Theoretical Approaches to the Management of the Public Service Media Firm

JOURNAL OF MEDIA ECONOMICS, 15(4), 241–258 Copyright © 2002, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Theoretical Approaches to the Management of the Public ServiceMedia FirmSune TjernströmDepartment of Economics Swedish University of Agriculture

This article argues the need for a theory of the media firm. Universal theories of management and context-dependent contingency theories of management control are identified. Other theoretical approaches to media organizations are reviewed: mediamanagement, theories of not-for-profit organizations, and theories of political management. The contribution to the theory of the media firm by 2 French sci- entists is analyzed—Bourdieu and Debray. This article concludes that a theory of the public service media firm needs to use several building blocks, some with relatively well-known sources, some with more recent origins. Avenues for further research are indicated, which may add angles to the development of a theory of managment in the public service media firm.

Theoretical starting points for the study of management in the public service media firm have traditionally linked to the conditions under which all media firms work—theories of media management. The aim of this article is to describe andan- alyze other theoretical foundations of the study of management in the public service media firm by outlining general theories of organizations and management control that seem applicable to public service media organizations, selected specific approaches from the management control literature, and finally, current critical contributions toresearch on media organizations.

A brief overview is given of universal theories of management control, followed by examples of approaches that focus on the need to adapt management control to differing contexts.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Sune Tjernström, Department of Economics, Swedish Univer- sity of Agriculture, Box 7075, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]

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After reviewing these general theoretical approaches, the use of agency theory is proposed as a powerful tool for the analysis of management on several levels in public service organizations. New twists are proposed, where to the owner–manager couplet are added citizen–government and client–media couplets.

The article also argues the need for a theory of the public service media firm to include theoretical contributions fromother areas, such as theories of professional organizations,not-for-profit organizations, and theories of political management. These theories make valuable contributions to the understanding of management behavior in public service media firms. Finally, the writings of two social scien- tists, Bourdieu and Debray, are added to the literature of public service media firm management.

For those taking an organizational approach to the study of media content, it is suggested that media organizations cannot be properly analyzed if the starting point is exclusively the editorial staff and their professional attitudes. Management behavior is crucial and must be understood.

Picard (1989) outlined the concept and role of the market, consumer, and pro- ducer choices and market responses; the structure of the markets in which media firms operate; and

relationships with capital markets, embedded in a neoclassicmicroeconomic setting. The only chapter directly relevant for the analysis of the behavior of public service firms, however, is one on government intervention in the market, which explores how governments promote social goals and influence the market conduct of media firms through regulation, advantages, and subsidies.

Alexander, Owers, and Carveth (1993) directed attention to different industries such as newspaper, publishing, television, cable, movies, syndication, and advertising and offered an analysis of the global integration of the media industries. Gershon (2000), who gives particular attention to issues of environmental scanning and strategyformulation, examined the growth and expansion of media com-panies into transnational media corporations.

Media-management texts, such as Lavine and Wackman (1988) and Lacy, Sohn, and Wicks (1993), stress some of the factorsdistinguishing media from other manufacturers: nature of theproduct, types of employees, special organizational factors in media companies, and media’s unique role in society. The latter point is made with reference to the status of media firms as the only business specifically protected by the American Constitution’s First Amendment andto other statutes directed at the media, such as copyright, libel, slander, defamation, shield, and privacy.

Lavine and Wackman saw that the challenge for media managersis to accomplish two somewhat contradictory objectives: producing media products using limited resources and producing innovative, high-quality messages. The setting, again, is that of the American media market. Owners primarily want a solid return on investment. Quality employees want a fair wage, and the public wants value for

time and money spent consuming media in terms of informationand entertainment. The major source of revenue for media

firms in this context is advertising; the implications of this for media managers are discussed at some length, stressing the objective of selling the audiences to advertisers.

The idea of linking profits and social responsibility is present in most media-management texts but appears in a marketing perspective. It is good business to protect a franchise by taking additional considerations beyond short-term profit.

The media-management literature is based on the idea that the media firm operates on two separate markets: the advertising market and the consumer market. McManus (1994) increased the number of markets to four, adding the capital market and the market for sources. This extension of the traditional media markets is thought provoking but takes thetheory one step further away from studying behavior in thepublic service firm.

A study of the history of management in the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation (Tjernström, 1999) found that traditional media economics and management literature has surprisingly little to offer in terms of theoretical concepts suitable for the analysis of the management of the public service media firm. To be relevant for public servicemedia organizations, an analogy is needed. The public service firms also operate in two distinct markets. The markets involve consumers (listen- ers–viewers) and politicians (determining the rules of the game), the focus of a later section.

To be fair, media-management theories have developed, and recent research contributions on the effects of the managerial revolution, the development of management control, and the patterns of behavior of transnational mediacorporations clearly span both commercial and public servicemedia firms. These developments are by and large ignored in

this article for the purpose of making a single point: The study of public service media firms needs other theoretical approaches.

UNIVERSAL THEORIES

There are theoretical approaches that could be labeled trulyuniversal theories of management, such as microeconomic models and stakeholder theory. This article does not addressthese theories, although they would also seem applicable to all kinds of media organizations. The following paragraphs draw general ideas from the management control literature that seem relevant for various domains in media and communications research, the information nerve-center picture, the labor process view, and agency theory. The list draws heavily on Macintosh (1994).

The Informational Nerve Center

The nerve center framework sees the manager active in gathering, storing, moving, sharing, processing, and disseminating formal and particularly informal informa-

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tion. It attempts to make sense of the manager’s chaotic life, as depicted by researchers who followed managers around, observing, recording, and asking them what they actually did (Mintzberg, 1975). According to these studies, managers did not spend their time methodologically planning organizational objectives nor sys- tematically following up accomplished results. Managers spent time on several projects simultaneously and only occasionally had time for reflective tasks. Out of the three major roles of managers—decision-making and interpersonal and informational roles—the informational roles dominated the lives of most

managers.

Effective managers can thus be seen as the nerve centers of their organizational units. Managers find information in management accounting systems, such as the budget, but oftenhave a strong preference for verbal communication.

Most media-management texts, such as a study on German television (Geisler, 2000), implicitly work within this framework, supplying advice on how to fulfill various management roles in a media firm, with controllers delivering numbers for management decisions. For public service media firms, there is an interesting contradiction between this symbol of management rationality and the socialfunctions of public service.

The Labor Process View

The labor process view focuses on the idea that actual control of work has passed from the hands of the individual worker to the capitalist owner class and finally to a managerial class working on behalf of owners. These theoriesdraw heavily on the work of Marx and Engels in the 19th century but also on classical management theories such as scientific management. For the management scien- tists, management must manage. The focus of the labor process framework is on sophisticated control mechanisms designed tomake efficient use of labor for the purpose of meeting goalsthat owners and managers have set.

This implicit universal theory of management is so prevalentthat it is sometimes hard to see why management is needed for media firms—except for the necessary clerical duties. Itseems fair to observe that many writers in journalism assumethat managers are an internal threat to the good editors. These editors strive for higher goals than mere profit, suchas informing the public on political matters. Recent research does not seem to support fully the idea that

managers in a corporate environment place less emphasis on product quality or editorial independence (Demers, 2000).

In public service media firms, the main role of management is often on the side of the professional journalists—one of defending vulnerable values in broadcasting (Blumler 1992), often against the wishes of owners or representatives of owners.

Agency Theory

Agency theory depicts the organization as a web of two-person contracts between owner and employees where the owner, the principal, uses accounting information

to control the employee–manager who acts as the principal’s agent. Agency theory, situated in a structuralist functionalist paradigm, treats accounting systems and agentsas applied neoclassical economics to problems of conflicts between owners and employees (Jensen & Meckling, 1976).

