Defining ‘TV-Like’ Content: The Socioeconomic and Cultural Politics of Regulating Digital Content in the UK

• In Event: Changing Audiovisual Media Markets and Regulation

Abstract

At the beginning of 2013 the UK’s Office of Communication (Ofcom) set a conceptual precedent in the emergent realm of media convergence policy. Ofcom sided with BBC Worldwide and Channel Flip Media by ruling that their online content was not sufficiently ‘tv-like’ to fall within the existing scope of the British television on demand regulation. While at first glance this may seem like another case of media deregulation, it would be wrong to dismiss it as such. The following paper argues instead that Ofcom currently finds itself at a critical juncture. Through a critical discourse analysis of Ofcom’s three precedent-setting decision reports, commissioned research surveys and other relevant Ofcom and EU policy documents combined with personal observation and interviews this paper analyzes a) the processes Ofcom adopted to formulate policies for the regulation of audiovisual content online and b) the broader socio-economic and cultural implications of these policies.

Author

• Katerina Girginova, University of Pennsylvania