Jour1111 Lecture 7- Monday 3^rd September

“The difference between commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting is the difference between consumers and citizens”- Nigel Milan (Former managing director of SBS)

You’re probably all familiar with what this post is all about considering I upload a lecture reflection around this time every week, but for those who don’t regularly visit the wonders of my blog, here’s another lecture reflection for the Jour1111 course at UQ.

After looking at the crazy world of Commercial Media last week, Mondays lecture sought to look at Public Media and compare the two different forms in a kind of head to head style. Quickly we remember from last week that Commercial Media’s determining factor was all about profit and making big money (Full lecture rundown found in blog reflections at the left side tab) so with that in mind we set out to find the determining factor of Public Media, what it was, who it’s for, who their major players are and most importantly what Public Media’s role is in a democratic society.

Firstly Public Media is defined as media whose mission is to serve or engage a public; this definition itself already separates it from its counterpart Commercial Media whose mission is to bring in audiences to evidently make profit. In Australia, SBS and ABC are the main providers of Public Media, their services run across television, radio and the internet. Our international Public Media services compromise of:

Public Media’s role in democratic society is to provide media that is in support of the public and democratic processes. Which means the content of Public Media should be of value to the public. Using the term “should” because sometimes this form of media forgets that it is primarily designed to serve the public. This is done by implementing these points/values.

Embedding a Public service Public

Value for license fee money (did you know that each Australian tax payer pays 8cents a day for the ABC?)

Weighing public value against public impact

Public Consultation

The ABC is an example of a server that adequate executes these core values to provide quality Public Media, something that is also summed up in this statement by Mark Scott- ABC Managing director “The ABC is not accountable for profit, but it is for quality”. With these clear intentions in mind we can again easily determine the difference with Public and Commercial Media, Public Media favouring Quality> Profit. This statement also instils a Public trust that the providers values and target purpose remain in the right place. Putting intention to practice and obvious example of this in the ABC is that it runs no commercial advertisements through broadcasting, regardless of the money this service might make the company. SBS unfortunately has faltered in this regard, running commercial advertisements, but to their credit, it has been done tastefully and to no extreme detriment to its viewers.

Whilst one could suggest ABC to be more dominant in Australian heritage and national broadcasting, SBS is the leader in multicultural/bilingual broadcasting which could become quite an upper hand as the face of Australia becomes more diverse and ever so increasingly changing culturally. With this knowledge we can identify that Public Media strives on providing its four main functions

Nation Building

Nation Heritage

National Conversations

National Identity

As opposed to the likes of Commercial Media, more specifically Channel 9’s hyper sensationalised “A Current Affair” We find news provided by the Public Media to be more credible and of higher quality, as it undergoes a consideration- Stories don’t fly unchecked. Importance is weighed higher than interest and it is often brought to viewers in a serious, broadsheet style. In short, Public Media cuts the crap! The downside to this style is that, being so fact only and data driven, it can bore viewers, seem slow on stories and come across as a little out of touch. I as an aspiring investigative journalism look past this and continue to praise the likes of ABC and SBS as it really is the last platform for real and credible investigative Journalism as reiterated by Robert Richter- Independent Producer.

For modern society, the art of Hyper- sensationalisation and ideas or big disasters/catastrophes seem to drive not only our film and performance world but our news and documentary world too. Metaphorically speaking, Public Media is the romantic comedy besides Stephen Spielberg’s next big blockbuster (Commercial Media) so it is challenging for Public Media to sometimes keep up with viewers and inturn gather enough funding to stay around. It is important as butting Journalists and believers of quality, to support the likes of ABC and SBS by doing something as simple as turning to either to watch your daily news rather than receive all the unchecked baloney Commercial Media provides…QUALITY>QUANTITY.