Key concepts in agency theory are self-interest, adverse selection, moral hazard, signaling, contract, and asymmetric information. All actors are assumed to be motivated solely by selfish goals, nothing other than the cornerstone of neoclassical economics.

Adverse selection refers to a problem of hidden information,often involving owners with less information than the managers they hire. Moral hazard, an insur- ance term, implies that the owners cannot evaluate a manager before it is too late, and the manager may have used this freedom to do less than expected to promote the goals of the owner. Signaling involves the need for managers to indicate their abilities in a concrete fashion, sometimes at the expense of more important measures.

Agency theory boils down to asymmetric information, the fact

that the parties involved in running an operation may have access to different amounts of information. Often the owner knows less than the manager, and knowing as much as the manager involves time and costs for the owner. The search for the optimum amount of information requires insights into the theory of information.

Agency theory seems particularly useful for the analysis of conflicts between levels in a media organization, which is the main reason why agency theory is proposed as particularly useful for an analysis of the public service media firm.

Management as an Independent Actor

To understand the discrepancy between political institutionsand the interests of the leadership in public service organizations, agency theory is particularly attractive. Agency theory stands out as the most effective framework forthe analysis of behavior in the public service media firm,focusing primarily on potential conflicts between owners andmanagement:

In the history of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation there are several examples of independent behaviour on the part of Management, even in relation to the Govern- ment. Agency theory offers a possible framework for the analysis of such processes. Management not only follows directives and rules of the game, it tries to actively influence such rules. (Tjernström, 1999, p. 335, author’s translation)

Agency theory also offers an analytical framework for the analysis of discrepan- cies between management and editorialstaff, what Liebes (2000) called negotia- tions between newsroom and management. In public broadcasting, the institution’s director general may apply external pressures,as the director looks after the interests of the politicianswho may influence the director’s appointment. News items

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may put in a bad light or those who hold economic or political power are in danger of becoming the focus for a debate between unequal participants.

Public service media firms need to be analyzed not only in terms of management control or journalism professionalism but also in terms of organizational goals. Applying principles from agency theory to the behavior of individualsat various hierarchical levels of the firm reveals importantvariables, such as monitoring costs, individual motivations, and implicit organizational control mechanisms, that may impact media content. These variables help to explain variability in content across different organizations.

The limitations of agency theory, apart from model simplifications, are among other things the simplified view of the owner–entrepreneur as a distant actor. Not least in the world of modern media, the owner may well be part of a team effort, to- gether with managers–experts. The special abilities of the entrepreneur are then the justification forthe owner’s claims to profits.

Agency Theory and Ideological Goals

If one regards media organizations as both ideological and economic entities because media influence public opinion, government policy, and voter behavior, agency theory covers a broader field of potential conflicts. Owners may have other objectives for en- tering the media sector than returnon investment, and agency theory offers a framework for the analysis of behavior of individuals within ideological

organizations. Napoli (1997) suggested that the political dimension of media organizations makes agency theory particularly useful for the analysis of relationships among owner–management and management–employee. Rydbeck (1990) gave a vivid account of differences of opinion between thegovernment and public service management.

Napoli suggested that managers, editors, and journalists maydiffer politically on how a particular political issue should be covered. Often the journalist may be free to act according to his or her preferences. Content that deviates from ownership or management preferences can be produced.

Managers may be ignorant of particular facts, and staffers can use their superior knowledge to subvert policy. This is the essence of the principal–agent problem, with certain important information resting with the agent rather than theprincipal. Imperfect monitoring provides the agent with the opportunity to subvert the principal’s interest in favor of his own.

Hiring practices are often cited as a method of controlling journalists. Internal control involves censorship in advancethat may be as effective as external, ex- plicit control.

In the end, the implications of the principal–agent approach for the study of the production of media content highlight some unexplored areas of investigation for those taking an organizational approach to the subject. Media content is affectedby a com-

plex interaction of organizational factors, including professional and ideological characteristics of the organizational members at all levels of the hierarchy, the methods of implicit control employed, and structural factors such as organization size and ownership type. (Napoli, 1997, p. 216)

Agency theory can also be applied to other lines of controversy, such as potential conflicts between citizens

and elected politicians who determine the rules of the game in public service media firms. Citizens and politicians may differ in several important areas, such as the total amount of public financing for public service; li- cense fees are technically the opposite of progressive taxation, and they constitute a relatively heavy burden on low-income households. Citizens and representatives may also differ on programming. Some citizens may feel that the share of socialand cultural programming is greater than they would like in their homes; the evidence is their choice of lighter programming on other channels.

If you shift emphasis from the relationship between citizensand politicians and regard households as primarily consumption units, you can discover another simi- lar potential conflict between clients and the public service media firm, disregard- ing politicians.

Both of these additional front lines are areas suitable for the application of agency theory. Editors in public service media firms may prefer to be associated with cultural or current affairs projects as compared with entertainment. Audi- ences may feel the reverse is more attractive, and there is little they can do about decisions in public service media firms.

Field Theory

Bourdieu (1996) made claims of universality, including mediaorganizations, for the theories of fields. Bourdieu is a major contemporary social thinker, according to D. Robbins (2000). One motive for including Bourdieu’s theories is his application of the theory of fields to the media sector and other media researchers’ apparent ad- miration for the work.Bourdieu constituted a universal theory of the firm with a radically different focus than the three preceding theories.

Bourdieu’s concepts have been outlined in what is often

considered his most important work—Le sens pratique—a theoryof practice (Bourdieu, 1980). The task of reflecting Bourdieu’s contributions to various intellectual disciplinesis fraught with difficulty. The author argues that observed social phenomena are themselves the products of the intellectual construction of agents involved in social exchange and communication.

Bourdieu developed the concept of field. The author imagines society as a system of fields, each with its own structureand field of forces, set within a larger field that also hasa set of forces, structures, and so on. In a field there arestakes, forces, and people who have capital and others who do not. Capital is a concentra-


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tion of force that operates in a field. The field is a fieldof forces, but at the same time, it is a field in which people fight to change the structure.

Habitus is a mediating concept, which deals with the relationship between objective structures and the productionof practice. Bourdieu’s development of the concept of habitus was an attempt to create social agents as individuals who construct the world around them. This process of construction is completed through a system of acquired schemes. Such schemes function as categories of perception and appreciation so that they act in a practical sense by organizing action as well as classification.

Bourdieu often makes strategic interventions in particular social and political situations, and the assessment of his ideas must be based on the pragmatic utility of his concepts. This is the spirit in which one dares elaborate onhis potential contributions to the theory of the media

firm.

The author defines a journalistic field as one constrained by economic and technical considerations, but also constrainsother fields, such as the political field and the academic field.

In the journalistic field, journalists become puppets constrained by hidden structures that prevent describing reality as it is. This hidden censorship depends on technical constraints, such as the limited time available in television, but also on political constraints that lead to censorship and conformity, as well as financial constraints.

These latter constraints make it impossible for journalists in media organizations to explore the industrial interests of media owners; the obvious French example is the industry group Bouygues, who control the television channel TF 1. Bordieu calls this situation “structural corruption” that involves “symbolic violence.”

Media firms apply symbolic violence by “faits divers” and “faits omnibus,” that is, unimportant events, blood, sex, drama and crime, and information, matters that interest people but are useless. These are not harmful as such but prevent people from learning about important aspects of society. The role of the media firm becomes to hide important facts by showing trivial information.

Media firms turn out to be the instruments that powerful agents use to avoid revolutions against the material and intellectual base structure of society; instead, media maintain the symbolic order.

The only agents who can handle the media are people with sufficient symbolic capital or authority, that is, intellectuals. Intellectuals have a responsibility to- wardssociety at large and should start an uprising to disseminate

knowledge and give the public access to universal truths.

Bourdieu’s contribution to our understanding of media was received with en- thusiasm by Scandinavian media researchers, even if it was admitted that nothing was new toresearchers in the critical tradition (Gentikow, 1997). In areview of the English translation, Bourdieu’s treatment of the media field “remains novel and il- luminating throughout. His position is that of a serious sociologist with a deep and penetrating grasp of the subtleties of postmodern thought” (Avery, 2000, p. 373).

Bourdieu’s theory of fields has been applied to the media firm by a Swedish researcher (Hultén, 1999). Bourdieu’s attempt at renewing the sociology of the media was questioned by Marlière (2000), who labels most of the book “déjà vu.” Schneidermann (1999) revealed some uncomfortable details about Bourdieu’s attitudes to the media. The sociologist refuses any arrangement where he may be in- terrupted; this amounts to an attack on Bourdieu’s intellectual integrity.

Bourdieu’s theory of fields, as applied to the media firm, is a theory of how power is exercised in society. Bourdieu’sideas about different types of capital, economic and symbolic, take the analysis of media beyond the economist’s simple assumptions that the pursuit of profits is the only raison d’être of media organizations. People in the media,owners, managers, and journalists also strive for legiti- mization, symbolic rewards such as prestige. This is definitely true of public service media firms, and although Bourdieu’s attacks are aimed at commercial broadcasters, theapplication that comes to mind is that of discussing power relationships in the noncommercial sector. Who controls the distribution of legitimacy in the public service media firm?

Summary of Universal Perspectives

The four universal perspectives that could be applied to themedia firm are summa- rized in Table 1.

CONTINGENCY MODELS OF THE FIRM

Taking a contingency approach to management control means anorganization’s performance depends on matching its control system characteristics with the con-

Characteristics

Paradigm Major thesis Concepts, focus

Media firm application Advocacy position

Nerve Central

Subjective interpretist

Managers use information

Information processing

Media management

Managers

Labor Process

Radical structuralist

Managers control employees

Assymmetric power relations

Journalism profession

Employees

Agency Theory

Structural functionalist

Agents pursue self-interest

Assymmetric international relations

Conflicts in media firms

Owners

Field Theory

Structural constructionist

The exercise of power

Fields power in society

Structural censorship

Intellectuals

TABLE 1 Universal Perspectives


Note. Adapted from Macintosh (1994, p. 45). I have condensed the original table, added “Media Firm Application” and “Field Theory.”

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straints of its environment and other aspects of the contextin which the organization is active. Examples of contextual dimensions are those that define the organization’s context in terms of the pace of change in the environment, the degree of uncertainty, and its phase of development.

Changing Environments

Burns and Stalker (1961) identified two types of environment, a stable environment and one constantly changing. To match these contexts, firms need to develop a mechanistic organization in the first case and an organic control system in the latter.

Firms with mechanistic control have well-defined technology and divide tasks into distinct duties for each function. Power is allocated unambiguously among managers. Hierarchical arrangements seem suitable, and the whole organization is coordinated from the top, where information is available. Managers make decisions within fairly familiar expectations.

Organic control exists in more fluid environments where technology is constantly changing, work methods are continuously improved, and demands on out- put are ever moredemanding. New products appear on the market, and the environment seems to be turbulent. Managers in this context need to revise their methods, the goals, and tasks of the organization as a whole and those of organizational units within the firm. Formal hierarchies tend to disappear, and management does not always know best.

In terms of application to the world of media, it is rather easy to see that the European public service firms were historically organized with a mechanistic framework as the ideal. Management audits tried to bring order to a growing radio and television company. The environment, on the other hand, became more and more dynamic, changing at a fast rate.This created tensions, and the public service firms were at one stage heavily criticized all over Europe for being bureaucratic and costly (Syvertsen, 1992). The organic framework would seem to go a long way toward understanding behavior in contemporary media organizations affected by newtechnologies and harsher competition. The overall responsibility for structural adaptation to the environment would seem to lie with the owners, often sup- ported by special commissions.

