Abstract
At the heart of many examinations and critiques of the role of media are questions that enquire what media do to the public sphere. Specifically, studies enquire, do media create the conditions for an informed and discursive debate to occur in broader society or do media stifle debate and distract citizens from matters of importance by packaging news as entertainment (Dahlgren, 2009). Such questions are particularly relevant when one considers those outlets that claim to be public service broadcasters. Inherent in the notion of public service broadcasting (PSB) is that the public should be served through having access to the information they require to be an active and engaged citizen (Scannell, 1989). While measures can be subjective, this lofty ideal is one that permeates British broadcasting and, therefore, a case study of the challenges in adhering to such an ideal is a worthwhile academic venture.
Dawes’ work adopts a historical approach to understand the evolution and development of broadcasting in Britain. In order to avoid ‘polemicizing about the past or worry-howling about the present’, his work explores how broadcasters negotiated the public–private dichotomy since its inception in the second decade of the 20th century. The analysis of how British broadcasters define their objectives is set within the broadly applicable framework of the public sphere. Dawes shows that the competition between the public service philosophy and the ‘brute forces’ of the market has raged across that century, creating two magnetic poles that pull broadcasters in opposite directions. While the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) enjoys a ‘special’ position as a publicly funded public service broadcaster, there remains significant debate on its relationship with the public sphere. Dawes notes that this is particularly the case as the normative political balance has tipped in favour of the free-market economic paradigm. Even the BBC finds, it is judged not only on the quality of its outputs but also on its competitive performance. In problematising the challenges facing the BBC and the PSB model more broadly, Dawes’ work thus challenges the dominant neoliberal ontology. Here, the work draws on critiques from Marxist and radical liberal perspectives as well as the more mainstream yet sanguine liberal pluralist approach. Hence, the work offers a rich, theoretically driven critique of the role the media play in society that, while focused on the somewhat unique British media landscape, signposts more globally applicable problems which lead media to do disservice to the public sphere.
The key conceptual framework for the study, alluded to above, is mapped out in chapter 2. Here, Dawes frames the study, located within Foucault’s notion of genealogy, as historical not simply in understanding the past but also in enabling an understanding of the present. Hence, the work is defined as a study which sheds light on the current public–private balance the media work within and explains how that balance was reached. The book then proceeds to develop the discussion across three sections each containing three chapters. The first section deals with the key concepts that shape broadcasting regulation, the second section problematises those concepts in relation to the UK broadcast media environment and the final section specifically confronts the public–private dichotomy. Dawes suggests, however, that the reader can traverse the narrative in an alternative thematic way. Readers interested mostly in the notion of PSB can read chapters 3, 6 and 9; those wishing to understand the relationship to consumerist market forces can focus on chapters 4, 7 and 10; while neoliberalism is the core theme in chapters 5, 8 and 11. The work hence offers a holistic and thematic analysis offering broad understanding for scholars of media.
The important contribution Dawes makes to the literature is to demonstrate that while media may be understood through the lens of normative concepts that determine the role media should play, it also needs to be understood that there is a broader governance paradigm. Media have been through a process of neoliberalization and work within strictures and parameters set out by neoliberalism. Understanding these strictures helps to further understand the limits on media playing a full and active role in sustaining the informed and engaged public sphere required to produce an active citizenship. Putting this into context, if audiences engage in minimal numbers with more highbrow and in-depth political debate but in large numbers with reality television, media organisations need to balance their offerings in order to sustain their place in the market. Therefore, even the highest minded adherents to PSB must concede there is a place in the schedule for information, but this cannot be at the expense of more commercially viable content. With this argument at the heart of the work, Dawes thus proposes that critiques of media and debates surrounding the regulation of broadcasters must abandon ideological and partisan positions and develop a more pragmatic and reasoned stance. Here, he argues that what is required is an acceptance of neoliberalism as a ‘form of governmentality’ (p. 200) prior to proceeding to critique issues of public and private ownership, the roles of vested interests and the extent that the market should determine the product. In particular, in the course of debates, Dawes argues that the distinctions between public and private, and between citizen and consumer, need to be maintained and accommodated.
Dawes’ work is thus an expansive and highly theoretical discussion of contemporary media, and here is the strength of the book as well as its weakness. While theoretically and conceptually one can disentangle public from private, and citizen from consumer, in practice, this is a more difficult project. The same people perform the ‘public duties and ethics of citizenship’ while simultaneously perhaps enjoying the ‘private pleasures and aesthetics of consumption’ (p. 67), so is it possible to separate the demands of the public citizen and private consumer or rather are the individuals involved able to separate these demands? Such questions move the debate closer to the practical world of media content creation and whether, for example, politics needs to be presented in ways that are engaging and accessible. Such considerations dovetail with the so-called ‘dumbing down’ debate and the issues of whether dumbing down is positive from a PSB perspective (Temple, 2006). Yet, these more practical considerations remain masked behind the more theoretical discussions which, while important, do not shed light on how we should interpret the content that media do offer and how theoretical dialectics can shape input into debates regarding the practicalities of day-to-day media production.
What Dawes offers is a theoretical road map, situating normative debates within the framework of neoliberal media governance. His work, therefore, is highly thought-provoking, but it is the task of the reader to make the connections between grand theory and real-world practicalities. It is at that real-world level that one is left asking the bigger questions. Can and should we critique media on the basis of whether they adhere to the rules of the neoliberal entertainment marketplace? Can critics who approach media from within a normative public sphere perspective bridge the demands of the marketplace with their concerns? But more importantly, can we turn audiences, if only momentarily, into citizens without them using their power of choice? These are the questions that are at the heart of modern media production. While Dawes maps the theoretical terrain that aids us to understand how these questions have been arrived at, on reading his work, it is hard to say we are closer to the answers. That said, for those seeking affirmation of their normative positions, this book offers significant challenges to those positions. Hence, all those involved in critiquing the modern media should read this book with an open mind while considering how to relate Dawes’ thinking to the formation of guidelines and regulatory frameworks for governing media outputs. For those involved in those endeavours, Dawes’ work should be indispensable and have the potential to shape more reflective media regulation.