access to media

Media access means the opportunity and ability to use media technology for the production, distribution, and reception of mass communication intended for public audiences. In most commercial media renderings and politicians’ pronouncements, media access is restricted to reception of analog or digital transmissions, including Internet sites. However, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19, which declares access to the means to communicate a human right, explicitly protects the right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media”.

Media access provides a measure of democracy and entails more than viewing or listening. To maximize democratic participation by diverse publics, individuals and groups must have full access to the technologies necessary for the production and distribution of mass communication, including the means for print, broadcast, film, and digital production and dissemination of messages and meanings. Specifically, media access entails opportunities for video and audio recording, including access to sound and visual editing equipment, studio space, portable recording equipment, from microphones to cameras, and the ability and resources to broadcast to mass audiences. Media access means adequate training in production techniques and practices.

Full civic access to media also requires space for collective discussions on programming needs, criteria, and scheduling to maximize contributions from multiple viewpoints and diverse social groups, communities, ethnicities, genders, and more. To assure wide reception, media access needs ample broadcast spectrum space, which is publicly owned but governmentally administered in most nations.

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Media Control

History shows media as a primary means for information, social influence, and political control. From ancient Rome to contemporary China and Turkey, from World War II censorship to contemporary media repression in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil, institutions and governments have sought to control the production and reception of information and entertainment. Even in ostensibly democratic nations such as France, Britain, and the United States, most media production is not available to the public. Civic organizations and community groups, whether ethnic or national minorities, labor, indigenous, youth, women, and other non-elite social groups, have very little or no access to technologies needed for the production and dissemination of mass communication. Access to media production technologies and media distribution channels is almost exclusively under the control of a handful of consolidated national and transnational media corporations.

In the United States, Comcast, Disney, Fox, Gannett, iHeartRadio, and a half dozen other firms dominate the production of news and entertainment programming. In Europe, Bertelsmann, Burda, Bauer, Canal+, BSkyB, Daily Mail, Mediaset, and a few other national and transnational media groups produce and distribute most news and entertainment products across the continent. Increasingly, banks, investors, and private equity funds (such as KKR and Alden Capital) are also buying into major commercial media, further restricting media access to leveraged financial interests. Elsewhere, dominant commercial media such as Rede Globo (Brazil), Televisa (Mexico), Naspers (Southern Africa), and Reliance (India) control the airwaves and predominate on national Internet sites.

Certainly, access to information and entertainment is abundant globally. Providing access to information about science, technology, and politics to the world’s billions is essential. However, reducing media access solely to reception of the information superhighway as the pathway to education and employment (as championed by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore) confines citizens to spectators and receivers of communication produced by others. Without access to media production, communication as a human activity can be little more than advertising, proselytizing, and propaganda—well-intentioned or not.

Public Service Media

In most nations, public service broadcasting offers modest and benevolent public-oriented educational and entertainment programming. Yet, even a public broadcasting that emphasizes its public service still leaves citizens and the public in general as receivers of communication dependent on news and entertainment produced by elite gatekeepers who have direct access to production and distribution. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom, Germany’s ARD (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Association of Public Broadcasting Corporations in the Federal Republic of Germany) and ZDF (Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen, Second German Television), Italy’s RAI (Radiotelevisione Italiana), Japan’s NHK (Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai, Japan Broadcasting Corporation), and India’s Doordarshan maintain some of the largest viewing and listening audiences in their own nations and globally. In most cases, mandatory public fees provide the financial resources and afford public service broadcasters some degree of independence from their respective governments. In the United States, in contrast, Congress determines the level of federal support for public media such as National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Public service broadcasters in the United States have increasingly turned to commercial underwriting and voluntary donations from listeners and viewers, pushing the public media toward entertainment, apolitical programming, and news reports that largely echo government policies and sources.

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In Europe meanwhile, public broadcasting in Europe has also been shaped by market liberalization and regulatory frameworks—particularly European Union state-aid rules—which scrutinize public funding to ensure it does not unduly distort competition with commercial media. BBC and other public broadcasters in Europe, faced with financial pressures, have expanded commercial activities through subsidiaries such as BBC Studios, which operates international channels like BBC America and generates revenue to support public-service programming. In some cases, formerly public broadcasters have been privatized or commercialized—for example, TF1 in France, which was privatized in 1987.

