Media Beyond Socialism by Slavko Splichal

Author:Slavko Splichal [Splichal, Slavko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367007775
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 45913817
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

In contrast to capitalism, political and economic activities in former socialist countries are still largely monopolized by the state. In practice, for example, the policy of liberalization and privatization in communications applies only to the press and local (or regional) broadcasting; at the same time, national broadcasting organizations have been largely renationalized and put under the direct control of the government. The reason for such a contradiction is quite evident: "Privatization" is often used as a metaphor to indicate some (and to conceal other) dimensions of much more complex sociopolitical realities. As Sparks (1991a, p. 24) argued, "privatization" explains only a small part of contemporary restructuring of media systems in Western Europe: "The most substantial changes in the electronic media have nothing to do with a shift from the public to the private, Rather they are the result of a series of policy decisions which cut across the structure of privately and publicly owned broadcasting institutions alike. In the case of the press, the search for privatization leads us to ignore the real changes going on" (italics added).

Some authors even believe that these changes should be attributed to "a con- spiracy" that grows from "the patterns of life, the social and political systems, the narrowing style of thinking about the world and the technologies that both result from and foster these trends" (Mander 1978, p. 117). At any rate, privatization of the economy is not, and cannot be, only a question of a more effective economy because private ownership of the means of production is certainly not the most important factor of production (Bajt 1991). It is also an illusion to think of economic transactions exclusively in terms of private economic actors. As Atle Midttun (1990) made clear in an analysis of the complex, structured markets of European aviation, space technology, and export financing, economic transactions involve a set of both commercial and political negotiations on state and company levels and open the gates for a "politicized economy."

Nor is privatization only a question of ideological legitimation, as Nicholas Garnham (1985, p. 13) argued in the case of the government decision to sell a majority shareholding in British Telecom to the private sector, a decision that had, according to Garnham (1985, p. 13), "everything to do with the ideology of the Conservative government but nothing to do with its telecommunication policy." This does not imply that the ideological dimension of the question is irrelevant. On the contrary, the ideological dimension of privatization can be proven by the French case, where, contrary to that of the United Kingdom, the public service model has a long tradition (e.g., centralized education, France Telecom); "this involvement is a central issue in public policy: ideological and political faith in the efficiency, both political and economic, of the public sector is so strong that it is very difficult to imagine the next move toward deregulation in France" (Colas 199II, p. 87).

Nevertheless, in addition to ideological legitimation, it is even much more important that contemporary privatization policies in

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