ABSTRACT
For decades, public service media (PSM) in Europe have been perceived as important institutional centres of public communication. Their special status was founded on the premise of universal access and reach, responsiveness to widely defined communication needs and a necessity to generate a diversity of perspectives in which the common social world could be seen and understood by the public. The concepts of independence and autonomy occupy a crucial role in this normative setting: They serve as legitimizing principles, ensuring that the influence of the State and the market, as well as their institutions (such as government, parliament, commercial entities), is reduced to the minimum so that PSM are allowed to fulfil their mission in a context of full professional autonomy. At the same time, PSM have been viewed as the result of State intervention that have been “present in every country in Western Europe and North America except the smallest” (Hallin and Mancini 2004, p. 43). Examples of the BBC, France Télévisions and others show that PSM have also been associated with national heritage and cultural brands that attract worldwide respect.
