Communications Bill May Create ‘Cultural Jurassic Park’
The government is facing further criticism over its plans to liberalise the regulations governing media ownership, with a leading academic warning that a ‘cultural Jurassic Park’ is in the making.
Michael Tracey, director of the University of Colorado’s Centre For Mass Media Research, has informed the UK government of the risks inherent in the drive towards US-style deregulation.
The key sticking points of the Bill are the clauses which will facilitate non-EU ownership of UK media assets and the lifting of cross media ownership restrictions. The latter will enable newspaper groups to run terrestrial TV stations.
The government has defended the proposals on the grounds of free market growth, a stance not supported by Tracey, who comments: “It’s a bit like the arguments offered by the Bush administration for not signing the Kyoto accords: let the market sort it out, and if there is pollution deal with it after the environment has been corrupted and God forbid that you should step in pre-hoc to prevent the disaster before it happens.”
Tracey believes those defending the Bill have failed to understand the impact of market economics, commenting: “It is important to consider the whole landscape of American television. I noticed that people referred to The Sopranos or Friends, implying that because of these things [US-style deregulation] can’t be that bad, to which my response is that even deserts have the occasional tree.”
The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) believes the proposed Bill will decimate the UK media ecology, claiming: “The motivation for a US company to take an ownership stake in UK broadcasting would be to increase their own profitably by exploiting their own programme stocks in the UK market rather than investing significantly in UK production.”
Tracey believes the debate over the Communications Bill has lost sight of the key point; what exactly the overall broadcasting landscape will look like. He comments: “We have to question will there be children’s programmes that are worthy of the colossal importance of raising our children well, of seeing them in the future, rather than a market to be sold to? Will there be news to provide for the political life of society? These are the questions that need to be asked.”
Critics of the Bill claim liberalisation will leave the UK media exposed to the ruthless commercially driven and ideologically motivated forces of free market capitalism. According to Tracey, deregulation is a beast: “Looming and lurking, threatening, ravenous, uncaring, dangerous, Britain as a cultural Jurassic park, governed by the canny intelligence of velociraptors.”
The research will come as a further blow to Culture Secretary, Tessa Jowell, who this week moved to defend the bill in the face of growing disquiet in the House Of Lords (see Jowell Moves To Defend Foreign Ownership Deregulation).
DCMS: 020 7211 6200 www.dcms.gov.uk
Recent Related Stories from NewsLine Committee Advises Government To Rethink Media Ownership Draft Communications Bill Relaxes Cross Media Rules ITN Appeals For Relaxation Of Ownership Laws
Subscribers can access ten years of NewsLine articles by clicking the Search button to the left