[ecrea] New Special Section on Public Service Media Published

International Journal of Communication has just published its latest Special
Section on “Public Service Media and Exposure Diversity” at
http://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc.

Do we as citizens consume media content that is diverse enough to enable us
to make well-informed choices? If not, who should help us do so? Are we
aware of the changing media landscape? And are we capable of navigating this
changing landscape?

The articles in this Special Section on Public Service Media and Exposure
Diversity address these questions and more on the role that public service
media can play.

Public service media, such as the BBC in the UK and NPR in the U.S., have
traditionally played a leading role in the diversity that is one of the
prime objectives of national media policies. They have also contributed to a
functioning public sphere by offering varied content of high quality and
value. This mission was not expressly formulated in the mandate of public
service media because under the conditions of analog media, the equation was
simple: A diverse supply by public service media—which at the time also
enjoyed the position as the primary means of information—presumably led to
diversity in consumption. Since then, however, the number of digital outlets
and types of media content offered to users, as well as the tools of user
empowerment and engagement (such as social networks and search engines),
have exploded. The presumptions that exposure diversity is a straightforward
function of supply and that public service media have a role in making this
link happen are rightly put in doubt.

Guest-edited by Natali Helberger (University of Amsterdam) and Mira Burri
(University of Bern), this Special Section on Public Service Media and
Exposure Diversity explores the potential and the risks of defining exposure
diversity as an objective of contemporary media policies. It contemplates
what role public service media can play in this context, especially in
making the best of the capabilities of the digitally networked space. The
Special Section’s nuanced and interdisciplinary research hopes to
stimulate thinking about the future of public service media as key societal
drivers of information flows and of cultural and civic dialogue and
engagement, and contributes to the current academic and policy debates on
their transformation.

Authors for this Special Section include:

•	Mira Burri, University of Bern, Switzerland
•	Sandra Cortesi, Harvard University, USA
•	Urs Gasser, Harvard University, USA
•	Thomas Gibbons, University of Manchester, UK
•	Natali Helberger, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
•	Christian Pieter Hoffman, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
•	Christoph Lutz, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
•	Miriam Meckel, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
•	Giulia Ranzini, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
•	Damian Tambini, London School of Economics, UK

We invite you to read these papers that just published April 30, 2015 at
http://ijoc.org.

Larry Gross
Editor

Arlene Luck
Managing Editor
___________________________________________________
International Journal of Communication (IJoC)
USC Annenberg Press
University of Southern California
http://ijoc.org/



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