Globally, public access to media production has been threatened by technological innovation and national governments enforcing austerity cuts on public services. About a quarter of the world has no access to the Internet, despite continued growth in internet use. Not surprisingly, the mass production and distribution of media messages and formats (including on the Internet) remain dominated by commercial media, while public service broadcasters normatively and ideologically conform to dominant media frames and agendas set by those commercial interests and government policies influenced by commercial media lobbyists. In the 21st century, media access to production and distribution by major corporations results in standardized genre (e.g., talk shows, game shows, situation comedies, dramas about professionals, and infotainment news) with public service broadcasting featuring nature, history, and music documentaries all intended to attract audiences to be sold to advertisers. Public access to media technology for production of noncommercial programming and stories by citizens is minuscule in comparison.

One significant contrasting example is public service broadcasting in Venezuela since 2004. Public media were dramatically expanded following the business coup attempt against President Hugo Chavez in 2002. VTV, the government-run public service television, airs educational programming, news and information, and even some telenovelas. ANTV broadcasts news and information from the National Assembly. Three major public broadcasting stations ViVe, TVes, and Avila TV feature community-produced videos and news, drama, music, and investigative reporting. The YVKE Radio Network includes 10 public radio stations. These noncommercial media receive substantial financing from the government’s Social Fund. These outlets receive substantial government support and were established to expand access to media production. However, assessments of their independence vary widely, with some observers emphasizing increased community participation and others raising concerns about political influence and regulatory control.

Although Venezuela’s public media do not attract the most sizable audiences, their diversity of programming, independent and investigative news reports, and their community-produced cultural offerings of theater, music, and dance express the best in public service. In addition, Venezuela hosts Telesur (Television of the South), a regional, state-backed television network originally launched as a cooperative initiative among several Latin American governments, though its ownership structure and participating states have evolved over time. Still, even when public service media inspire and inform millions of viewers and listeners, those audiences remain receivers not producers, not creators of media or communication.

Public Access Radio and Community Media

Direct media access by the public does exist in many nations, albeit on a limited scale. In the United States, for instance, a large national network of low-power FM (LPFM) radio stations licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, numbering in the thousands and serving local communities across the country are licensed to broadcast at 100 watts to mostly rural small towns across the country. The National Federation of Community Broadcasters and the Grassroots Radio Coalition coordinate and share programming among dozens of larger community radio stations. The most successful public access media may be the Pacifica Radio Network, which has five independent, noncommercial, listener-funded stations in Berkeley, California; Los Angeles; New York; Houston; and Washington, DC, as well as a wider network of affiliated community radio stations across the United States.

Since its founding in 1983, the World Association of Community Broadcasters (in French, AMARC, Association Mondiale Des Radiodiffuseurs Communautaires) has grown to over 3,000 member stations in 100 countries broadcasting, sharing, and advocating for public media access and international collaboration in participatory broadcasting practices and policies. Internationally, radio technology affords more media access to the public due to its relatively low cost of production and distribution. For public reception, radio is more accessible because literacy is not necessary for listening, while relatively inexpensive transistors or even nonbattery crank-generated radio receivers make reception possible almost everywhere. Thus, across Latin America, Africa, and South Asia access to low-technology community radio provides some opportunity for public media production and distribution with the potential for wide reception.

One hallmark of media access through community radio, including even the larger Pacifica stations, is the preference for media production by listeners, community members, and individual broadcasters, who create and air their programming to listeners in the broadcast footprint and through shared exchanges among community radio networks and coalitions. Community radio broadcasting provides multiple models for participatory public media access to production and distribution, including listener-directed programming decisions, listener and community-based technical training and producer development, and direct democratic communication and decision-making among and by listeners-as-programmers.

Media Access in Southern Africa

Underscoring the essence of media access, community radio’s defining feature is that senders are also receivers. In some regions, government authority explicitly recognizes community broadcasting as a third sector, supplementing commercial media and public service media. The South African Independent Broadcasting Authority defines community access media as those that reach specific geographic or collective interest, are nonprofit, and include community participation. A leading postapartheid example is Bush Radio, which has been broadcasting in English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa from Cape Town since 1993. In West Africa, in contrast, radio station owners include religious groups proselytizing and individual commercial interests essentially limiting public media access to community broadcasting. Originally sponsored by UNESCO, Katutura Radio in Namibia demonstrates fuller media access with its wide citizen participation in production and broadcasting. New national networks advocating public media access, including the Kenyan Community Media Network and the South African National Community Media Forum, have been petitioning for more supportive legislation and policies.

