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STUDY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MEDIA POLICY 17
aims, means and scope’ (2003: 186); the second period between the Second
World War and the 1980s/1990s characterized by the public-service
media paradigm and shaped according to political and normative – rather
than technological – considerations; and the third is the current period
of ‘communications policy’ where the issue of technological and economic
convergence is expressed through decision-making that reflects
the connection of telecommunications and media. The authors’ basis is
that these distinct periods have produced media and communications
policy that correspond to particular perceptions of the state about the
role of the media. During the first period then, they argue, only the press
was seen to have a political, normative function and it was only regulated
with rights to report freely on current social and political affairs (freedom
of expression). The second period perceived the electronic media as of
political and social significance (given their use throughout the Second
World War) and extended the pursuit of national cohesion and stability
(2003: 191). According to the authors, media policy was dominated by
sociopolitical rather than economic concerns (2003: 191). The current
third period is one where ‘pragmatism and populism increasingly drive
policy’ (2003: 197) especially following the ‘ “decline in ideology” and
the fall of Communism, the increased scope and respectability of the free
market and the shift to the right in European politics’ (2003: 197). As van
Cuilenburg and McQuail rightly point out, in the European terrain, the
communications policy philosophy is based on the idea of the market,
which is not dissimilar to the priorities of US communications policy
and indeed policies imposed by the World Bank and the IMF on the
‘developing’ world. The authors ‘predict’ three core values in an emerging
communications paradigm: freedom of communication, access and
accountability (2003: 203).
From the other side of the Atlantic, Marc Raboy (1995), writing about
the public-broadcasting media, echoes some of these predictions. For
Raboy, if the public-service broadcasting system is to have any future, it
would need to pursue and achieve a status of accountability in the era of
fierce competition from private broadcasters. As he notes ‘the promotion
of the public interest can only come through regulation guaranteeing
system access for all with something to communicate, as well as for receivers’(1995:14).
Both sets of authors seem to argue for state intervention
in the media market but not state control over them. Indeed, state intervention
has been identified in terms of policy – whether as a positive or
negative strategy – as a determining factor in shaping the course of policy
philosophy and ideology, objectives and output.
Communications policy scholars, such as Abramson and Raboy (1999);
Collins (1994, 2003); Harcourt (2005); Harrison and Woods (2001);