Damian Tambini

Post-national citizenship

This article examines the historical and conceptual background to the current discussion of post-national citizenship. It is argued that concepts of nation and citizenship took on new meanings and became closely connected with the rise of the modern nation-state. Nation and citizenship became key institutions determining access to resources, patterns of solidarity and the active participation that we call citizenship. As the economic and cultural structures upon which national citizenship depend are undermined, it is necessary to review the different ways in which citizenship depends upon the identity, homogeneity and culture which constructions of the nation have in the past provided.

WHAT ARE FINANCIAL JOURNALISTS FOR

In order to understand why so little media attention was paid to risks in the banking sector in the run up to the financial crisis, we need to understand the framework of law, regulation, self-regulation and professional incentives that structure the practice of financial and business journalism. This paper focuses in particular on what role financial journalists play in the system of corporate governance, the ways in which law and regulation recognize that role, and the extent to which this role is accepted and understood by financial journalists themselves. The first part of the essay reviews recent debate on financial journalism and investigates the role of financial journalism from a systemic perspective: looking at its role in corporate governance, and its impact on market behaviour. I develop the notion that financial and business journalists operate within a framework of rights and duties which institutionalize a particular ethical approach to their role. The second half of the article, which draws more extensively on interviews conducted with journalists and editors, asks how journalists themselves understand and describe their role and what they see as the key challenges they face as they attempt to perform it. It emerges that there is no consensus among financial and business journalists about their “watchdog” role in relation to markets and corporate behaviour, and whilst the financial journalists interviewed tended to agree on the key challenges they face, they are uncertain how to respond to them.

Overview of digital television switchover policy in Europe, the United States and Japan

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review current policy and practice in management of analogue‐digital switch in broadcasting.Design/methodology/approach – The paper adopts a case study approach.Findings – The paper finds that with regard the objectives of switch‐off, the broad policy aims of clearing spectrum, modernising infrastructure, and improving the services to the consumer are shared across the major countries studied. Uncertainty about the cash value and potential alternative uses of spectrum is natural given rapid technological change, but the common potential broadcasting uses include mobile television, high definition digital terrestrial television, and more digital broadcasters and channels, including regional and local developments.Research limitations/implications – The study is restricted to Europe, Japan and North America.Practical implications – The study has implications for assessment of European switchover strategies and role of Digital Terrestrial.Originality/value – There ar...

Explaining monoculturalism: Beyond Gellner's theory of nationalism

For Ernest Gellner, nationalism occurs in the modern period because industrial societies, unlike agrarian ones, need homogeneous languages and cultures in order to work efficiently. Thus, states an...

Measuring Media Plurality in the United Kingdom: Policy Choices and Regulatory Challenges

The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom is co-financed by the European University Institute and the European Union.

Has government been mediatized? A UK perspective:

There has been little empirical research to date on the consequences of mass media change for the processes of government in the United Kingdom, despite a well-documented concern since the 1990s with ‘political spin’. Studies have focussed largely on the relative agenda setting power of political and media actors in relation to political campaigning rather than the actual everyday workings of public bureaucracies, although UK case studies suggest that the mass media have influenced policy development in certain key areas. The study of government’s relations with media from within is a small but growing sub-field where scholars have used a combination of methods to identify ways in which central bureaucracies and executive agencies adapt to the media. We present the results of a preliminary study involving in-depth interviews with serving civil servants, together with archival analysis, to suggest that media impacts are increasingly becoming institutionalized and normalized within state bureaucracies: a process we identify as mediatization. A specific finding is a shift in the relationship between government, media and citizens whereby social media is enabling governments to become news providers, bypassing the ‘prism of the media’ and going direct to citizens.

WikiLeaks, National Security and Cosmopolitan Ethics

On Tuesday 22 November 2010, New York Times editor Bill Keller attended a tense meeting with national security advisors in Washington. (Keller 2011: 5). During the same week, his counterpart at the Guardian newspaper in London, Alan Rusbridger, met with UK government officials and representatives of the US government. The discussions focused on the security implications of plans to publish news stories selected from a cache of more than 250,000 secret cables that whistle-blower website WikiLeaks had received from an anonymous source. Would publication lead to persecution of US informants and activists operating in authoritarian countries? Would frontline troops be placed in immediate danger by the release of their position, equipment or plans? Both journalists and government representatives were concerned that making the information public could compromise the security of diplomatic sources, agents and interests.

Devolution and the Media

Discusses the demand for a more devolved media institutions in Great Britain. Three fundamental concerns of devolution; Role of the broadcasting industry; investments for devolution; how devolution may cause a shift in the newspaper market; Apprehensions about a devolved mass media.

Strategy or Identity? The Northern League at a Crossroad: Two Interviews with Bossi and Rocchetta

Like movements such as Vlaamsblock in Belgium and the National Front in France, the Northern League in Italy deployed an ethno-territorial identity to motivate and organize its supporters. Also like Vlaamsblock, it demanded the fiscal autonomy of Northern regions from the Southern ones, and a federal constitution to replace the unitary one. As the League becomes more involved in governing Italy, however, the movement has to decide if its goals are genuinely federalist, or if the rhetoric of autonomism was merely a strategy to gain power. Interviews with two League leaders reveal internal disagreement on these matters. It is not difficult to find League people in the Italian Parliament these days.

Consumer representation in UK communications policy and regulation

Purpose – The paper seeks to examine the role of consumer representation in communications policymaking with a focus on the UK. It aims to review the role of the Communications Consumer Panel and to argue that there is an important role to play for a consumer advocate due to behavioural biases, information overload, and market failure.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on analysis of all relevant reports and documentation published by the Ofcom Consumer Panel, as well as participant observation carried out by the author as a member of the panel. It also analyses switching data to make the case that the communications sector may be unique in terms of the low levels of switching between suppliers.Findings – The paper finds that there is an ongoing role for a consumer advocate in media and communications and that this body should be independent of government and the regulatory agency.Research limitations/implications – The limitation of this research is that it focuses principally on only one s...