Abstract
The necessity of the state’s involvement in self-regulation is a controversial
issue in the debate about Governance. As Puppis (earlier in this
section) mentioned, the role of the state varies across the six domains of
media governance, but there are hardly any empirical studies about the
question whether a state’s involvement is a key success factor for self350
The state as a key success factor for Self-Regulation?
regulation. By focusing on three domains of media regulation, namely
processes, content, and organizations, some answers will be formulated.
What follows is a secondary analysis of two empirical studies, comparing
forms of self- and co-regulation in the broadcasting sector in different
western states (Jarren et al., 2002; Puppis et al., 2004). The cases
were selected so as to include as broad a spectrum of different forms of
self-regulation (SR) and co-regulation (CR) as possible. Document
analysis and expert interviews were chosen as research methods. The
advantages of these two qualitative methods are their openness and flexibility,
which allow discovering new aspects not taken into consideration
in existing theories, the possibility to take into account a small number
of cases, and their ability to make a step in the direction of theorybuilding
(Deacon et al., 1999). The interviewees were professionals from
self-regulatory organizations, broadcasting companies, and representatives
from regulatory agencies, ministries and researchers. Laws, codes
of practice, and secondary literature about the organizations under study
were analyzed. The case studies were updated by the author in 2006. The
following presentation of some of the research results is conducted by
comparing four dimensions of forms of co- and self-regulation: The
types of media co- and self-regulation are responsible for, the role of the
state, the rationales for implementing these forms of governance, and
the assessment of self- and co-regulation by the interviewees.
Künzler, M