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"Democracy as Defeat"

The Impotence of Arguments for Public Service Broadcasting

University of Technology, Sydney

In countries with a mature public broadcasting sector and where public broadcasting is being challenged by the multichannel and digital environment, there is a veritable avalanche of discourse aiming to ensure the future of the sector. Various key concepts are intoned like mantras—public service, public sphere, citizenship, democracy—as if by their very repetition they had the power to hold hostile forces at bay. The present article examines just one of these—democracy—and suggests that the invocation of the term in typical defenses is at best imprecise and at worse outdated. Furthermore, in its devaluation of various forms of popular media, the typical defense ends up championing a set of media practices that are increasingly irrelevant. The article concludes that a generalized defense of public service broadcasting is "impotent" and must be replaced by localized and specific analyses of where public broadcasting fits in various media ecologies.

Key Words: public service broadcasting • democracy • journalism • ethics • digital broadcasting • multichannel television

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