Media Pluralism and Diversity ─ Concepts, Risks and Global Trends

In the western world, a diverse and pluralistic media landscape is deemed essential for democracy. But how universal is media pluralism as a concept underpinning media policies? To what extent do normative approaches, regulatory dimensions and monitoring systems differ throughout the world? Being a complex and multidimensional concept, media pluralism is interpreted and labelled in varying ways in different times, geographies, contexts and policy circles. Adopting a truly global, theoretical and multidisciplinary perspective, Media Pluralism and Diversity advances our understanding of media pluralism across the globe. It compares metrics that have been developed in different parts of the world to assess levels of, or threats to, media pluralism. It identifies common challenges for media pluralism policies in the light of a fast changing and increasingly global media environment. The book is unique in that it confronts insights from all parts of the world and from a broad range of disciplines including law, economics, cultural and media studies, communication science and sociology.

Peggy Valcke is Professor of Law at the University of Leuven (iMinds-ICRI), Part-time Professor at the European University Institute and Visiting Professor at the University of Tilburg. In 2008-2009, she served as project leader for the Independent Study on Indicators for Media Pluralism in the Member States, funded by the European Commission. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom at the RSCAS at EUI.

Miklos Sukosd is Associate Professor at the Department of Media, Cognition and Communication at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Previously he held appointments at the University of Hong Kong and Central European University. He also served as Chair of the COST Action East of West: Setting a New Central Eastern European Media Research Agenda.

Robert Picard is Director of Research at the Reuters Institute in the Department of Politics and International Relations at University of Oxford, a research fellow at Green Templeton College (Oxford), and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. A specialist in media economics and policy, he is the author and editor of 28 books. He has been editor of the Journal of Media Business Studies and The Journal of Media Economics. Picard received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and has been a fellow at the Shorenstein Center at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.