How to Enforce Management’s Decisions

A rational approach to management would seem to make decisions at the top, where information is available, and to

transmit information about these decisions to lower levels. As managers go about this process, they establish a system of enforce- ment rules that are to be followed. We can see the outline of a command control

with central planning and control capacities and follow-up procedures where viola- tions of operating rules are detected and reported to upper management who can act on this information, rewarding those who obey orders and punishing those who de- viate (Arrow, 1964).

Another response is for organizations to adopt a decentralized, market-based approach to managerial behavior. The enterprise can be subdivided into separate but related subunits. These units are then asked to trade among themselves and with external markets as if they were independent firms. The organization is in this manner tryingto run a free market within the corporation. Each unit worksfor itself, and managers are encouraged to look after their own unit. Overall efficiency is a goal of this arrangement.

In the world of European public service firms, the BBC and its command structure has been the ideal, with most of theresources needed for broadcasting in-house. Traditions of market-based arrangements have been weak, even though the new dual system of broadcasting has meant the arrival of independent production units and market relations within themedia sector to an extent never seen before.

In the author’s previously mentioned study on the Swedish Broadcasting Cor- poration, a consultant’s proposal in the 1950s was discovered to reorganize the company along modern market lines. The proposal was never seriously considered for adoption. This was not in line with widespread ideas of the organization of a public service media firm. The distinction between command structures and market-based solutions remains the source of dispute in a public service

environment. The board of directors would normally be expected to take initiatives to change the decision structure as conditions allow.

Different Management Styles for Different Times

If one assumes that an organization meets different types ofchallenges during different phases of development, the phase-model of management seems attractive (Greiner, 1972). The idea is that organizations tend to experience long peri- odswhere no radical changes take place and shorter periods whenchange is dramatic. These revolutionary moments lead to crises if measures are not taken to address challenges the new situation involves. We see distinct phases of development that require new types of management control. Somewriters suggest that creativity is needed in early stages, more administrative practices as the organization grows, later delegation or coordination, collaboration, or other responses to increasing complexities.

In the author’s historical study, this was a pattern that seems to fit the development of the firm, at least in verygeneral terms, although bureaucratization dominated the history of public service management, whereas ideas about delegation to field units and shared responsibility came later. Top management attempted to


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maintain control for the center even as political decision makers prescribed a decentralized structure.

To conclude, some of the available organization and management theories that could be applied to public service media firms are general in nature, with wide-ranging differences in concepts and focus. Other theories that

assume differences in contexts demand different responses in terms of organizational structure, administrative processes, or the approach to management. Differences may appear as degrees of uncertainties in the environment, as availability of information, or as differences in the requirements during different development stages. Both the universal theories and the context-oriented seem to be very applicable to the world of public service media firms.

OTHER THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO THE PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA FIRM

Theories that help the researcher further explore the behavior of public service firms in relationship to politicians can be found in the vast field of research on political management or ideological–institutional leadership (Blondel, 1987).

Theories related to the behavior of nonprofit organizations are also useful. These theories replace traditional goals ofefficiency with goals such as legitimacy, requiring integrity on the part of management.

Debray (2000) contributed to theory by describing a media firm as an organization built on three pillars: commercial, political, and moral.

Political Management

Theories of political management assume that organizations have a technical environment (the consumer market) and an institutional environment (Brunsson, 1989). Norms around structures, processes, and ideologies are often justified bytheir contribution to overall effectiveness, accomplishing various missions. There is hardly any guarantee that demandsfrom the political environment contribute to desired patterns of behavior. It is quite plausible that management finds it difficult to align various demands with the

ambition to run an efficient production process. There seemsto be a conflict between effectiveness, in the sense of meeting demands from stakeholders, and efficiency in production processes.

In other words, there may well be imbalances between institutional demands and demands for an efficient organization, and it is reasonable to assume that different parts of the public service media firm’s environment put forward different demands. Different stakeholders are guided by different ideologies and have var- ied expectations about what a public service firm should do and thus different ideas as to effective management structures and processes.

