Citizen Participation in Public Service Media: What It Really Means

In a converged media system where the public is more than ever in control of what, when and where to consume content, public service media must put citizen participation at the heart of their strategies. That means giving the audiences more control over funding of public media, increased participation of civil society in the governance of these media outlets and more meaningful involvement of citizens in their content production process. This paper summarizes recent trends in how media companies in general engage with their audiences in the digital economy and explores opportunities and models of citizen participation in the public media of the future. The paper argues that without adjusting to the realities of the digital economy, which would mean first and foremost building audience centric networked platforms of content distribution, public service media will have a hard time to attract new followers, especially among younger audiences, and risk alienating their already declining audiences. In a media ecosystem populated by a growing number of content producers that are all fiercely competing to capture people’s attention, public service media can gain a competitive edge only if they engage citizens in innovative, meaningful ways. Without the citizen participation element, they risk becoming a marginal player or, worse, a thing of the past.