Research Seminar: ‘Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms’

This seminar draws on policy, organisation and interface analysis to explore the impact of platformisation on the strategies and practices of public service media organisations across Europe

Since November 2022, the Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms (PSM-AP) project has been examining how the rise of global platforms and streaming services has disrupted the values, norms and structures of public service media (PSM). The project investigates the societal implications of this disruption comparatively across two axes: 1) at the levels of policies, organisational practices, and texts; 2) across six countries (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Poland and UK).

This seminar presents a snapshot of our findings, exploring processes of digital transformation in four case study organisations: VRT and RTBF (Belgium), RAI (Italy) and Channel 4 (UK). Encompassing significantly different media markets, our seminar examines the influence of specific regulatory, market, and organisational contexts in the development of digital-first strategies. At the same time, we illustrate a common balancing act for PSM in Europe: between the need to preserve existing normative ideals of public service and the need to achieve sufficient reach and relevance with audiences in an environment skewed by platform power. By considering these cases together, the seminar reflects on what PSM organisations, policymakers, and academics need to do to safeguard the democratic function of public service media in the platform age.

Catherine Johnson is Professor of Media and Communication in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, UK. She currently leads the Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms (PSM-AP) project, which examines the impact of global streaming platforms on public service media in 6 countries. She is the author of four monographs, including Online TV (2019) and Branding TV (2012). She regularly works in collaboration with industry, regulators and policymakers, is a member of the DCMS College of Experts, has acted as Specialist Advisor to the DCMS Select Committee, and currently chairs the DCMS Stakeholder Forum Audiences Working Group on the Future of TV Distribution.

Dan Martin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Media and Communications at the University of Leeds. He is currently a researcher on the project Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms (PSM-AP) which examines the changing construction of social and cultural values in public service media in response to platformisation. Dan’s research also explores intersections of class, gender, and regional identity in British film and television, and he has published work on contemporary representations of white-working-class identity in public service programming.

Antonio Nucci is a researcher at CeRTA, the Research Center on Television and Audiovisual Media at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan, where he has been working on the PSM-AP project since November 2023. He is awaiting the defense of his PhD dissertation at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Lugano, focusing on climate change communication, activism, and media representation. He lectures on environmental management and communication at USI, covering game theory and sustainability, climate crisis communication, and nature history documentaries. He has also lectured at LUISS (Rome) and Kasetsart University (Bangkok).

Catalina Iordache is a Senior Researcher at the research group imec-SMIT, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Studies in Media, Innovation and Technology, VUB) and Guest Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences, VUB. She obtained her PhD in Media and Communication Studies in 2022 on the transnational flow of audiovisual content online, which established her expertise in transnational media flows, audiovisual production and distribution, streaming services, and European audiovisual policy. She is currently conducting postdoctoral research in the PSM-AP: Public Service Media in the Age of Platforms project.