Innovations in Public Service Media Policies

Lead Research Organisation: University of Westminster
Department Name: Faculty of Media Arts and Design

Abstract

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.

Planned Impact

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).

Publications

10 25 50
 
Description The objectives of the project were met through the following main activities: an initial Steering Group meeting (Sept 2019), two face-to-face stakeholder-academe workshops (before the first national lockdown in the Spring of 2020) and an online discussion forum with PSM experts and stakeholders plus webinar (Dec 2020-ongoing). These activities offered a platform for fruitful dialogue between academic experts and key PSM stakeholders, including Ofcom (UK communication regulator), UK PSBs BBC and Channel 4, other European PSM organisations (YLE in Finland and ORF In Austria) and international PSM advocacy groups (EBU, PMA). Representatives from these stakeholder organisations, and others, took active part in the project contributing with presentations, the sharing of resources and open discussions. The involvement with the project of the members of our Steering Group (10 internationally recognised scholars and high-level representatives of key PSM stakeholder organisations, including the BBC and Ofcom) exceeded our initial expectations. Not only was the first meeting with the Steering Group at the inception of the project in which we sought their input on the themes of the four planned workshops instrumental at enabling us to focus on the most pressing needs for PSM stakeholders that researchers should focus on, redefining the themes indicated in the proposal. It also led to two genuinely academia-stakeholder collaborations among members of the Steering Group for two of the four planned workshops (more on which below). The first workshop in London (Nov 2019) focussed on identifying key policy issues and research priorities in the field of PSM studies. It also mapped models of research collaboration, highlighting best practices via presentations delivered by other active research groups and networks (IAMPR/RIPE, Public Media Stack, the European Public Open Space EPOS and the AHCR-funded Nesta's Policy and Evidence Centre for the Creative Industries). A total of 26 representatives of PSM stakeholders and academics participated in this workshop. The second workshop in Helsinki on "PSM and young people" (Feb 2020) was co-designed and co-hosted by Ritva Leino of YLE and Prof Hannu Nieminen of the U. of Helsinki, both members of our Steering Group. Their lead in organising this event is a testament to our successful strategy in engaging the Steering Group and facilitating dialogue and collaborations between academia and stakeholders. Over the course of two days, presentations and participation by a total of 28 representatives of PSM stakeholders showcased case-studies of programmes and services for young people that demonstrate innovation in PSM operations, one of the key objectives of our Research Networking project. The workshop resulted in several insights on current best practices in youth TV content production (e.g., researching target audience's life-worlds and involving both young audiences and other relevant stakeholders in various forms of 'co-creation'); key policy issues (e.g., the need of going beyond quantitative metrics for measuring success and impact); and research priorities (e.g., the need to gain a more nuanced understanding of 'micro generations' within the broad category 'young people'). Thanks to YLE, we were able to document the way of working in the second workshop: https://innopsm.net/2020/03/02/video-of-the-second-workshop/ We suspended the Network between April 2020 and October 2020 owing to the impossibility of running face-to-face events due to the Covid-19 pandemic crisis. In the context of the first national lockdown in the UK, we couldn't run the last two of the four planned workshops (April 2020 and May 2020), both of which were by that time at an advanced stage of planning. Other activities that were affected by Covid-19 included attendance at two international academic conferences where we were going to present the results of the project (RIPE 2020 in Geneva) and run a panel session with some of the members of our Steering Group on 'Policy Innovation for Public Service Media: Building a Network for New Research Agendas and Multi-stakeholder Collaborations' (Media Industries Conference 2020 at King's College in London). Upon resuming the project in Nov 2020, given continuing restrictions to traveling and holding events, we adapted our original plans. We turned the 'Envisioning Public Service Media/Internet Utopias', our fourth and final workshop co-designed by two other members of our Steering Group, Klaus Unterberger from Austrian PSB organisation ORF and Prof Christian Fuchs of the U. of Westminster, into an online discussion forum with PSM experts and stakeholders hosted by eComitee, a community management tool that allows participants to provide answers to the initial questions and supports an online text-based discussion. This activity resulted in the publication of the Public Service Media Manifesto, the fruit of collaborative work. (https://ia902206.us.archive.org/5/items/psmi_20220127/psmi.pdf). The Manifesto gathered over 1,300 endorsements (at the time of writing in March 2023), including from lead thinkers such as Noam Chomsky and Jürgen Habermas. The research and other material that informed the creation of the Manifesto were published as an open-access book by the University of Westminster Press in 2021 (https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/).
Exploitation Route The key insights of the two in-person workshops we ran as part of the Network have been summarised in two reports which have been uploaded on the project's public website as well as circulated via other channels (a FB group of PSM experts, university newsletters). They can be found here: https://innopsm.net/

