Open AccessThe Problems with Reimagining Public Media in the Context of Global South
Author(s) -
Anis Rahman
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
stream
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1916-5897
DOI - 10.21810/strm.v6i1.88
Subject(s) - thriving , politics , context (archaeology) , colonialism , state (computer science) , autonomy , commercialization , political science , sociology , political economy , media studies , public relations , public administration , social science , geography , law , archaeology , algorithm , computer science
This paper puts forward a case from the global south into the discussion of public media. It pays particular attention to Bangladesh, an epicenter of a thriving media system in South Asia. From a political economic perspective in this paper I ask: can the state broadcaster BTV be a public media? Based on a combination of methods including in-depth interviews and document analysis, I locate four problematic areas including political instrumentalization, commercialization, struggle for autonomy, and contradictory policy responses – all which impede BTV’s ability to perform as a public media. I argue that this inability has to be understood not as a failure of the state but as a result of colonial legacy, post-colonial transformation, as well as a derivative of neoliberal market-orientation of communications in the global South.