European Media Policy Research Articles

Reasserting the public interest in European media policy

This article considers the question of private sector pressure and its effect on the making of public policy. It argues that policy-makers sometimes do not consider all possible policy options due to lobbying by powerful interests. The Television Without Frontiers EU directive was significantly weakened as a result of such pressure she argues, to the detriment of public service broadcasting (PSB), particularly for children. She argues that pressure to ensure the survival of PSB can be brought to bear on policy-makers through such organizations as the Citizens Coalition for Public Service Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, and urges academics to engage with this and similar initiatives.

Community media in the context of European media policies

In the last three decades the emergence and development of community media across Europe has been mainly characterised by the political and social contexts at the national levels and, consequently, the sector is shaped by a range of opportunities and challenges that depend on the status of current policy, legislation and funding regimes in each country. Where at the pan-European level, since the 1970s, the Council of Europe has been supporting community media as a means for pluralism and diversity in the media, as well as a tool to promote social cohesion, in the European Union audiovisual and media policies, community media have been largely overlooked. In 2008 the Culture and Education Committee of the European Parliament promoted a report to support community media in the Union, signalling a new development pursuing to influence media policy discussion in the member states. This article aims to trace the contours of community media’s route across European media policies to assess how its practice has been shaped so far and discuss the emerging issues that are likely to influence its near future.

Advertising in Online Games and EC Audiovisual Media Regulation

Advertising in Online Games (AOG) has received much attention in recent reports on the future of advertising. Consulting firms, market research institutes, leading e-marketing magazines, influential bloggers, and mass media assess and comment on the potential of these new models of advertising. The present article looks at AOG from the viewpoint of European audiovisual media law and policy. It suggests a typology of both online games and AOG. Based on that typology, the author introduces AOG as an object of regulation; evaluates motives, technical justifications and objectives in favour of regulating AOG; and analyses critically the new EC Audiovisual Media Services Directive as a prospective regulatory tool to accomplish these objectives.

Media policy in Europe: compromising between nationalism and mass markets

Three sets of arguments are presented, which are for and against the development of a European Community (EC) cultural policy and also seem to apply to the development of a European media policy. These arguments cluster around the ‘mass’ character of the media, the relationship between economy and culture and the loss of national identities. In a concluding paragraph the arguments will be summarized by presenting two different, and more or less opposite, approaches to the formulation of an EC media policy.