Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

4 Governing the backbone of
cultures: broadcasting policy
A whole generation of urban young people now in their 20s grew up
with only a vague memory of a media system that consists of two or,
at a maximum, three television channels. In Europe, children born in
the 1980s have reached young adulthood with MTV and to a significant
extent have learned about human relationships – and fashion – through
Friends, Frasier, Big Brother and Sex and the City. The idea alone that
their media lives could be limited to wildlife and historical documentaries
seems absurd. The very thought that they – or more possibly their
parents, since they still live at home – have to pay monthly fees to receive
channels they do not watch is illogical. The suggestion that, not so long
ago, there used to be a state monopoly over television seems archaic at
best. Often, in the classroom it is difficult to generate support for Public
Service Broadcasting (PSB) among students, who although they may
know to appreciate that private television is largely about Hollywood and
imitations thereof, do not necessarily have PSB on their agenda of glamorous
entertainment. In the United States, where the project of public
service television seems to be financially suspended in a vegetative state,
because of the firm hand of commercial broadcasting, the whole concept
of non-commercial broadcasting has been pushed to the margins of
public discussion. This is not to say that Americans or young Europeans
are oblivious to the politics of commercialization of the media. However,
in the eyes of Hollywood-raised audiences, non-commercial media
have not managed to escape the dry language of their past, the same way
that criticism of the big bully – Capitalism – has not escaped its association
with colourless and monotonous left-wing politics that have ceased
to inspire and excite young blood. Whether the above described images
correspond to reality or stereotypes is possibly relevant to the ways
in which the questions about public service broadcasting and publicly
owned media in general have been framed. Is Gramsci’s analysis of hegemony
in maintaining the domination of capital pointing to a haunting
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