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The Social Contract and Beyond in Broadcast Media Policy

This article undertakes an institutionalist analysis of broadcast media policy, analyzing sources of both stability and change over time. It draws attention to the distinctive features of broadcast licenses as a form of soft property and the significance of policy settlements as ways in which regulators in different countries have managed the relationship between private ownership and public interest. It traces the development of broadcast media policy in Australia from the 1950s to the present in this light, arguing that continuities in policy over time that have favored incumbent commercial interests have been the prevailing pattern of policy outcomes. The article concludes by raising issues about whether a social democratic approach to media policy should support the introduction of greater market competition in a multiplatform environment rather than seek to maintain the existing broadcasting order and draws on so-called new public interest literature to make this argument.