A new approach

The changing landscape

“Over time, the preferred means of delivering PSB will change, as some providers prove themselves to be more effective than others, or as new media become more effective than conventional channels. A robust PSB system needs to be flexible enough to adapt to this sort of change.”

OFCOM Review of Public Service Broadcasting
(Phase 3 Report)

The global media landscape is changing rapidly. The main catalysts for this change are high speed two-way broadband networks and ICTs (Information Communications Technologies) such as PCs, games consoles and the mobile phone. The uptake of these technologies has been - and continues to be - startling. They resonate with the fundamental human need to communicate. They amplify and distribute the voices of individuals and groups in a way which has traditionally been the sole and limited preserve of those at the apex of mass media. And we love them for it. The social and commercial developments which they are triggering are rapid, wide-ranging and unstoppable.

The new media technologies, many of which have been around for 20 years or more, are different from their mass media predecessors, such as radio and, in particular, television and film. They are not simply the next step in the evolution of television, nor will they necessarily mean that TV and film will fall extinct. New media platforms engender fundamentally different modes of use to those made possible by television. They have the potential to be interactive and participative in a way that television simply cannot be. Of course, they can also reduce the costs of production of traditional mass media, distribute it in new ways and re-energise its archives by offering them up as part of an explosion of choice. But they are much more than simply that. Television, the dominant form over the past 50 years, now inhabits a much more complex landscape than it once did. Even digital television, important though it may be, is really just "more television". It has a small part to play in the evolution of media but the changing landscape is much larger and more complex than that.

Interactive media technologies can, for instance, place ideas in new contexts via mobile devices. They can put the tools of media creation and manipulation in the hands of the people formerly known as the audience and allow flourishing social networks and homemade content to take root. More fundamentally, they have already created whole new forms of entertainment and participation such as the computer game and the online virtual world.

Throughout this paper, we will return again and again to this simple but profound notion; whilst traditional media technologies primarily concentrate on the distribution of ideas, the new media technologies are concerned with handing active control and the ability to communicate to citizens. The social potential of this change is already being felt and the place we find ourselves in today is likely to be little more than the beginning. This explosion of communication is increasingly taking on many of the characteristics that we have previously ascribed to the mass media which preceded it, particularly as media production technologies get into the hands of more people and media distribution over broadband networks becomes akin to a basic utility service for many.

Our use of media is shifting to find a new balance between the creation and distribution of content as we have known it in the age of mass media and the active participation of citizens. We are entering the age of "our media" - where the communication of ideas amongst groups and the sharing of content are at the heart of what's going on. This change adds significantly to the ecology of mass media as we have understood it since the invention of radio broadcasting at the turn of the 19th century.

We already have a splendid system of media distribution using the mass media technologies of television, film, radio and, to some extent, the first generation of the web. Indeed, broadband networks have the added effect of improving this environment still further by facilitating access to media on-demand. But even this change from a scheduled world of media scarcity to a plentiful world of traditional media available on-demand represents a significant challenge to the assumptions and models of mass media players.

Traditional media are at the zenith of their powers when they are distributing information and providing entertainment. These are powerful human needs; but they are not sufficient for life in the 21st century as the force of globalisation flatten our world. We are not in the information age; that has passed. We're entering the networked, learning age. The architecture of participation we need is likely to be profoundly different from the one we have been used to in the industrial, mass-produced age of the 20th century.

The challenges and opportunities facing media companies and policy-makers are profound. Amongst the more resonant themes of current discourse about our place in a globalising culture and economy are concerns about social cohesion, the future of democracy and the need to build a society dedicated to learning and enterprise. The mass media can be forces for considerable good in this debate. However, alone, their technological and institutional structures are likely to be insufficient in future as expectations and modes of behaviour continue to change. We now urgently need to turn our attention to the development of a thriving culture of participation and engagement. We need our media to play a central part in this evolution and to help provide public benefits which might not be provided by commercial markets.

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