Public Service Broadcasting

Predictions the future of public service media institutions in Australia and elsewhere usually and necessarily include discussions of digital media, participatory culture and globalisation. Public service media do more than provide news and current affairs, despite the news and current affairs focus of much academic and policy discussion. Since the 1920s, when Lord Reith argued that the newly founded BBC should inform, entertain and educate, public service broadcasters have either been criticised as elitist and paternalistic, or defended as institutions that offer equal access to all citizens. The historical cases of multi-platform projects Frontier and The Games demonstrate some of the complexities of imagining futures for public service media. The very diversity of the issues illustrates the perils of making predictions about public service broadcasting. The production and screening of this series is perhaps an example of what Hawkins describes as the ABC ‘pluralising the mainstream’.