THE INCOMING TIDE

This book sets out to act as a guide for those wishing to view the landscape of media regulation and to offer suggested routes to desirable destinations. However, it is not easy to write a guidebook to an area when the incoming tide is in the process of changing the contours of the landscape, and perhaps even washing parts of it away. Observers are free to watch, with some combination of awe, excitement and trepidation, as waves of technological innovation and convergence, globalisation and cross-media conglomeration combine, and then appear to wash over, familiar landmarks on the media scene. The height and ferocity of the waves are clear from wherever the observer stands, but for those charged with regulating the media, watching is not an option, and instead they must intervene if the tidal forces are not simply to be allowed to take their course.

The first edition of this book, written seven years ago, concluded that the regulatory mechanisms then in place had failed to address the threat posed by the media revolution. The regulatory forms and practices applied had resulted in the trends of commercialism meeting with little resistance. In the mixed economy in which the media operated at the end of the twentieth century there was apparent a significant risk, if commercial trends were not addressed, that PSB and the values it represented would all too easily become marginalised. It was clear that the consequence of such a development would be the diminishment of citizenship.