This week focused on the opposite of last week's topic of Commercial Media. Public media has different goals and expectations than commercial media and perhaps more responsibility. I learnt that we should make more use of public media, because they are providing the "real" news.
Public media is any form of reporting that was produced to serve the public and not make a profit. Within the Australia Media Landscape, public media channels includes ABC and SBS (both TV and radio). The "Community Media" includes channels like 31 Digital and 4ZZZ. The International Media Landscape's public media includes BBC, PBS, TVNZ and CBC.
In our society, public media allows support of democratic processes. "Public value" is what public media means to produce - things that can help society. According the BBC, public value involves:
- striving to serve the public
- quality to overlook the license fee
- "weighing public value against market impact"
- public consultation
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| The ABC Channel. |
The ABC and SBS channels produce many types of media, including: news, drama, radio, comedy and documentaries. The ABC was made to promote the nation and has certainly achieved that. Many watch this channel for greater opinion and more intelligent shows. SBS was made as a "multicultural" channel, it features many shows from many different shows. My father watches the "Hindi News" on SBS every single day, and I believe that this channel has allowed us access to a greater extent of information that is not usually presented on other news channels. It can be seen that public media promotes greater thinking and more information. It promotes the nation in many ways:
- building on it
- heritage
- identity
- conversations
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| The SBS Channel. |
There is a commercial aspect of PM, but it strives more to serve the public than make profits. Reports show that 41% of Australians watch ABC news. Their radio channels are the only ones that provide an insight and analysis of current affairs. Personally, I watch SBS "World News" because they are able to address issues globally, which I find more informative. They also provide interviews with politicians. Last week's reading on Commercial Media showed that they had to reduce politics in their channels due to the lack of interest. However, if politics surrounds are society, so why should we remove it from our media?
People may think of PM as "serious", "boring", "importance rather than interest" and even "elitist". However, PM can provide information that is important to our society and make insight and analysis of that. Due to this alone, I believe PM is successful and although these feeling above may turn others away it will still attract an audience. Both channels have also introduced more entertainment shows (which are still intelligent) so they should attract more audience.
I believe PM has achieved many things, they have provided and are:
- quality programs
- being relevant to their audience
- supporting democratic processes
- informing the public
- independent
Their only challenge, in my opinion, is to continue to deliver this. Many politicians have questioned the agendas of PM and whether they are bias. However, 85% of Australians disagree with this. There are many shows where politicians are able to debate with each other and show their own perspectives. Now days, journalists must always report both sides of a story, even if they do not personally agree with one side. I think this shows true reporting, because in Psychology we must always show the disadvantages and advantages of any findings. From this can we show that we are insightful and not limited with our thinking.
This lecture has definitely made me more interested in PM. It is about time I explore more of the shows that both ABC and SBS offer. "Four Corners" is an interesting show which analyses many current affair, I definitely recommend it to anyone!
Sources of Images used (in order of appearance)
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