Governing the European Audiovisual Space: What modes of governance can facilitate a European approach to media pluralism?

Abstract

This paper explores the notion of media pluralism and its application mainly from the European Union (EU) substantive and institutional law point of view so as to speculate on the possibility for a European approach to media pluralism and on the forms and routes it might take; especially once appreciated the limits and shortcomings of traditional approaches, against the background of the competence debate in respect of media pluralism and media freedom. Thus, the first section offers a theoretical (and slightly historical) background of the notion of media pluralism, in its various dimensions, at EU level. The second section, then, sketches an analysis of the notion of media pluralism, having regard to legal sources of primary and secondary EU law, as well as to the relevant European Court of Justice (ECJ) case law. Finally, a third (and open) section builds on the difficulties in traditional hard-law approaches to tackle media pluralism at EU level, and proposes some speculation on alternative modes of governance for the media at European stage: namely, the cooperation/coordination of National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) at supranational level. This is reflected in the proposed case-study on the drafting of Article 30 of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD).