Presentation to ECREA Communications Law & Policy conference, 26 October 2013

1. Convergent Media Policy:
The Australian Case
Paper presented to European Communications Research and Education
Association (ECREA) Communications Law & Policy Workshop 2013,
Mediacity UK, Salford Quays, Salford, Manchester, UK
25-26 October 2013
Terry Flew
Professor of Media and Communications
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia

2. Media Policy and Regulation: Time for a
New Paradigm?
• Drivers of change
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Media globalisation
Media convergence
Uncoupling of content and delivery platforms
User-created conent
• The mass communications regulation model
– Licenced broadcasting
– Ownership, content and standards regulations
– Public service media

3. The ‘public interest’ regulation model
• „Regulation is established in response to the conflict between
private corporations and the general public. The creation of
regulatory agencies is viewed as the concrete expression of
the spirit of democratic reform‟ (Horwitz 1989, 23).
• „Policy formation in this, as in other fields, is generally guided
by a notion of the „public interest‟, which democratic states are
expected to pursue on behalf of their citizens. In general, a
matter of „public interest‟ is one that affects the society as a
whole (or sections of it) rather than just the individuals
immediately involved or directly affected‟ (van Cuilenburg and
McQuail 2003, 182).

4. Challenges to the ‘public interest’ model
• Economic capture theories: regulatory failure as
agencies „captured‟ by their clients
• Capitalist state theories: state faces contradictory
pressures for accumulation and legitimation – rise of
neoliberal ideologies
• Does technological change and greater consumer choice
favour the neoliberal option
• Internet libertarianism and the local/global split – „you
can‟t regulate the global Internet‟

5. The Challenges of Convergence
• „Australia‟s policy and regulatory framework for content
services is still focused on the traditional structures of the
1990s – broadcasting and telecommunications. The
distinction between these categories is increasingly blurred
and these regulatory frameworks have outlived their original
purpose‟ (Convergence Review 2012: vii).
• „The industry is going through fundamental change in
technology, in business models and in corporate structures. It
has become a single industry, thoroughly converged and
integrated. Yet it continues to be regulated under … separate
Acts, which date from 20 years ago. Authority continues to be
divided among different departments and agencies‟ (Konrad
von Fickenstein, CRTC Chair, quoted in Theckedath and
Thomas 2012, 4).

6. Verticals and horizontals
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7. Changing Broadcasting Content Landscape

8. Australian Media Policy Reviews

9. Policy Dimensions of Media Convergence
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Who are „the media industry‟?
Regulatory parity between old/new media
Equivalent treatment of content across platforms
Threshold of media influence
Relationship between „media content‟ and personal
communication

10. Media Concentration and Influence
• Historically we have measured media concentration in
terms of structure of an industry/market (e.g. HHI index)
• Is there a crisis of the media moguls?
• Rise of two-tier digital media structure – large ICT
integrator firms at the core (Google, Apple, Microsoft
etc.) surrounded by specialist content producers
• The traditional media giants in various „frenemy‟
relationships to the large ICT players

11. Regulatory parity
• Commercial broadcasters in Australia subject to local
content rules through program quotas
• Convergence Review (2012) recommended a
Converged Content Production Fund as a levy that could
be an alternative to program quotas
• Are „old media‟ rules suitable for „new media‟? – Google
have argued that professional/user-generated content
distinction is blurring online

12. Assessing media influence
• At what point does a media content provider become “big
enough” for regulation to be warranted in relation to
ownership and content without this inhibiting content
innovation and freedom of communication?
• Simple media power: Murdoch, Berlusconi etc.
• Complex media power: net neutrality, data mining
• Convergence Review proposed Content Service
Enterprises (CSEs): „the focus of regulation is significant
enterprises that provide professional content to
Australians‟
– Professionally produced content
– Significant revenues from Australian-produced content
– Significant Australian audience and/or number of users

13. Regulatory radicalism of convergent
media policy
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Use of an „influence‟ threshold
Regulating on the basis of content rather than platforms
Cross-industry application of regulatory measures
Different history and architecture of the Internet as
compared to print and broadcast media
• At the heart of these are questions if what media
influence now means in a convergent media
environment, where the relationship between the
provider and the platform is a shifting one, and where
new media companies are as much enablers of content
distribution as they are producers of media content.