Original scientific paper
Public Interest and Television Performance in Croatia
Zrinjka Peruško
Abstract
The paper empirically demonstrates public interest performance of Croatian
commercial and public service televisions with national coverage, based on
their program broadcast in the chosen weekly samples for the 2005- 2009 period.
The criteria for evaluating television program output are defined a)
against a theoretical media public interest model and b) against the specific
Croatian media public interest model. Specific Croatian definitions of public
interest are contained in media policy. Public interest is analyzed according to
authors’ theoretical model of media public interest along three dimensions
(content, audiences, and social goals) to construct a media public interest
matrix. The sources of public interest definitions in Croatian media policy are
limited to laws and regulations relevant to television broadcasting.
The author proposes a theoretical definition of democratic media performance
in the public interest which should include three interrelated dimensions:
content – socially useful and diverse, audiences – citizens and special needs or
minority audiences, and social goals – inform the citizens for political participation
and contribution to democracy. Diversity as a content quality in the
public interest is conceptualized additionally in contrasting conceptualizations
of pluralist and neo-liberal media policy in terms of openness versus reflective
diversity.
Content analysis of the program guides included 5769 programs – units of
analysis, which were categorized into genres in three larger classes: information
programs (socially useful), entertainment, and fiction. The analysis shows
the prevalence of ‘socially useful’ genres on public service channels (news,
news interviews, current affairs magazines, documentaries, art and education programs), as well as greater genre diversity. The audience preferences (in
terms of attention) show a lack of information programs, and an excess of fiction
on Croatian national televisions.
Keywords
media performance; public interest; media policy; television programs; genre; socially useful content; diversity; Croatia
Hrčak ID:
46038
URI
Publication date:
2.12.2009.
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