Lecturing on the book in Yekaterinburg, Russia October 2019
Report 2019
Beside a few lectures home and abroad and engagement on a few boards all my time in the past year has been dedicated to a book project (described in my 2018-report, see link at the top of the column to the right) trying to understand and explain the profound changes taking place in Danish media politics. The results will be published (in Danish, sorry!) February 2020 in a book with the title, here in English: Politics between Emotions and Reason - the Game of the Future of Danish Media.
It is based on a combination of an initial assertion and a skeptical question: The future of Danish Public Service Media can from a parliamentary political perspective no longer be justified purely by reason and rational arguments. Rather it should (also) be based on political values and ideology. The question, however, is whether Parliament and Government with their institutional decision-making culture and somewhat technocratic approach can handle conflicting values and ideology and develop them into a practical, relevant policy.
Based on interviews and desk research I have mapped and categorized the positions of the political parties and individual actors in the three-year period leading up to and during the negotiations along a continuum between the two theoretical
extremes: emotions (values, passion, attitudes) and reason (goals-means-effect rationality). Both extremes and several middle positions played a role in the political decisions. At the emotion-end of the scale you could find some political support to, but also very strong antagonism against DR and critical journalism in general. Also, value-related positions concerning state intervention in the free media market. At the other end rational elements were mostly in play related to tactical manoeuvres during the negotiations. Whereas for instance the dominating influence from the global techplatforms (well documented in reports presented to the politicians) was barely addressed. Another observation was that the government's explicit, liberal objectives of giving "the free market" more space by reducing state intervention (i.e. marginalizing DR) was not obtained. On the contrary. Although the 2018 media agreement on the one hand certainly brought cutdowns to DR, it resulted on the other hand nonetheless in increased state intervention and controls by for instance establishing new publicly funded PSM elements potentially competing with private media. All in all, it might in coming years very well lead to a general weakening of the national Danish media market.
Referring back to the initial assertion and the sceptical question, mentioned above, the book concludes that the parliamentary negotiations and the resulting political agreement were characterized by a separation between emotions and reason as if they belonged to two different worlds. The politicians who took part in the negotiations, were unable or did not want to take on the special responsibility for reconciling emotions and reason, which Max Weber (in “Politics as a Vocation”/”Politik als Beruf”) considered to be the hallmark of the political office.
I hope, I one way or the other will be able to publish some of the observations to a broader international forum, conveying the message that government intervention in the free media-market and the role of Public Service Medias should ideally at one and the same time be understood with reason - and justified by emotions.