The 'Envisioning Public Service Media/Internet Utopias' activity resulted in the publication of the Public Service Media Manifesto (https://ia902206.us.archive.org/5/items/psmi_20220127/psmi.pdf). The research and other material that informed the creation of the Manifesto were published as an open-access book by the University of Westminster Press in 2021 (https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/).

As a central pathway to impact, these workshops have offered participants, both academics and stakeholders, an opportunity to share knowledge, create or cement contacts and develop new research collaborations.
Sectors Creative Economy

Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software)

Culture

Heritage

Museums and Collections

URL https://innopsm.net/
 
Description The main activities of the 'InnoPSM' Research Networking project, namely two face-to-face workshops (in 2019/20 pre-Covid-19) and an online discussion forum/webinar (in 2020-21 post-Covid), were themselves a central pathway to impact as they led to knowledge co-creation and transfer between academics and PSM stakeholders. These events were co-designed by the PI and Co-I with the non-academic members of the project's Steering Group and saw the participation of several representatives of PSM stakeholders in the UK and beyond, including Ofcom (UK communication regulator), UK PSBs BBC and Channel 4, other European PSM organisations (YLE in Finland and ORF in Austria) and international PSM advocacy groups (EBU, PMA). They offered a genuinely collaborative and open platform for the exchange of knowledge and ideas. During the lifetime of the project, other opportunities arose for additional engagement activities and outputs (beyond those initially planned) that were conducive to further impact. In Sept 2020 the PI and Co-I were invited by Madiana Asseraf-Jacob, Head of Business Development & Young Audiences at EBU Media, to join a roundtable event with professionals based at EBU member organisations working on youth content. Co-I Minna Horowitz briefed participants on the InnoPSM Research Network and on the takeaways from the second workshop on PSM & Young People (Helsinki, Feb 2020). The EBU Youth report, released in November 2020 (www.ebu.ch/publications/youth-report), acknowledges the involvement of its lead author in the InnoPSM Research Network which is credited 'for having inspired some of the reflections of this report by creating dialogues between academics and PSM youth programme makers'. In 2021 the PI and Co-I co-authored a short essay for the ORF's Pubic Value Study 2021 where they reflected on the key takeaways of the InnoPSM project. The ORF Public Value Studies is a series of annual publications by the Austrian national public service broadcasting organisation whose readership includes PSM professionals and stakeholders. The piece can be found here: https://zukunft.orf.at/show_content2.php?s2id=534?uage=en. In Jan 2020, the PI received funding from the University of Westminster's Developing Researchers' Funding Scheme (£11,985) for hiring a Research Fellow to work on a research proposal, building on the activities of the ongoing Research Network project. This resulted in an AHRC Research Grant Standard Proposal 'Citizens in the Making: Young People and Public Service Media', with the Co-I Minna Horowitz, that was submitted in Sept 2020 (FEC: £258,563). Although the project wasn't eventually funded it was rated highly by the three reviewers. In 2021, owing to the visibility gained through convening the InnoPSM Research Network, the PI and Co-I were elected co-President and Vice-President of the International Association of Public Media Researchers (IAMPR) for the next 3 years. The mission of the IAPMR) is 'to advance contemporary theory and actionable research to clarify, support and facilitate the development of Public Service Broadcasting (PSB) and Public Service Media (PSM) as a vital requirement to safeguard democratic interests and practices in the 21st century'. The association has in place partnerships with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Public Media Alliance (PMA), the two leading PSM advocacy groups. During 2021 and 2022, we ran a series of webinars (IAPMR@Dialogues), launched a brand-new newsletter published quarterly and organised the bi-annual RIPE@ conference series (in its 11th edition). Taking place in Vienna, Austria in Sept 2022. Running the IAMPR is offering the PI and Co-I a platform through which to further the InnoPSM agenda of fostering dialogue and research collaborations between academia and the PSM wider community and promoting the development of this research field. During our mandate, we have had informal knowledge exchange and strategy meetings with the EBU and PMA. Information on all IAPMR's activities can be found on the Association's newly launched website: https://iapmr.media/
First Year Of Impact 2020
Sector Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
Impact Types Economic

