Conclusiones del análisis del caso de estudio

The significant role communication plays in the economic development of nation- states and national culture is reflected in the development of media systems within nations. This significant and increasingly important role that services play in the economic security of mature, developed economies are of vital importance in understanding the motivations of the European Union with respect to its stance on cultural diversity. Indeed, telecommunications and media, i.e. creative industries, are identified as engines of economic growth, especially for post-industrial societies (Flew & Cunningham, 2010; Banks & O’Connor, 2009; Cunningham, 2009; Urey, 1995). This linkage of creative enterprise—including audiovisual media goods—to economic prosperity is indicative of the overall push toward neoliberalist ideals to further extend commodity terms to goods that also serve as conveyors of culture.

Beginning in the 1980s, an “ideology of decontrol and deregulation” (McNamara, 1998: 52) took hold of mature, industrialized countries, including those of Western Europe. Neoliberalist ideals were evidenced in the breaking up of PTT monopolies as well as through challenges to public service broadcasters within the European Union. By the 1990s, neoliberalism became synonymous with globalization. Even the use of the term creative industries is attributed to further encroachment of neoliberalist ideals in media policy. According to Freedman, focusing on the economic potentialities of audiovisual media goods is part of a “neo-liberalization of media policy designed to . . . assist the expansion of private accumulation and to undermine the legitimacy and existence of non-profit and public service media provision” (Freedman, 2008: 224). Indeed, critics of neoliberalism link it to the process of globalization via the term ‘neoliberal globalization’, an economic process principally concerned with “private property and uninhibited market forces [wary of regulations that] undermine market efficiency” (Scholte, 2005: 1 in Flew & Cunningham, 2010: 118).

The evolution of European Union media policy reflects market liberalization goals which are tied to neoliberalism. Herold (2008: 5) argues that audiovisual media goods’ production and distribution are chiefly viewed as economic enterprises within the EU. Indeed, the EU identified fragmentation of its televisual media market for

audiovisual media goods as a primary handicap preventing the growth of European television enterprises and their abilities to compete in a global market (Wheeler, 2004: 366). The current regulatory framework of EU audiovisual and media policy consists mainly of the AVMSDs, which is for the purposes of creating “an effective single European market for audiovisual media” (European Commission, 2011b). From the mid-

1980s, also the time period where neoliberalist market ideology took hold, audiovisual media policy became a priority within the European Union (De Bens & de Smaele, 2001: 67). It was within this ideological climate that stirrings of a coherent audiovisual media policy began to form within the EU.

In 1984, the Commission put forth a Green Paper titled Television Without Frontiers: Green Paper on the Establishment of the Common Market for Broadcasting, Especially by Satellite and Cable (Commission of the European Communities, 1984). This resulted in the development of the Television without Frontiers Directive, which was implemented in 1989, updated in 1997, and revamped as the Audiovisual Media Services Directive in 2007, which was subsequently updated in 2010 (see Table 2.2). The 1989 Directive served as the “the liberalizing centerpiece of the EU’s legal framework for the audiovisual sector” (Wheeler, 2004: 354; Burri-Nenova, 2007: 1695). Within the 1989 TVWFD itself, the economic intents of regulations are clearly defined in the first two articles of the Directive:

Whereas the objectives of the Community as laid down in the Treaty include establishing an even closer union among the peoples of Europe, fostering closer relations between the States belonging to the Community, ensuring the economic and social progress of its countries by common action to eliminate the barriers which divide Europe, encouraging the constant improvement of the living

conditions of its peoples as well as ensuring the preservation and strengthening of peace and liberty; Whereas the Treaty provides for the establishment of a

TABLE 2.2: Key EU Audiovisual Media Regulatory Policy Developments

YEAR POLICY

1984 Television Without Frontiers: Green Paper on the Establishment of the

Common Market for Broadcasting, Especially by Satellite and Cable

1989 Television without Frontiers Directive (TVWFD)

1997 Green Paper on the Convergence of the Telecommunications, Media and

Information Technology, and the Implications for Regulations, towards an Information Society Approach

Television without Frontiers Directive (updated)

2007 Audiovisual Media Services without Frontiers Directive (AVMSD)

(amendment of TVWFD)

2010 Audiovisual Media Services Directive (2010): codification of AVMSD;

repeal of TVWFD.

to freedom of movement for services and the institution of a system ensuring that competition in the common market is not distorted. (TVWFD, 1989: 23)

The 1989 Directive’s most important contributions were encouraging production of audiovisual media in countries lacking large scale production capacity and providing regulations to promote the growth of a European televisual media marketplace (Wheeler, 2004: 355).

The 1989 TVWFD provided an impetus toward market harmonization and liberalization, signaling a push toward marketization and private interests where the public was increasingly addressed as consumers and not as citizens, which was the case under public service broadcasting (Sarikakis, 2007: 72). This change represented a conflict within the EU’s dual policy goals of market harmonization and promotion of

cultural diversity. The 2010 AVMSD is evidence of the evolution of EU policy, as its opening articles contain several specific references to the cultural purposes of audiovisual media regulation (Audiovisual Media Services Directive, 2010). Specifically, Article five states:

Audiovisual media services are as much cultural services as they are economic services; Their growing importance for societies, democracy — in particular by ensuring freedom of information, diversity of opinion and media pluralism — education and culture justifies the application of specific rules to these services” (AVMSD, 2010: 1, recital 5).

Thus, the EU’s desire to recognize the cultural aspects of audiovisual media and reconcile economic considerations with cultural diversity reflects how differences in perspective influence EU regulatory policy. This desire stems from how media systems developed in the Member States of the European Union, with an emphasis on public service

broadcasting. It reflects the ever present cultural aspirations of EU audiovisual media policy.