The following three chapters address the assumptions underlying the debate on media pluralism from the perspective of contemporary political philosophy and democratic theory. Beyond the general consensus that the public sphere requires a broad range of voices, the exact meaning and implications of pluralism as a normative principle remain controversial and arguably undertheorized in both media studies and political theory. While much of the debate on media pluralism as a policy goal or as an object of empirical measurement takes it for granted that pluralism is important for democracy, there is less agreement on why and how: What is the...

Although much of the confusion surrounding the notion of pluralism in media studies stems from its different uses in different contexts, there is also an inherent element of ambiguity within the concept of pluralism itself. As is the case with mostismsthat carry significant political implications, pluralism is an essentially contested concept that is subject to endless arguments about its interpretation and implications.

It is questionable then whether it is possible to mount any general defense of pluralism, because pluralism itself is so plural; it exists in several versions that can be incompatible with one another. Rather than as...

In recent decades it seems that the normative theories and concepts used in theorizing the media in general have taken a marked pluralistic or antiessentialist turn. While notions such as quality, public interest, and common good have been more and more called into question in both theory and politics, pluralism has gained increasing prominence as a key principle for evaluating media performance. As an example of this kind of antiessentialism, John Keane (1992) has even argued that the political values of democracy and freedom of speech should be conceived as means and necessary preconditions for protecting philosophical and political pluralism,...

The argument developed so far has stressed that while it is easy to subscribe to the concept of media pluralism, it does not offer an unambiguous basis for democratic media politics. The notion itself does not seem to constitute a coherent, substantive ideology, and there will always be controversy over its proper institutionalization or realization. Moreover, given its vague uses in contemporary media policy, it is fair to ask whether the concept of pluralism retains any critical potential at all. As suggested in Chapter 2, it can even be argued that appeals to the complexity and pluralism of contemporary media...

This part shifts focus from theoretical debates on pluralism and the public sphere to the actual uses and definitions of media pluralism in contemporary media policy practice and research. So far I have argued that the value of media pluralism as a policy objective derives from explicit and implicit assumptions about the nature of a democratic public sphere. Instead of being premised on some coherent ideology or theory, however, concepts and principles often guide policy debates in a more mundane way, in the form of background assumptions and discursive frames. The purpose in this part is to examine the variety...

There have been many attempts to define, deconstruct, and classify conceptions of media pluralism and diversity, their relations to other concepts, and their various aspects and components in media research. It is beyond the scope of this book to review all the various classifications and categorizations, but despite the complexity of the concepts, media scholars and policy analysts have articulated some more or less established dimensions on which pluralism and diversity can be discussed and even measured. This chapter introduces some of the main lines of argument in the contemporary debates and points to the main problems they involve.

Given...

The most obvious challenges to existing conceptions of media pluralism today arise from the Internet and the increasingly malleable roles of media producers, new kinds of intermediaries, and users. It is often claimed that the changes brought about by the Internet are making the traditional analytic, normative, and regulatory frameworks of media policy increasingly obsolete. With the almost infinite range of information available online, it hardly needs saying that many of the premises of different conceptions of media pluralism and diversity also need to be rethought. This chapter begins by surveying the different arguments about the effects of technological changes...

This chapter presents two case studies of the different ways in which media pluralism has been conceptualized and used in contemporary European media policy. After briefly discussing the rise of media pluralism as one of the central principles of European media policy, I demonstrate the political rationalities associated with its different definitions by analyzing two cases in detail. The first case concerns the attempts to introduce a common European approach on media concentration and pluralism; the second deals with the arguments put forward in recent debates on the role and remit of public service media in the new digital landscape....

This chapter analyzes in more detail the implications of the increasing tendency to treat media pluralism and diversity as tangible, empirically measurable concepts. As noted above, the demand for objective empirical data has recently been growing in the field of media policy. Reflecting the application of various empirical indicators and performance metrics in policy making, there is also a growing body of academic research that addresses media pluralism and diversity as measurable concepts.

The justification of policies by reference to empirical, objective data can be viewed as an attempt to bring closure to the political contestation in the name of...