Pluralism and Media Concentration in Europe

Abstract

Sustained efforts to place the issue of audiovisual regulation, notably the safeguarding of pluralism and pluriform freedom of information, on the European Community (EC) agenda and to produce a policy acceptable to the general interest, have not come to fruition. Pluralism and diversely sourced media are on the decline, whereas concentration of media ownership and consolidation are increasing. The current lack of correspondences between the scope of audiovisual activity and the scope of its regulation create wider problems of legitimacy in the European Union (EU). Civil, economic and national interests are jeopardized by the EC's effective non-policy-making on this crucial issue. `Minimum harmonization', the Cassis de Dijon principle and the Single Market framework combine to prevent the protection of content pluralism through media regulation. A way out of this policy paralysis seems unlikely, given the present inadequate and weak policy and institutional structures of the intergovernmental policy actor, for behind the non-policy option stand powerful economic and national forces.