Forum seminar on media plurality, 27 November 2013.

Professor Terry Flew on media policy and influence

Terry Flew, Professor of Media and Communications in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology,  has kindly allowed us to share his recent presentations at City University London.

The first – part of the Sociology guest speaker series – considered the concept of ‘media influence’ and its continuing relevance to media policy in relation to three sets of emerging issues:

  1. Debates about the conduct of newspapers and print media in light of the rise of online news media;

  2. The future of broadcasting regulations and questions of ‘regulatory parity’ with other audiovisual media;

  3. What constitutes a ‘media company’ in the context of convergent media and the rise of digital content intermediaries?

His second presentation, to members of the Centre for Law,  Justice and Journalism, looked at Academics and Activists in the Policy Process: Engagement with Australian Media Inquiries 2011-13. 

After its narrow re-election in June 2010, the Australian Labor government undertook a series of public inquiries into reform of Australian media, communications and copyright laws. One important driver of policy reform was the government’s commitment to building a National Broadband Network (NBN), and the implications this had for existing broadcasting and telecommunications policy, as it would constitute a major driver of convergence of media and communications access devices and content platforms. These inquiries included: the Convergence Review of media and communications legislation; the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) review of the National Classification Scheme; the Independent Media Inquiry (Finkelstein Review) into Media and Media Regulation; and the ALRC review of Copyright and the Digital Economy.

One unusual feature of this review process, discussed in the paper, was the degree to which academics were involved in the process, not simply as providers of expert opinion, but as review chairs seconded from their universities. This paper considers the role played by activist groups in all of these inquiries and their relationship to the various participants in the inquiries, as well as the implications of academics being engaged in such inquiries, not simply as activist-scholars, but as those primarily responsible for delivering policy review outcomes. The latter brings to the forefront issues arising in from direct engagement with governments and state agencies themselves, which challenges traditional understandings of the academic community as “critical outsiders” towards such policy processes.

Terry Flew is Professor of Media and Communications in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. He is the author of New Media: An Introduction (Oxford, 2014 – 4th Edition), Understanding Global Media (Palgrave, 2007), The Creative Industries, Culture and Policy (Sage, 2012), and Global Creative Industries (Policy, 2013). Professor Flew is a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts for Humanities and Creative Arts, and the Research Evaluation Committee (REC) Committee for Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA). During 2011-2012, Professor Flew was seconded to the Australian Law Reform Commission to chair the National Classification Scheme Review.