Media Diversity in Public and Commercial Broadcast Television
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COMMUNICATION POLICY AND PUBLIC INTERESTS: MEDIA DIVERSITY IN PUBLIC AND COMMERCIAL BROADCAST TELEVISION IN THE U.S. Kim McCann A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY December 2007 Committee: John J. Makay, Advisor Bill O. Coggin Graduate Faculty Representative Joseph Oliver Boyd-Barrette Louisa Ha © 2007 Kim McCann All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Promoting media diversity in a society is imperative for the social benefits that allow citizens to make informed decisions through exposure to a broad range of viewpoints. In spite of its significance, two major hindrances to media diversity identified so far are conceptual disagreement, that renders divergent approaches to the diversity analysis, and market forces, in which media are centered on a profit seeking mechanism. Responding to these two major issues of media diversity, the study explored the policy effectiveness within the notion of the First Amendment conflict and assessed diversity in both the public and commercial broadcast television industries. This study proposed the integrated theory of diversity, which could identify multi- indicators of the dimension of the diversity, such as source, content, and audience diversity; thus, it allowed assessment of the multi-levels within political and economic contexts. The application of the public sphere model helped establish public interest criteria and thus could provide more consistent policy goals in promoting media diversity. The structural conduct model allowed assessment of source diversity by identifying the relationship among the market structure of the broadcast television industry, product strategies, and diversity. The application of the public policy model and the program choice model allowed measurement of content diversity distinctively produced by both public and commercial broadcast television by identifying different programming strategies. The analyses of the study provided three major substantial findings: 1) Conceptual disagreement of media diversity and ineffectiveness of the policies on media diversity largely stemmed from the FCC’s inconsistency in establishing public interest criteria. iv This inconsistency hindered justification of any regulatory intervention to protect public interest and to effectively respond to market failure in terms of media diversity. 2) The diversity offered by public and commercial broadcast televisions was different in terms of programming strategies, types of programs produced, and both number of channels and diversity level offered. The critical variables influencing the diversity were a moral obligation to serve the public interest in public television and the economics of programming in commercial broadcast television. 3) The expressive function of media diversity, reflecting audience demand on media content, is problematic because it basically obeys a majoritarian rule that satisfies the immediate gratification of as many audiences as possible, and audience gratification in accessing ideas is rarely balanced, nor is it on the basis of rational demands. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The following dissertation, while an individual work, benefited from the insights and direction of several people. Thanks are due first to my Dissertation Chair, Dr. John Makay, for inspiring and mentoring me with his unlimited support, guidance, perspectives, and sense of humor. My sincere thanks go to Dr. Joseph Boyd-Barrette, who exemplifies the high quality scholarship to which I aspire, providing me insights that guided and challenged my thinking. The author extends sincere gratitude to Dr. Louisa Ha, who inspired me to embark on the subject of the dissertation and provided me with instructive comments and evaluation that helped me clarify things related to my academic works. In addition, I wish to thank my outside committee member, Dr. Bill Coggin, who devoted time at the later stage of the dissertation process, yet helped me substantially improve the quality of the finished project. I might not have been able to make it without the support of each of these people. Lastly, I would like to thank my husband for providing me with the opportunity to gain this tremendous education and the necessary tools to succeed in life. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. iiiv ABSTRACT................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................... viii LIST OF TABLES........................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY..................................................................... 1 Media Diversity and Central Issue........................................................................ 1 Open Communication System and the Public................................................ 2 Diversity Standards, Market Force, and Media Policy.................................. 3 Research Problems................................................................................................ 5 Research Objectives and Questions...................................................................... 10 Significance of the Study...................................................................................... 12 Organization of the Study..................................................................................... 12 2 LITERATURE REVIEW..................................................................................... 18 Media Diversity Approaches................................................................................ 18 Supply and Demand Viewpoints: Economic Approach................................ 18 Source, Content, and Audience Diversity: Political Approach..................... 20 Defining Media Content: Open and Reflective Diversity............................. 22 The Impact of Market Forces on Diversity.......................................................... 25 Ownership and Content Distribution............................................................. 25 Competition and Concentration in Broadcasting Media............................... 26 Media Nature as Profit Maximizing Mechanism.......................................... 28 Different Strategies of Public and Commercial Broadcasters...................... 30 Regulation on Concentration......................................................................... 32 Policy Effectiveness ..................................................................................... 35 3 THEORIES AND METHODOLOGIES.............................................................. 41 Theoretical Foundation......................................................................................... 41 Social and Economic Theories...................................................................... 41 Proposed Theoretical Framework......................................................................... 49 Program Choice and Public Policy Model..................................................... 49 Structure Conduct Performance Model.......................................................... 51 Public Sphere Model...................................................................................... 55 Research Methodology......................................................................................... 56 Qualitative Methodology............................................................................... 59 Quantitative Methodology............................................................................. 62 vii 4 FCC, POLICIES, AND MEDIA DIVERSITY...................................................... 68 The Policy Goals and Diversity............................................................................ 69 Free market Competition Versus Regulation................................................. 69 The Government’s Role in Media Regulation,.............................................. 73 Regulating Broadcasting: Establishing Public interest Standards................. 76 Media Policies and Diversity................................................................................ 78 Antitrust and Criteria: Regulations on Concentration.................................... 79 Early Broadcast Ownership Concerns and Issues.......................................... 81 Multiple-Station Ownership Rules........................................................................ 83 Ownership Rules under Numerical Limits of Stations................................... 83 Consideration of Economic Potentials........................................................... 88 Telecommunication Act of 1996........................................................................... 92 Syndication Rules and PTAR................................................................................ 95 5 MEASURING DIVERSITY................................................................................. 107 The Structure of Broadcast Television Networks................................................. 107 Diversity in Public Television.............................................................................. 110 The Impact of Policy Preferences on Ownership Structure........................... 112 The