JOUR1111 Lecture 7 Reflection - Public Media

In today’s lecture we looked at public media. What it is, who is involved in it, how it functions, what public media produces and its future.

As we learnt today, public media is a taxpayer supported media form with a mission to engage and serve the public, making a profit is not its purpose like in commercial media. Examples of public media in Australia are ABC and SBS and all channels, both in radio and television that they are associated with. The UK’s BBC, which can be called the “Queen/King of all public media”, believes that public media should have public value. Giving value for license fee/taxpayer money and weighing public value against market impact. I think this is great, it puts the public above all others which is a nice change from commercial media types that view advertisers as their real customers.

 Today we focused a lot on SBS and ABC, but there is a general “to-do list” that public media platforms challenge themselves in completing. They work to produce quality, even if the budget is tight, they make themselves relevant to the public, and they strive to engage with the democratic process, work to inform the public and to be independent. I found this to be really quite amazing, it reinforces how much public media focuses on its viewers, not its ratings or money. Because of this to-do list, it makes for many challenges that public media struggles against to continue running. Work on low budgets makes it difficult to compete with radio stations and television channels that get a lot of their funding from advertisers. 

Due to the challenges public media faces, it has a pretty tough journey into the future as it continues to strive to deliver real news stories, and quality programs for the public while still trying to run off of lower budgets than commercial media types. We took a look at the future of public media project from the School of Communication at American University and I found it really interesting, so here is the link: Center for Social Media - American University

Overall, I think the lecture made me appreciate ABC and SBS even more; I’ve always been a fan of a lot of the shows they run. For example, Angry Boys, Summer Heights High Inspector Rex, and ABC’s radio station Triple J, but I think having a better understanding of what they are all about has just made me realize the value of public media and enjoy and love the channels and the radio programs they are associated with that much more. 

-Laura
03/09/2012