Policy & public services

 
Description University of Westminster's Developing Researchers' Funding Scheme
Amount £11,985 (GBP)
Organisation University of Westminster 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 03/2020 
End 06/2020
 
Description EBU Young Audiences Update meeting (25 Sept 2020) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact We were invited by Madiana Asseraf-Jacob, Head of Business Development & Young Audiences at EBU Media, to join a roundtable event with professionals based at EBU member organisations working on youth content. The aim of the meeting was to give EBU members an update of EBU Young Audiences-related activities and to do a tour de table to understand their priorities and needs.

Our brief was to give a 10-min presentation highlighting the main takeaways from our Research Network's Workshop 2 on PSM & Young People (Helsinki, February 2020).

The presentation was delivered by Minna Horowitz, International Co-I.

The EBU is the leading alliance of public service media (PSM) organisations, with 119 member organizations in 56 countries in Europe, and an additional 34 Associates in Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas.

The EBU Youth report and a new website were released in November 2020, after the roundtable event: www.ebu.ch/publications/youth-report

The Special Thanks section, where our involvement is acknowledged, testifies to the impact of our collaboration with EBU: "To Minna Aslama Horowitz and Alessandro D'Arma of University of Westminster and University of Helsinki for having inspired some of the reflections of this report by creating dialogues between academics and PSM youth programme makers'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.ebu.ch/publications/youth-report
 
Description Envisioning Public Service Media Utopias 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact An online discussion forum among PSM experts and stakeholders that took place through the E|Comitee platform from December 2020 through April 2021.

60 PSM experts from the UK, Europe and beyond joined the discussion to advance utopian thinking on public service media. Participants included young and senior academics, regulators, PSM practitioners and managers, and representative of civil society and PSM advocacy groups.

The discussion was organised around four thematic clusters:
1: PSM's Challenges;
2: Visions of Change;
3: PSM Utopias;
4: Public Service Internet.

This discussion informed the creation of the The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto, an initiative led by Prof Christian Fuchs and Klaus Unterberger, members of the InnoPSM's Steering Group. A summary of the ecomitee.com discussion was published as a chapter in the The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto open access e-book (Sept 2021): https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020,2021
URL https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/
 
Description Launch of the Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This online event marked the launch of the Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto, the result of the online discussion and consultation among PSM experts initiated under the aegis of the the InnoPSM AHRC Research Networking project. The initiative, spearheaded by Prof Christian Fuchs of the University of Westminster, and Klaus Unterberger of ORF, resulted in the Manifesto that sets out a bold vision for a Public Service Media and Internet.

As of March 2022, the Manifesto had been signed by over 1,200 endorsers. Among the signatories were some of the most prominent thinkers of our age, including Jürgen Habermas and Noam Chomsky; leading international associations of media and communication scholars, including the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the European Communication and Research Education Association (ECREA); and journalism associations, including the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and European Federation of Journalists (EFJ).

