Over the past decade, new technologies encouraged the development of social media. The rapid shift, especially among the younger generations, has impacted the traditional public service broadcasting(PSB) institutions like BBC. To cope with this, effort has been made within the industry to experiment new ways of broadcasting along with altering and renewing their own professional practise. Up for hire and Upload TV, two experimental programs initiated separately by BBC in Britain and VPRO in Netherland are closely examined in the essay. Both has made effort to combine the live program with the feedback and discussions across platforms of social media, which in the essay has been noted as “hybrid content.” Voices of pros and cons vary. Surely it is a great attempt, but it just seems a bit displaced and strange.
PSB are the safeguards for the standards of public values, the ones who watch the content form a group with similar values. So, a question is posed in the essay: “what happens to public value outside the designated space of PSB, in a multi-platform environment?” Some scholars proposes the birth of “public service media” (PSM), which means the expansion of PSB across media platforms. However, some disagree with the plausibility.
The redefinition of “publicness” in a social media environment is continue happening. Maybe one day social media platforms like Youtube or Facebook will replace institutions like BBC, but what we cannot deny is the fact that when we want to watch news, we will still turn to BBC channel on Youtube, or read the recent posts of BBC on twitter. There must be values in them that still endures. What’s important is to find a new position for them under this new world order.
