Comparing Media Systems: Re-evaluating the Role of the Public Media in the Digital Age

Abstract

This paper is the continuation of my previous PhD research, Journalism and Political Democracy in Brazil, which was published by Lexington Books (March 2008), and was an investigation of the role of the mainstream media in Brazil and in Latin America in the re-democratization phase following the end of the dictatorship in the mid-80’s. Comparing Media Systems is a comparative research analysis which aims to be an initial examination of the state of the public media structures in Europe in contrast to the strengthening of the public media platform in emerging democracies like Brazil as a means of boosting wider cultural and educational levels. It aims to assess the ways in which such an initiative can contribute to the fortification of spaces for debate and the further construction of a complex communication system that can attend to multiple and diverse publics in Latin America. In the context of decline of the PSB tradition in the UK due to digitalisation and market expansionism, this project focuses on the ways in which the public media - attached to a revised understanding of the role that the public sphere ideal can still have in the 21st century - can contribute to deepen media democratisation in the region. These nations have a weak public sector and are seeking to fortify multiple public spheres in order to expand citizens’ information rights, creating the means for cultural emancipation and providing wider access of less privileged groups to quality information and debate.