The BBC has faced large cuts in funding. So has the Canadian CBC. Even Scandinavian systems are experiencing some funding pressures. And Mitt Romney considered firing Big Bird. We should be asking ourselves, particularly in this period of fiscal constraint, whether investing in public service broadcasting is an important part of governments’ commitment to helping citizens be better informed about politics and policy.
This was one of the questions motivating research conducted by a group of political scientists and communications researchers recently published in the British Journal of Political Science. We are grateful for the attention that this work has already received on the Monkey Cage — a post from John Sides, and some additional commentary and research from Patrick O’Mahen. I hope to add to that discussion here.
Our research, in short, combined a content analysis of major media outlets (see some results here) with an online survey focusing on media use and political knowledge. That survey is the source of our information, presented in the BJPolS, on whether PSB viewership is associated with higher levels of hard and soft current affairs knowledge across six very different media systems: Canada, Italy, Japan, Norway, the UK and South Korea.
Results suggest that viewing public rather than (or at least in addition to) private broadcasting is associated with higher levels of news knowledge. We have to take into account self-selection, of course — it is difficult to know whether public broadcasting increases knowledge, or whether those with higher levels of political knowledge choose to watch public broadcasting. The causal arrow likely runs in both directions. But to the extent that we are able to identify an independent effect of media on knowledge (using propensity score matching), it appears as though public broadcasting increases knowledge.
Or, at least, public broadcasting can increase knowledge. Our data point to a clear knowledge gap between those who watch public vs. private broadcasting in the UK, and in Norway as well. Differences in other countries are somewhat smaller. Japan and Canada show small but significant gaps between public and private television viewers, while Korea shows no gap, and Italians appear to benefit (knowledge-wise, at least) from private rather than public broadcasting. (The attached figure shows the estimated knowledge gaps for each country, where the “gap” is estimated knowledge for those who watch primarily public broadcasting minus estimated knowledge for those who watch primarily private broadcasting. Full details on the knowledge scale is available in the paper.)
It’s sad that these excellent researchers were unable to include the U.S. system (PBS) because of its limited scope, news offerings and audience. But it is heartening that public service broadcasting in other countries — especially those with deep commitments to staffing and journalism — provides significant knowledge for users that is superior to that offered by commercial outlets.