February 15, 2021

Online meeting

Hosted and organised by InnoPSM: AHRC Research Network on Innovation in Public Service Media Policies (https://innopsm.net/) and its event- and work-stream on Envisioning Public Service Media Utopias

Date: Monday, 15 February 2021

Time: 16:00-18:00 (British Time)

Where? Zoom (you will receive a Zoom link plus access data at latest one day before the event per e-mail)

Registration via Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/public-service-media-in-challenging-times-connectivity-climate-and-corona-tickets-137997106059

In this talk, Prof Graham Murdock will analyse public service media in the challenging times we live in.

The institutions and animating ideals of public service broadcasting have been under continuous pressure for the last four decades. Advocates of marketisation have argued long and hard that they are no longer relevant or needed in a world of digital abundance and infinite choice, pointing to the increasing migration of young people to on-line platforms. These arguments continue to gain traction. A new proposal for an alternative future must place relations between broadcasting and the internet at the centre of argument. Discussions around how these relations might be organised has been underway for some time but recent developments have invested them with new relevance and urgency. 2020 was marked by a global pandemic, an accelerating climate crisis, and an explosion of direct action across the political spectrum. The processes driving these events are still unfolding presenting Public Service Media with both new challenges and new opportunities. The talk will open a conversation of how we might respond.

About our speaker:

Graham Murdock is Emeritus Professor of Culture and Economy at Loughborough University. He has written extensively on the political economy of broadcasting, the idea of a digital commons, and on the politics of risk, most recently in relation to the climate emergency. He has held visiting professorships at the Universities of Auckland, California at San Diego, Mexico City, Curtin, Bergen, the Free University of Brussels, and Stockholm and taught widely across China. His work has been translated into 21 languages.

Respondents: Alessandro d’Arma, University of Westminster; Minna Aslama Horowitz, University of Helsinki; Klaus Unterberger, Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF) Public Value; Christian Fuchs, University of Westminster