Pondering Public Media

After four hours of dragging myself around to Political Science lectures, I was exhausted! It proved to be much harder for me to move passed holiday mode and into work and study mode, so my afternoon lecture for Journalism and Communication came as a refreshing change. This lecture, which was for week seven (well I guess technically week eight) explained and analyzed what Public Media is and essentially the role it plays within our society.

I want to share this description of Public Media with you all as I love the way in which Robert Richter, an independent producer who has made more than four dozen documentaries for leading television channels, compares Public Media to Commercial Media as "such a special vehicle for voices to be heard... (for) visions and viewpoints... ignored by commercial media".

The main public media outlets within Australia are the ABC and SBS, which includes all of their radio and digital channels. The ABC was founded in 1929 as a 'Nation Building Project' while SBS came later in 1980, truly coming into its own with the financial support of Paul Keeting. SBS was originally launched as channel 0/28 and was designed to be a multicultural channel, as it essentially, still is today.

When discussing public media outlets with family and friends I found there was a misconception of these

channels being Government funded and therefore in favour and bias toward the Government - however public media is not owned by the Government, it is held in common by the people. Although in recent years there has been some what of a "commercialisation" of public media, as it is now able to make a profit, hence advertisement on SBS, however this advertisement is only acceptable if the ultimate purpose is to serve the public and not to turn a profit.

The main functions of public media are as follows:

• Nation building
• National heritage
• National identity
• National conversations

When I consider the many shows and series on ABC and SBS I would have to say that they fulfill all of these functions, while public media channels are not perfect and not always unbias, I do think they are a fantastic alternative and probably where you are going to find the most honest and reliable news on current and world affairs as well as daily news. In fact, 41% of Australians choose to get their news from the ABC.

Well that is enough from me, but I strongly urge those of you who have not yet discovered the wonderful world of public media, to do something outrageous and change your television from channel 7 to ABC or SBS... but don't worry, if it is all too much, you can always change it back...