Organizations use different strategies to handle these demands that are often contradictory. Management can look for a common denominator, put the stress on the demands fromthe dominant stakeholders, create coalitions between severalimportant interest groups, or create support by successivelymeeting demands from one group after the other, shifting ideological emphasis over time.

This situation differs substantially from the picture of effective management as described in traditional media-management literature. Although the emphasis tra- ditionallyis on rational behavior, the political management theorists identify another type of rationality, aiming not so much at efficiency in production but at other dimensions of behavior. The key to this alternative rationality seems to be substituting “legitimacy” for efficiency. In this respect, there is some resemblance between theories of mediafirms competing in a political marketplace for legitimacy,and Bourdieu’s theory of fields where actors use various strategies in their desire to obtain symbolic capital or improve their position in the field.

If an organization receives a variety of demands from its

environment, it may seem natural to develop strategies that include contradictory elements. Inside the organization, different groups identify with different demands, some with an informational role and some with entertainment and attracting audiences. The built-in conflicts in goals, structure, and internal perspectives merely mirror the environment in which the firm operates. This is a different focus than that of agency theory, which deals exclusively with conflicts between levels. In a political organization, conflicts at the same level must also be handled.

A political organization can handle several ideologies. It will appear as a rational decision-making body and deal with problems rather than solutions. The organization willtend to be general rather than specific; here lies the root to inefficiency. Compared with the manufacturing industry, apublic service firm that tries to accomplish several and contradictory goals, the delivery of products for different markets and the meeting of contradictory demands from political stakeholders, is likely to be expensive.

For researchers who study public service firms, theories of political management have much to offer. Public service organizations, such as radio and television corporations in Europe, are active in a political market in addition to catering for consumer needs and demands. The typical problemin public service firms is that people who participate in the boardrooms have a variety of ideas about how the organization should work. In fact, it is a typical feature of the management of these organizations that different ideologies or views are well represented in the board of directors or in supervisory committees or, indeed, in the management team itself.

Not-for-Profit Organizations

Research on nonprofit organizations has produced a number ofhypotheses of interest for the analysis of public service

media management. The core problem ad-


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dressed in this line of research is how to create incentivesto efficiency in the ab- sence of profit-oriented ownership,profit-oriented management and how to create a balance between demands made on the organization (Oster, 1994).

The basic rationale for nonprofit organizations is derived from a theory of contract failure, that is, products and services that these organizations supply are not easy to evaluate by consumers and that the function of the market tomake less efficient producers leave the market does not work well. The need arises to hand over such tasks to firms that seem responsible and reliable.

Nonprofit organizations are traditionally active in areas where products and services are difficult to evaluate, wherethere is a considerable ideological content, where confidence and responsibility are important, or where publicsector production is an alternative. Nonprofit firms are typically labor intensive and based on a different form of finance. In addition, nonprofit firms have a complex stakeholder structure, where contradictory demands are made on direction.

Intensive work on goal formulation is a typical feature of nonprofit firms. It is also assumed that the typical nonprofit organizations are relatively conservative in the sense that they are reluctant to change. Often, change is imposed on the organization from outside, rather than management. The labor-intensive character requires fairly active personnel function or efforts to develop staff. Financing nonprofit organizations takes management time and efforts. Stakeholder administration becomes a focus of

management activities.

Several of these hypotheses seem relevant for the public service media firm, and one could make the observation that management of a public service organization is better understood by relating observations to theories of politicalorganiza- tions and not-for-profit organizations than to theories of media management.

In the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, it was clear that in many situations management looked on political institutions that laid down the rules for the corporation not as owners but as one of several actors pursuing interests that may differ from management or the organization as a whole. The corporation was itself a powerful actor in the field of media politics, as suggested by Bourdieu and consis- tent with agency theory. Another French intellectual, Debray (2000), made some observations on the influence of media firms.

