Public value of community media in Austria

Abstract

This article explores the public value of community media in Austria. Though they fulfil various important functions in civil society, they do not enjoy the same legislative recognition and financial funding like other public-value-generating broadcasters do. For this study five normative functions have been developed to measure the community media’s public value: the articulation function, the participation function, the complementary function, the media literacy function and the strategies in media convergence function. In thirteen focus groups with members of fifteen Austrian community media, the strong institutionalization of the sector became just as apparent as the existence of a commonly shared self-perception. The normative functions are strongly anchored in the daily routine of the participating programme makers. So, community media in Austria clearly generate public value.