The politics of pleasing: a critical analysis of multistakeholderism in Public Service Media policies in Flanders

Abstract

This article focuses on contributions and pitfalls of multistakeholder approaches to Public Service Media policymaking. It asks whether the inclusion of stakeholders effectively leads to more coherent and sustainable policies or whether it mainly serves as window dressing and as additional inroad for the private sector to lobby against Public Service Media. First, we discuss multistakeholderism on the basis of deliberative democracy research and scholarly insights on the inclusion of stakeholders in media policy. Subsequently, we present results from Public Service Media policymaking in Flanders since 2010, examining seven instances of multistakeholder policymaking. Findings show that the reality of multistakeholderism is not necessarily inclusive, seems concerned predominantly with the interests of legacy media and does not prevent continued informal lobbying from commercial media. Even when the process is led by academics, politicians instrumentalize results and rarely with a view to improve Public Service Media as democratic policy project.