Europe’s Uneven Media Access

Despite European countries’ long history of public service broadcasting with significant national funding, the availability for public access media was slow to develop. In 2009, following a resolution by the European Parliament, the Council of Europe declared community media essential for promoting social cohesion and intercultural dialogue, but implementation remains uneven. Community radio in Germany, often called free radio, goes back to antinuclear activists launching Radio Dreyeckland in Freiburg in the late 1970s. Since then, several states have licensed open channels as forms of noncommercial, nongovernment media. Yet, regional radio authorities administer and control these channels, essentially limiting public access.

France has an advanced community radio system with more than 600 community stations. Although many are Catholic broadcasters, the majority promote community dialogue, fight ethnic discrimination, and advocate on environmental issues and local development. Funding for community radio comes from taxes on commercial station advertising revenue. The Netherlands and Belgium have contrasting media access structures: The Netherlands have some 300 community stations (locale omroepen), while next door in Belgium the government licenses stations only for cultural programming, marginalizing full public access to broadcasting.

By 2010, the Office of Communications (Ofcom) had issued more than 200 community radio licenses, and the sector has continued to expand, now serving hundreds of communities across the United Kingdom. All licensed stations demonstrated evidence of public service to their community, a not-for-profit status, accessibility for people living within the area, training and significant community participation and engagement in program production. British media laws have an expansive view of community radio, providing for both communities of interest and of geography. For example, there is Forest of Dean Community radio, the only local station broadcasting throughout the Forest, a remote region in the west of Britain. Takeover Radio in Leicester is the first children’s station in the United Kingdom. In London, there is a licensed community station in West London serving the Punjabi-speaking population (Desi Radio) and an experimental sound, art, and culture station in Central London (Resonance FM). Some stations emerged from long-running community organizations. New Style Radio in Winston Green, Birmingham, is a project of the Afro-Caribbean Millennium Centre, formed in the 1970s as a cooperative for Black youth and which later became a multifaceted community resource center.

Following the fall of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europeans anticipated a democracy with increased communication rights such as access to information and freedom of expression independent not only from government but also from commercial control. Community media offered the clearest access to media and communication rights. In fact, community media had played an important role during and after the wars in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, serving as an important platform of discussion, creating a sense of belonging. Community media in Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia were also open spaces contributing to social transformations.

In the post-Soviet era, however, community media have been sidelined in most of Eastern Europe. Until recent political changes, 40 community radio stations allowed media access in Hungary with some 30 in Poland. Now, in all 20 Eastern European countries, from Albania to the Ukraine, legal community media and public media access is all but nonexistent illustrating how media access indicates the extent of democracy and a citizen’s right to communicate.

Across Southeast Asia, including the Philippines and Indonesia, hundreds of local newspapers and low-power radio stations are community based, but in most cases without community control or participation. Politicians and private owners maintain exclusive access to most stations. These media serve as one-way channels for government information, advertisements, and religious propaganda. Even though they serve limited geographical communities, they do not represent media access. Rather, print publications and folk media often dominate other media in many local communities. Publications range from the blackboard news bulletins, to mimeographed pages, to tabloid-sized newspapers but provide media access for local citizens who write, interview, and report news and information to be shared.

India has a similar trajectory with the potential for more public media access. After the Supreme Court decision in February 1995 that airwaves are public property, a national campaign to legitimate community radio began. Until 2006, only educational institutions were permitted to operate campus radio stations. Subsequent policy changes expanded eligibility to nonprofit organizations and community groups, and the framework has been revised multiple times since. Despite this expansion, growth has been gradual, and community radio remains limited relative to India’s size, with regulatory restrictions—particularly on independent news broadcasting—continuing to shape the sector. (Of note, Nepal has around 475 radio stations even though they do not have community media policies.) Importantly, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry only permits community radio to air news bulletins translated into the local language or dialect and non-news like traffic and weather updates. Guidelines essentially compel community radio stations to broadcast for the government, not the community. A few stations have transgressed to provide wider public media access. For instance, since 2008, Sangham Radio broadcasts for 2 hours daily in Telugu to 150 villages in the Telangana region. With UNESCO support, rural women produce and air music, farming news and advice, and a call-in session for villagers to speak directly and without censorship to all listening. Radio Benziger in Kollam has also enacted participatory production practices with community decision-making on programming, further pressuring the Indian government to allow more media access.

