The Political Summit about the Future of the Media

Five politicians kicked off Friday morning discussing the future of the media in Denmark – specifically the relevant legislation.

I am not going to bring you any “gold nuggets” here from the discussion – because such were very scarce indeed. They were predominantly a bunch of dinosaurs completely out of touch with the fact that the current media legislation is very far behind the technological development. The interactive media of today, and most certainly of tomorrow, offer such a wide possibilities of interaction and communication among people that is not taken into account in the current Danish legislation.

The five politicians, who represented well the diversity of the Danish parliament, agreed on much more issues than they argued about. Especially, they all agreed that “Danmarks Radio (DR)” (Danish National radio and television) should continue to receive funds for developing content for all current and coming technologies; such as web, podcasting, sms, mms, PDAs etc.

One point that I was particularly fond of and surprised by - made by Holier K. Nielsen, was that he found DR should make their entire archive of texts, audio and video available online, for all to interact with. Usually, I don’t share many convictions with Holier K. but this I believe is a very good idea. What Denmark’s Radio has produced through the years has been paid for by the people of Denmark, and as such it should be available to all. We should claim shared ownership of it – and at least get access to it!

With the coming of PVRs (personal video recorders), video-on-demand and similar technologies it clearly came across that there was a fear that the quality of television broadcasts in Denmark would generally drop.

This however only leads to another question: ”What is good quality TV shows?”, and “Who will ultimately decide what good quality content is and what isn’t?” These questions, which are really at the essence of a discussion of media and culture politics, were of course not answered. They weren’t even discussed properly.

I find that a real pity. I would argue that if the market is given total power then the programs shown on TV would homogenise and there would be little room or attention left for experimental or even just innovative TV. It is an innate dilemma of a market led approach that if you leave choice solemnly to the market, to people, then they will often only choose what they already know, like, want, prefer, or need.

What room does that leave for new programmes, new TV-people, new channels and even new documentaries? I cannot say that I hold the answer to that specific answer. The question simply raises again the questions of choosing between the product paradigm and the marketing paradigm.

This choice, as an answer to the above question, cannot be right (nor wrong). There is always a trade-off. I believe a third paradigm should be created and discussed: A paradigm that is a co-evolution between the product and the marketing paradigm. And “NO” I haven’t got that at hand either (I knew you’d ask that) but I am working on some ideas that I hope will develop into a rigorous theory. It will take a wee while though… Until then we’ll just have to cope.