The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto was published by the University of Westminster Press as open access e-book in Sept 2021: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/

The Manifesto can be signed by visiting http://bit.ly/signPSManifesto
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Public Service Media in Challenging Times: Connectivity, Climate and Corona: A talk by Professor Graham Murdock, hosted and organised by InnoPSM 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact A talk by Emeritus Prof Graham Murdock, Emeritus Professor of Culture and Economy at Loughborough University. The webinar was hosted and organised by InnoPSM: AHRC Research Network on Innovation in Public Service Media Policies. It was attended by around 250 people. The talk and the ensuing Q&A informed the drafting of the Public Service Media and Internet Manifesto, a collaborative effort which was the outcome of an online discussion forum among PSM experts and stakeholders that took place through the E|Comitee platform from December 2020 through April 2021. An abridged version of Prof Murdock's talk was later published as a chapter in The Public Service Media and Public Service Internet Manifesto open access e-book: https://www.uwestminsterpress.co.uk/site/books/e/10.16997/book60/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://camri.ac.uk/blog/event/public-service-media-in-challenging-times-connectivity-climate-and-co...
 
Description Stakeholder-academe workshop: PSM and Young People 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The second workshop of the AHRC-funded Research Network on Innovation in Public Service Media Policies ('InnoPSM') took place in Helsinki, Finland on 20-21 February 2020.

This two-day event focussed on arguably the biggest challenge of all facing PSM organisations around the world, namely a generation of young audiences increasingly using social media platforms as their 'daily media' and turning away from PSM services. The question addressed in the workshop was: How can PSM understand, connect and serve young Millennials and Generation Z whose life experiences, hopes and fears, and the mediated environment are so drastically different from the previous generations?

The workshop was designed and hosted by Ritva Leino from YLE (Finnish public broadcasting company) and Hannu Nieminen from the University of Helsinki, both members of the Steering Group of the InnoPSM Research Network.

The workshop brought together key PSM programme-makers and innovators, other PSM stakeholders and leading social researchers and media scholars whose work has focused on youth and media use.

In the first day, a series of informal briefings by academic experts and representatives of PSM organisations (YLE, Channel 4), regulators (Ofcom) and PSM associations (EBU) highlighted a number of issues, notably: limitations with current metrics (time spent and reach) and alternative measures of 'success' and impact; content innovation (e.g., short-form), the issue of 'co-creation' and how young people should be involved in PSM content creation; and the complexities around PSM's relationships with commercial social media platforms in their quest to connect with young people.

The second day of the workshop showcased innovative examples of content for young people originating from YLE (Finland) - Sekasin/Mental and Dragonslayer666 - as well as NRK (Norway)- 17. The concept of the award-winning news project by young people for young people, RARE, was also introduced.

One of the key takeaways of the workshop was the need of in-depth dives into the cultures of those young people whose realities are depicted in PSM content and served by PSM services. The case studies included different methods, ranging from researching and 'co-living' everyday lives of young people to involving them as consultants. The cases also highlighted that multi-platform strategies are a necessity, not an option. By addressing relevant topics and including authentic voices, PSM can attract groups that have not had a relationship with them previously - not only engaging them with public service content through specific youth-preferred platforms but also bringing them to PSM-owned ones.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://innopsm.net/2020/02/27/second-innopsm-workshop-young-people/
 
Description Stakeholder-academe workshop: PSM in the Digital Eco-System: State of the Art and Research Priorities 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact This was a one-day by-invitation-only workshop, bringing together key Public Service Media stakeholders (BBC, Ofcom among others) and leading international scholars to the University of Westminster, London, on 12 November 2019.

The purpose of the workshop was to explore pressing issues in PSM research, with the aim to map the complexities of today's digital ecosystem from the perspective of public service. This workshop offered an opportunity to non-academic stakeholders to engage with the findings of academic research from different disciplines and to work collaboratively with senior academics and other PSM stakeholders to map the state of the art in our research field and identify opportunities for future research collaborations.

The morning session was devoted to presentations from leading scholars from the UK and Europe reflecting on the key research priorities to advance the field and sharing their experience of collaborative multi-stakeholder research.

The afternoon session featured key stakeholders sharing their research and policy agenda (Public Media Alliance, Ofcom and BBC) and cutting-edge multi-stakeholder projects working on public media including the European Public Open Spaces (EPOS), Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC) for the Creative Industries, and the Public Media Stack Project.

A full report on the workshop can be found here: https://innopsm.net/2019/11/14/first-innopsm-workshop-12-nov-state-of-the-art/
.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://innopsm.net/2019/11/14/first-innopsm-workshop-12-nov-state-of-the-art/