Marc Raboy, in his book called “Public Service Broadcasting for the 21st Century,” offered an important exploration on the prospectives of public service broadcasting (PSB). He presented several enlightening arguments about the challenges that have dogged public service broadcasting since time immemorial, some which are still the cause of much debate in and around the world. More importantly, he provided several suggestions that could help redefine the concept of PSB in many countries including Malawi.
The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to respond, in a critical way, to Raboy’s arguments on the prospectives of public service broadcasting. In its analysis, this paper shall use the Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) and Television Malawi (TVM) as case studies. Of particular interest to note, for the purposes of this discussion, is that this paper shall accomplish this discussion by responding to Raboy’s arguments from a political economy perspective. It is to the interest of this essay to start by defining what public service broadcasting is, and then a discussion shall follow before drawing the conclusion.
Mpofu (1996:6) notes that “different definitions of PSB exits and the definition of PSB lacks precision, marked by a certain absence of clarity.” However, public service broadcasting has been defined as any broadcasting system whose first duty is to a public within a democracy, serving to inform, educate and entertain, and not serving to fulfill the requirements of commercial interests (Watson and Hill, 1989:142 quoted in Fourie 2001:119). In other words, this broadcasting is supposed to be impartial in serving the welfare of the people without discriminating any group in the country. According to Fourie (2001:119) it is asserted that British broadcasting served as a model for the establishment and functioning of public broadcasting in almost all the rest of world in general and Malawi in particular. Furthermore, there are a number of principles of this broadcasting and some are: universality, provision of minorities especially for the disadvantaged by physical or social circumstances, encourages competition in good programming rather competition for audience numbers and liberates rather than restricts programme-makers (Tracey, 1998:26-27 cited in Fourie, 2001:120). It has been agreed that public broadcasters can enhance governance and development by achieving national reach, providing quality programs and journalism, articulating diversity views and promoting broad public debates (Buckeley, et al 2007:38 cited in Fourie, 2001:121).
However, it is important to note that PSB is undergoing major metamorphoses, which is as a result of a number of factors mainly those concerning the political and economic trends such as concentration, legitimacy, commercialization, liberalization, privatization amongst the others (Fourie, 2001:119). There is also a great concern that these economic trends are leading to decline of PSB. It is precisely from this reason that Raboy was prompted to make a discussion on the prospectives of PSB.
The first argument that Raboy makes is that PSB should be de-linked from both political authority of the state and the economic arbitrage of the market since PSB are linked to the notion of citizenship (Raboy, 2000:4). This is a very good proposition. Indeed any definition of a public service broadcaster should be underscored by the need for independence from the paymaster—whoever is it. However this is very difficult in practice. In fact, it is a far-fetched idea in many counties where democracy is in embryonic stage and even in countries where democracy has taken deep roots. The history of public broadcasting since time immemorial is one of constant political interference from ruling parties and media owners (Mpofu, 1996:12). This is so because politicians, from a political economic perspective, have got vested interests in the public broadcasters since they use them to advance their different ideologies. In Malawi, for example, the public broadcasters are in the hands of the ruling government of day and they try as much as possible to use it for their survival since they have that financial muscle to control them. Furthermore, to propose that PSBs should be de-linked from economic arbitrage of the market since they are linked to the notion of citizenship is also somewhat confusing. Conceptualization of a public as a citizen also requires a view that the same citizens are consumers. This means that the content of any media is sold as a commodity to the consumers who are also citizens (Mc Quail, 2002:10).
Perhaps it is because of this reason that Raboy makes another proposition that “public broadcasters should be allowed to engage in commercially lucrative activities--without being obliged to compete with their own programmes in order to make ends meet” (Raboy). He says due to multi channel environment, PSB should encompass both consumer choice and citizenship programmes. This is very true because in this day and age, no broadcasting unit can function without the power of commercials. In Malawi, for example, when parliament gave the two public broadcasters K1 each, they relied heavily on commercial advertising for their survival.
Raboy also says for public broadcasters to function effectively, there is need for a clear broadcasting policy. He says this can be done “by placing responsibility for the regulation and supervision of broadcasting in the hands of an independent public body.” Indeed, without a clear broadcasting policy, public broadcasting is always in shambles—a case in point being Malawi. The broadcasting policy in Malawi leaves much room to be desired and this has led the two public broadcasters to be used as political pawns. For example, both the Communication Sector Policy Statement and the Communications Act of 1998 are not clear and have so many loopholes to be abused by the state (Manda, 2007:259). In addition, MACRA has failed in its responsibilities because it has not enforced the law against the MBC when the latter has failed to provide impartial broadcasting as required by its public service broadcasting obligations. This may be because MACRA itself is as vulnerable to political interference as is the MBC, since its board of directors and director general are appointed by the executive branch of Government thanks to the loopholes that are in the Communications Act.
Another argument that Raboy puts forward is that of decentralization of public service broadcasting. He says PSB should be decentralized at community, regional other that at centrally national level. This, he says, is important because PSBs tend to abandon local and regional needs as they concentrate around high-profile prestigious services. One cannot agree more. In fact, this is in practice in many countries in the world except Malawi. According to Manyozo and Mwale (2009:3), “decentralization of PSBs into regional broadcasters helps the broadcasters to know and understand cultural, linguistic, economic and political background of the areas. This is important for broadcasting since it allows the audience to share the meanings of broadcasting with the broadcasters.
Perhaps the biggest challenge in Raboy’s writing is to separate public service broadcasting and private broadcasting nowadays since, as he says, private broadcasting, today, also fulfill public service goals. And more interestingly, he says, nowadays, PSBs have integrated objectives of private broadcasting. To this, he proposes that all broadcasting, regardless of being public or private should be considered in a public service framework comprising of different elements each with specific structural arrangements and purposes. However, what Raboy looses sight of is the fact that much as PSB looks to have integrated much with the objectives of private broadcasting, a private broadcaster cannot fulfill to a greater extent the goals of a PSB but they can complement each other. It is a crude fact that PSB is policy driven whilst private broadcasting is profit oriented—and these are two different motives altogether, period. When a PSB has been faced with the dilemma of identity crisis, it may begin to loose touch with the mass of the population to whom it is accountable for funding. (Mpofu, 1996:9).
In conclusion, this essay has looked at and responded to some of Marc Raboy’s arguments on the prospectives of public service broadcasting as presented in the book he edited called Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century. The assertion that this essay makes here is that Marc Raboy’s arguments on the prospectives of public service broadcasting are relevant to the understanding and application of public service broadcasting around the world.
REFERENCES
Fourie, P. (2001). “Characteristics, Trends and the Political Economy of the media,” in P. Fourie, (Ed.). Media Studies: institutions, Theories and issues, Lansdowne, Juta Education.
Fourie, P. (2001). Media Studies: institutions, Theories and issues, Lansdowne, Juta Education
Malawi Communications Act, 1998.
Malawi Communications Sector Policy Statement, 1998
Manda, L.Z (2007). Media in Patel, N and Lsvasand, B, Government and Politics in Malawi. Zomba: Kachere Book Series
Manyozo, L.P and Mwale, P. (2009). Reforming Malawi’s Public Service Broadcasters. Retrieved on Nyasa Times.
McQuail, D. (2002). McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks: Sage
Mpofu, A, (1996). The Role of the Public Broadcaster in a future South Africa Broadcasting Policy Research; The Framework Project in Mpofu, A, Manhando, S and Tomaselli, K, Public Service Broadcasting: Policy Directions Towards 2000.Johannesburg: Anthropos Publishers
Raboy, M. Public Broadcasting for the 21st Century. John Dibbey Publishers
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