RTV Theory and Practice - Special Issue

WILL PLURALIT¥ AND PLURIFORMITV ADD UP TO PLURALISM? For now , the prospect of a globally monocentric ог oligopolistic system of fundamentally uniformistic communication is still perceived in Western Europe as enough of a threat to have prompted a common effort to promote the role of the media in the maintenance and development of "European culture", whatever that is (cf. Europe 2000 .... 1988): the feeling remains in many countries that broadcasting is more than a consumer service which can now be left to the mar Ket -place . While this conviction is under attack in both the UK and US , and is increasingly guestioned in other countries as demands on the public purse become increasmgly severe , broadcasting remains for the moment a question of culture rather than a question of business (Barnett , Docherty, n.d.: 1-2; emphasis added; this view is also shared by Head, 1988) This determination to preserve public service broadcasting seems focused primarily on television , with a greater willingness on the part of the authorities to regulate public radio with a much "lighter touch" than before , a principle accorded the status of officiai policy in Britain. This has alreađy produced the mushrooming of commercial radio statlons in many countrles we mentioned above - a process which is likely to continue . Thus , the prospect for radio seems to be one of plurality and pluriformity . The new system will no doubt be polycentric . It will be formally open inasmuch as there will probably be few legal barriers to becoming a broadcaster , and the financial or technical barriers will not be hard to overcome , at least in order to launch an amateur community or local station . As we have seen , the problem will be with staying on the air for a longer time . Organizational and institutional arrangements will include both public and commercial networks and stations , and possibly also some ln-between forms of more ог less regulated private , community or indeed commercial stations operatlng under some form of a public service remit, as has so far been the case m Britam . The particular systerrTs place on the uniformistic -pluralistic continuum will depend on the mlx m place m a particular countr у . It is hardly ИКе!у , however , that this will mvolve the representative socio-political-cultural divers.ty ment.oned above . With a public sector still in place , neither will It be