International Deregulatory Pressures and the Cultural Policy Toolkit in Europe’s Small Countries, Hamburg, 3rd European Communication Conference of the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA)

The paper builds on the findings of a recent ESRC research project by the authors that investigated deregulatory pressures on the audiovisual ‘cultural policy toolkit’ (Grant and Wood, 2005) in Canada, France, Germany and the UK. Under the impact of globalisation of the media industry, new media technologies and political deregulation, there has over the past two decades occurred a ‘paradigm shift’ towards a ‘market model’ of broadcasting regulation. The need for countries’ media industries to remain competitive in the international competition for investment, programme exports, and the development of digital new media in the converged communications sector, has led to strong deregulatory pressure which represents a particularly serious challenge to the old public service and cultural policy paradigm. However, the project found that these countries’ cultural policy toolkits were remarkably robust in resisting deregulatory pressures. Canada and France are exemplars of a longstanding and enduring commitment to a markedly ‘protectionist’ cultural policy toolkit model based on subsidies and a sophisticated array of regulatory instruments. By contrast, Germany and the UK are striking examples of a continuing strong reliance on and commitment to public service broadcasting. Our ECREA10 paper extends this line of inquiry to a third, distinctive set of countries, namely Europe’s smaller jurisdictions, whose ability to withstand the deregulatory international pressures is much weaker. Europe’s small countries face particular problems in respect of the size of their markets and indigenous media industries. Market size is an important variable in terms of their ability to maintain a degree of cultural policy-making autonomy and viability. It is also significant when considering the future sustainability of their national media industries and the integrity of the markets that sustain them, notably advertising. The EU’s audiovisual regulatory policy has neglected to take account of the particular concerns of small countries expressed, most recently, during the negotiations leading to the recent Audiovisual Media Services Directive. This may be more a reflection of the small countries’ relative weakness (vis a vis large ones) of political resources at the European level rather than weakness of the argument. However, there is a clear problem of meeting their concerns within the current economic liberal paradigm governing the internal market, notably reflected in the ‘country of origin’ principle. The paper concludes by exploring the tension within the EU between that internal market rationale and the commitment, as expressed in EU support for the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity, to promoting cultural subsidiarity.