A Moral Enterprise

Most media firms are commercial entities, competing in a market with other firms fighting for consumer spending and consumer time. It must obtain customer loyalty and make a profit. Important concepts here are obviously advertising revenues, costs of newsprint, levels of salaries, etc. Mediafirms in general and public service media firms in particular are a political project. There is often a political orientation linked to a media firm.

Finally, the media firm is a moral or mental project. It hasa mind that takes part and contributes to a certain public spirit. It translates into pictures values and principles and tries to make its audience part of a vision of the world. It creates faith, authority, and loyalty. It creates habits and exercises influence.

The media firm is an enterprise in the three realms of business, politics, and mo- rality, which all influence the primary product of a media firm, information. Com- mercial driving forces lead to sensationalism, framing, and glorification.

Journalism goes far beyond journalists, much like theater goes beyond actors. Journalists in the media firm become servants of a sacred social phenomenon, a new clergy in the service of information.

The media firm thus becomes a regulator of societies, not interms of a conspir- acy, but as an agent who passes the final verdict on those who make the law and those who apply the law. It fulfills this role by mobilizing myths, playing a part without playing it consciously. The state has a monopoly on violence, media a sim- ilar monopoly on events and sentiments.

The media firm substitutes the right of information (news) for the duty of edu- cation (schools) and for the need to visit other parts of the world (the travel agency). Debray (2000) compared media firms and travel agencies. Tourism hasbecome the main industry, both those who take us to foreign countries and those who make us tourists of news; you see the world but meet nobody.

The media revolution is not a revolution of the media; it isthe religion of the real socialized by the media, the faitichism of facts. Journalism informs our minds and closes them at the same time.

SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION

In the search for theoretical foundations for an analysis ofthe behavior of management in a public service media firm,media-management literature seems less useful than theories of political management and nonprofit

organizations. This may seem to be an unfair assessment of an important body of research. However, even a brief review of competing theoretical approaches to the management of public service media firms has hopefully shown that several other sources offer substantial contributions (see Table 2).

To some, this review may seem like a fairly long list of theories, some of which are identified as important and somewhich are more or less rejected. Admittedly, some theories warrant more than just passing attention. However, basicallyall of the theories in this discussion have been presented in a spirit of exploring building blocks toward a more general theory of public service media management.

Agency theory is a powerful general theory of management that is particularly important in media and communication research. This theory provides a useful starting point for empirical examination of the relationships between institu-


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Characteristics

Environmental Contingency

Decision Structure

Phase Theory

Political Management Organizations

Not For Profit

Regulator Theory

Paradigm Major thesis

Structural

Structural

Structural

Subjective structuralist

Subjective structuralist

Subjective interpretivist

Concepts

Organic or mechanical organization

Command control or market based

Creativity; coordination needs

Legitimacy

Stakeholder administration

Media firms economic, political, and moral enterprises

Media firm application

Stable and turbulent environments

In-house or out-sourcing structure

Media history

Relationship owners management in public service

Goals; financing; conflicting demands in public service

Journalists new clergy

Advocacy position

Owners

Board members

Management

Management

Management

Society, citizens

Organizational adaptation

Adaptation of administrative processes

Successive changes in approach to management

Firms operate in political markets

Ideological content; public goods shape the organization

Media monopoly on events and sentiments

TABLE 2Contingency and Specific Perspectives

tional–organizational variables and content and goes beyond existing theory of the media firm as described by Shoemaker and Reese (1996).

With this said, the entire list is worthy of consideration, including theories of management control, contingency theories, theories specifically applied to organizations who are located in a political environment and to nonprofit organizations. Furthermore, the thought-provoking ideas of Bourdieu and Debray merit further attention in the public service area, bringing concepts like cultural capital and moral enterprise to the field as management goals and responsibilities respectively.

Further research would take this analysis one step further, integrating the building blocks into a theory of the public service media firm. Empirical research would also be needed to test the relevance of the idea that public servicemedia firms basi- cally behave as nonprofit firms.

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Theoretical Approaches to the Management of the Public Service Media Firm

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