Page - 146 - in Media – Migration – Integration - European and North American Perspectives

Augie Fleras | Ethnic and Aboriginal Media in Canada 146 2. Conceptualizing Media Institutions Media scholars have long acknowledged the existence of three major media institutions – private, public, and populist. Although the differences are not nearly as distinct as often assumed, the underlying logic of each differs with respect to what is being communicated, why, how, and with what purpose (Fleras 2003) - Private media represent commercial enterprises. They are privately owned, concerned primarily with making money or profit (usually through advertising or subscriptions), focused on providing consumers with safe and formulaic content, of appeal to the lowest common denominator, and generally reject any social responsibility for actions and outputs unless involving the bottom line. According to the underlying logic, private commercial media do not exist to inform, entertain, or enlighten per se; their goal is to make money by providing a commodity (or programming) that connects the right demographic with advertisers. - Public media constitute a public service for advancing public interest. Public media are government or tax payer owned, focused largely on the enlightenment of citizens across a broad range of programming, and are geared to maximizing public good or advancing national interests. They also are viewed as elitist because of their mandate to provide audiences with programs they need for citizenship, belonging, and participation. To be sure, references to public media embrace a wide range of arrangements, from the publicly funded but arm’s length system in Great Britain to the mixed funding model of the CBC in Canada and PBS in the United States to state-owned and government controlled system in China (Lincoln et al 2005). Such a range of public media process makes it difficult to define or characterize. - Populist (or alternative) media. Populist media differ from mainstream (public (state) and private (market) because of content, structure, distri- bution, and consumption (Skinner 2006). In occupying mediaspace abandoned by increasingly homogenous mainstream media, populist media provide an alternative service for those without demographic clout and political power. These media tend to be independently owned and service-oriented, reflect localized interests by providing news and infor- mation of direct relevance to the communities they serve, embrace news values that differ from the mainstream newsmedia, communicate along horizontal lines rather than top-down hierarchies, encourage community wide participation in the production process (Lalley and Hawkins 2005;