Des Freedman

Dynamics of power in contemporary media policy-making

Despite the growing interest in the organization and regulation of media industries, there is relatively little public discussion of the material processes through which media policy is developed. At a time of considerable change in the global media environment, new actors and new paradigms are emerging that are set to shift the balance of power between public and private interests in the policy-making process. This article focuses on some core challenges to the pluralist conception of public policy-making that still dominates today and considers whether key aspects of UK and American media policy-making can be said to be competitive, accessible, transparent or rational. Based on interviews with a wide range of ‘stakeholders’, the article assesses the power dynamics that underlie media policy-making and argues that the process is skewed by the taken-for-granted domination of market ideology.

Media Policy Silences: The Hidden Face of Communications Decision Making:

The analysis of media policy usually, and understandably, focuses on visible instances of policy action : of government intervention, regulatory activity, civil society engagement, and corporate initiatives. Less frequently considered is the process by which certain issues, frames, and proposals are neglected inside decision-making structures. This article reflects on the relationship between “industrial activism” and policy silences in relation to government desire to secure a digital communications infrastructure for the twenty-first century. It argues that policy analysts need to look beyond immediate and visible instances of decision making in the media field and examine the ideological processes of exclusion and marginalization that distort media policy making and undermine the emergence of alternative paradigms and policy outcomes.

Managing pirate culture: Corporate responses to peer-to-peer networking

Abstract The Internet provides a challenge to existing media structures and cultural values, particularly in the distribution of recorded music. Peer‐to‐peer (P2P) file‐sharing sites like Napster and KaZaA have facilitated the widespread downloading of unlicensed music and the creation of a new kind of shared culture. In response, the established music industry is simultaneously attempting to undermine the impact of these exchanges (describing them as theft) and to take advantage of the possibilities of the Internet in reducing distribution costs and offering the possibility of a more direct relationship between labels and consumers. By drawing on both historical and contemporary analyses of the music industry, this article critiques the argument that digital downloads are necessarily hurting legal’ record sales and then problematises dominant definitions of piracy. The article then evaluates the evolving strategies of the major record companies as they try to come to terms with P2P culture and concludes that, while they may have the resources and the legal clout to withstand the challenge, they lack the cultural capital embodied in these new decentralised systems of cultural distribution and consumption.

Who Wants to be a Millionaire? The politics of television exports

Globalization developments are presenting television programme-makers with the possibility of expanding programme sales on the international market. This article focuses on the various initiatives of the UK government to support an export-led strategy, and evaluates the consequences of such a strategy on domestic programming. Highlighting the current trend towards the sale of programme formats, the article further considers whether the increased circulation of television programmes around the world points to a model of interconnectedness and heterogeneity or whether it reinforces unequal patterns of media flows. Drawing on interviews with government advisers and regulators, the article concludes that the promotion of an export-led strategy is economically and culturally flawed and is linked to the UK governments strategy to liberalize trade in services rather than a commitment to increase cultural diversity.

Metrics, models and the meaning of media ownership

Concentrated media ownership has become an increasingly salient issue in the context of global demands for social justice and democracy. This article calls for cultural policy analysts to highlight issues of media ownership and maps out three approaches to ownership that are designed to provide a more holistic account of the problems and potential solutions. Attention is first paid to ‘metrics’ and the gathering of quantitative data; next, to the generation of normative models of media ownership; and then, to an ideological perspective on ownership that locates it in relation to systems of thought and action that privilege particular ways of thinking about and ordering the world. By arguing for a renewed focus on ownership that is based on the integration of all three perspectives into a more holistic methodology, the article aims to provide scholars with a conceptual and a strategic framework for understanding and intervening in ongoing debates about the dynamics of contemporary cultural industries.

Media and terrorism: global perspectives

Media and Terrorism brings together leading scholars to explore how the worlds media have influenced, and in turn, been influenced by terrorism and the war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11. Accessible and user-friendly with lively and current case studies, it is a perfect student text and is an essential handbook on the dynamics of war and the media in a global context.

Cultural Policy-Making in the Free Trade Era: An Evaluation of the Impact of Current World Trade Organisation Negotiations on Audio-Visual Industries

The delicate compromise concerning the regulation of world trade in audio‐visual materials is about to be upset. Ongoing negotiations under the World Trade Organisations General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) are seeking to establish, in the words of US negotiators, “clear, dependable and predictable trade rules” for transnational media exchanges. This article evaluates the impact of the GATS on audio‐visual industries and considers the extent to which cultural industries fit into the framework of multilateral trade talks. Based on interviews with trade officials in the WTO and the UK Department of Trade and Industry, the article concludes that liberalising and deregulatory policy shifts are more likely to emanate from corporate and state environments than from the slow and detailed negotiations in WTO headquarters in Geneva where “defensive” interests appear to be dominating over “offensive” ones.

What use is a public inquiry? Labour and the 1977 Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting:

In the light of increasing concern today about the uncertain future of British television, this article investigates the effectiveness of the public inquiry as a means of broadcasting reform. In particular, it focuses on the 1977 Annan Committee on the Future of Broadcasting and assesses the extent to which the committee was a victory for those who wished to open up broadcasting structures. Pressure for a full-scale review of British broadcasting had been building up since the late 1960s and the case for broadcasting democratization was, by 1974, clearly identified with the left. The article examines both the contributions made by those on the left of the Labour Party to the committee together with the motivations of the Labour government in agreeing to an inquiry, and suggests that the final report was a model example of a compromise between different visions of broadcasting.

The Phone Hacking Scandal: Implications for Regulation

On Monday, 4 July 2011, the Guardian first revealed that an investigator working for Britain’s (then) top-selling Sunday newspaper, the News of the World (NOTW), had hacked into the cell phone of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler. There was immediate public outrage and a huge amount of media coverage. Two days later, corporate lobbyists, public affairs directors, broadcasters, producers and politicians came together in an exclusive Westminster Media Forum to debate “industry priorities for the new Communications Bill.” In the introductory session, leading figures from Britain’s top media companies all agreed that the forthcoming legislation needed to focus purely on strategies for stimulating economic growth and promoting deregulation. There was not a single dissenting voice on the platform. I asked from the floor whether, given the breaking public scandal concerning phone hacking, there were any noneconomic priorities, for example the promotion of ethical behavior, that needed to be a policy focus.

Media Policy Fetishism

Recent studies have demonstrated that media policy is not a clean, administrative, depoliticized, and unproblematically evidence-based space but instead, an ideological power field in which certain preferences are confirmed and others marginalized. In this context, this article proposes that we focus on the fetishistic character of the media policy process, understood in relation to the loss of control over the decision-making arena and the outsourcing of political agency to external forces. The article focuses on both the dimensions of “everyday fetishism” (its capacity to naturalize commodification processes and to reify social life) as well as its relevance to media policy debates concerning press freedom and the pursuit of media pluralism. It reflects on how a fetishistic policy distorts key policy principles, restricts access to policymaking arenas and mystifies the process as a whole so that it becomes a “spectral” activity from which ordinary citizens are largely excluded. The article finally considers three key ways in which publics can re-connect themselves to the policy process and, in doing so, to invigorate and democratize the struggles for media justice we face today.