Such initiatives for media access have become more organized and deliberate. The South Asia Network for Community Media (SANCOM) was formally launched on February 13, 2015, at the World Radio Day event in New Delhi, India. The event and network were organized jointly by UNESCO and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre in Asia. SANCOM advocates for expanding public media access across South Asia through workshops, conferences, and policy proposals to national governments.

Public Access Television

Given that television requires more technology, more expertise, and more funding, it is not surprising that public access to television broadcasting (terrestrial, cable, and satellite) is more limited. One exemplary media access model for television comes from the United States. Public access television was established in the United States during the 1970s and public, educational, and governmental (PEG) cable television organizations and community media centers began in 1984 both of which feature locally produced programming and appear as local free speech media zones, giving access to public communication, comment, and opinion.

The Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984 included a public interest requirement that to be awarded local franchises cable companies must set aside cable channels, facilities, and equipment for public access, educational, and government use. In addition, cable companies were required to pass along customer service fees to the local PEG channels. In some cases, such as in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties on the San Francisco peninsula, local PEG media became quite robust and vibrant in providing significant community access to production and airing of programs. The Mid-Peninsula Media Center in Palo Alto broadcasts on six community cable channels. The Media Center trains local citizens in video and audio production skills and provides paid-professional and volunteer taping and broadcasting services to local groups, including schools, city councils, and small businesses for education, youth, culture, government, and arts programming. With annual revenues of less than $700,000 in 2020, the Media Center services local government, educational, and business contracts, coordinates a wide range of workshops, offers technical training, and broadcasts citizen- and viewer-produced programming, as well as producing and airing shows by media center staff. In 2015 the cable franchise paid $300,000 in franchise fees; in 2018 the payment was cut to $62,000 while the cable company kept the subscriber fees intended for PEG broadcasting. Arbitrary funding cuts, without any government oversight, threaten the future of public access television in the area. Cable companies are aggressively pursuing restrictions on public access television across the United States.

Media Access as Democratic Eruption

Because media access is so intimately tied to democratic participation, media access is not only a measure of democracy but also makes media primary public sites for debate and discussion. Some of the most dramatic and significant instances of expansive citizen access to media production and distribution occur at times of social protest and collective demands for increased democracy and human rights. From Bolivian miners’ community radio in the 1950s to community radio and television in Venezuela and Bolivia in the 2000s, social movements that successfully shift the social relations of power have accordingly opened media to public participation and created sites for advancing civic participation and democratic decision-making.

Democratic moments of rupture in societal norms unearth interconnections between media and society that are often obscured during periods of social stability or political repression. In the 20th century, turmoil in Latin America created openings for significant citizen media access.

To different degrees, governments across Latin America have created or allowed openings for citizen access to media communication, reflecting disparate social relations of power. In each case, the social relations of power reflected in government policy have resulted in changes in media political economies and public access to communication. Political power has largely determined the extent of media access by the public.

Media Access as Democracy

Media access as a vital space for democratic communication is not merely technical or even distributional; it provides a public space for dialogue, debate, argument, and interaction among citizens long denied access to the production of politics and culture. In practice, media access must provide a space for production and distribution of communication by citizens to consent and dissent from official and majority voices. For example, media access in Latin America, represented largely by community radio, nourishes and shares diverse languages and cultures. In Ecuador, microphones transmit Spanish, Quechua, Mixteco, Guarani, Miskito, Quiché. In Guatemala, 26 languages are spoken, and behind each language is a culture. Many community radio stations have collected the legends and myths of various cultures, their way of cultivation, genealogy, traditional medicine, and other customs, sharing them through programs containing people’s testimonies. Media access also allows music cultures to be broadcast more widely. Community journalists and correspondents serve as lifelines of news and information on local and national events. Media access provides the means for democratic community media to cultivate and share cultural experiences with the nation through translation and broadcast. 

Almost everywhere, from Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia to Sweden, Norway, the United States, India, and Nepal, public media access increases communication among and within communities, nations, and diverse social groups. The public’s access to media production increases opportunities for representations and expressions by the majority of society through music, entertainment, and political commentary as demonstrated by Avila TV, CORADEP, Sangham Radio, Pacifica Radio, and the Mid-Peninsula Media Center, among hundreds more public access media around the world.

The original version of this article was published by SAGE Publications in The SAGE Encyclopedia of Journalism.