Innovations in Public Service Media Policies

In an era of social, political, and economic polarisation, the role of public service media (PSM) in safeguarding a robust and diverse public sphere is arguably more crucial than ever; yet PSM is battling severe challenges of dwindling resources, fragmenting audiences, distrust and disinformation, and, consequently, growing demands for accountability. The main goal of this research network is to develop a research agenda for the next phase of PSM development in order to address the gap in solution-oriented academic and applied research on innovations in PSM policies.

The recent backlash against big Internet companies such as Facebook and Google, amidst mounting concerns over the spread of 'fake news' on social media platforms, the creation of online 'filter bubbles' and the rise of 'clickbait' journalism, has arguably opened up a window of opportunity for envisaging policy innovations in PSM. There is growing recognition of the fundamental role that PSM institutions (if adequately funded and underpinned by an enabling regulatory framework) can play in maintaining high standards of journalism, supporting indigenous forms of media and cultural production, and in general countering the increasingly glaring failures of a profit-driven digital eco-system controlled by a handful of very powerful and yet unaccountable Internet giants.

This project thus addresses the urgent need for bringing together the academic research community with a wide range of PSM stakeholders to re-imagining the future of PSM in the context of today's major digital challenges. By facilitating research collaborations and knowledge exchange, and through discussion of case-studies illustrating innovation in PSM policy and strategy, this research networking project will develop an interdisciplinary research agenda and formulate policy recommendations.

These objectives will be achieved through a series of four thematic workshops each addressing a major area of PSM policy and strategy: 1. Innovation in PSM funding models; 2. Innovation in PSM content and services; 3. Innovation in access and discoverability of PSM content; and 4. Innovation in participatory practices to promote greater PSM accountability.

Each workshop will strive to be solution-oriented leading to policy recommendations, and will be organised around a number of case-studies of PSM policy to be presented by invited speakers - both academics from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds as well as representatives from the industry, civil society and regulators. The issues highlighted through the case-studies will lead to broader discussions and in the end enable to tackle some of the 'big' questions in relation to the general theme of each workshop. A Steering Group comprising 10 internationally recognised scholars and high-level representatives of key PSM stakeholder organisations, including the BBC and Ofcom, will guide and oversee the project. This group will meet for a full day at the inception of the project to set the agenda for each workshop and to select case-studies and invited speakers and for half-day at the end of the project to review the network's outputs and evaluate its achievements.

The project is designed to facilitate networking among academics from different disciplinary backgrounds with a common interest in understanding how to support a robust communication ecosystem and to foster dialogue and collaborations between academia and key PSM stakeholder organisations. The collaborative, multi-stakeholder workshops themselves are a central pathway to impact. Other dissemination and impact activities will include a project website regularly updated with news and blogs about the project, four workshop reports with contributions by participants, and, finally, a policy briefing report published by the U. of Westminster Press as part of the CAMRI Policy Briefs series and distributed to PSM stakeholders and to news outlets covering media policy issues.

WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THIS NETWORK?
The research will have a wide range of beneficiaries beyond the academic research community, including:
- The BBC, with one senior representative in the Network's Project Steering Group (Andrew Scadding, Head of Public Affairs);
- International PSM organisations (YLE, the Finnish PSM, and ORF, the Austrian PSM, will each have one representative on the Project Steering Group; representatives of other European PSM organisations will be invited to participate in the workshops);
- The main sector association, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), a senior member of whom will sit on the Project Steering Group (Roberto Suárez Candel, Head of Strategy & Media Intelligence);
- Media advocacy groups, who want to influence national and supranational policies and advice their members on PSM best-practice. The CEO of the Public Media Alliance (PMA), Sally-Ann Wilson, will sit on the Project Steering Group;
- UK policy-makers and regulators, including Ofcom (the communications regulator) with a high-level representative on Steering Group (Simon Terrington, Content Policy Director) and the Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DMCS), the government branch with responsibility over the regulation of PSM and ensuring its sustainability (representatives of which will be invited to the workshops);
- UK citizens and BBC licence fee-payers, who will be the ultimate beneficiaries of a project aiming at strengthening PSM institutions and fostering a robust public sphere.

HOW WILL THEY BENEFIT FROM THIS NETWORK?
In the collaborative space offered by the network's multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary workshops, non-academic institutional beneficiaries will have the opportunity to engage with the findings of academic research from different fields and disciplines that are relevant to PSM and discuss the policy and strategic implications of such research in relation to the major challenges confronting PSM organisations in technologically-advanced media systems. The network will aim to identify policy innovations in relation to each of the four thematic areas (funding, content innovation, distribution and accountability) drawing on the research findings presented by academics and on the insider knowledge and expertise of various stakeholder organisations.

The network's main activities and dissemination strategies are specifically designed to realise impact beyond academia. The collaborative, multi-stakeholder workshops themselves are a central pathway to impact. They are designed to facilitate knowledge co-creation and transfer for both institutional and social impact. To ensure that the research insights generated by the network from case-study analysis and its key policy recommendations are disseminated beyond the academic community, impact activities (described in greater detail in the 'Pathways to Impact' attachment) will include:
- Two Project Steering Group meetings at the inception and conclusion of the project;
- Four stakeholder-academe workshops (members of the Project Steering Group and other representatives of PSM stakeholders will be among the participants);
- An open-access website with regular updates and blogs on the project;
- Four workshop reports with multimedia features (such as audio and video interviews) to be published on the Network's website;
- A policy briefing report printed by the U. of Westminster Press and distributed widely to news outlets and stakeholder organisations;
- At least two news reports/commentaries on the project published in non-academic outlets with a general-interest readership (such as The Conversation);
- A two-hour Town Hall-style panel in Workshop 4 on PSM accountability and participatory practices focusing on the views of younger audiences. Students from the U. of Westminster will be invited to participate (more info on the format of this panel is provided in the Pathways to Impact attachment).