Public value tests and citizen participation in public service media’s decision-making: Story of a missed opportunity

Resumo

The public value tests that are used to approve the new services of public servicebroadcasters must include a public consultation open to all stakeholders. However,these consultations have not been studied from a comparative perspective. In thischapter, we approach the participation of citizens and civil society in these publicconsultations from the point of view of multistakeholderism practices in mediapolicy-making and structural participation in media governance. Our researchdesign is focused on the cases of the UK, Ireland, Germany, and Austria and relieson document analysis to study how their respective public consultations have beenimplemented and which level of participations they have achieved. The results allowus to conclude that ex ante tests can hardly achieve citizen participation throughtheir public consultations, and thus constitute a missed opportunity for publicservice media organisations to enhance their contribution to society by openingtheir decision-making structures to structural participation.