Key considerations for establishing new public service media institution(s): The (potential) case of Irish reunification

Description

Abstract:

Imagining public service media (PSM) for a newly constituted country is often purely speculative, offering scholars a chance to consider the fundamental purpose and relevance of PSM in a high-choice media age. However, in the case of Ireland, reevaluating what PSM looks like is less hypothetical: it is an increasingly urgent live issue requiring thoughtful and responsible planning. Shifting demographics, coupled with the post-Brexit context, has prompted active political debate regarding the prospect and implications of a reunified Ireland, which would reunite the six counties in Northern Ireland (a component of the UK since 1921) with the 26 counties in the South (a fully independent Republic since 1949).

Discussions around reunification have considered the practical implications of the institutional arrangements needed to facilitate such a new political dispensation. Ultimately, this paper considers how PSM might be organised in a reunified Ireland. This is currently constituted by the BBC in Northern Ireland (alongside the UK’s commercial PSM providers) – where partition has left a British broadcaster operating in Ireland – and RTÉ and TG4 in the Republic of Ireland. We compare the existing overt and implied mission statements for existing PSM and postulates new institutional arrangements appropriate to a new "consociational democracy" (McGarry and O’Leary, 2006), a political unit constituted by a range of potentially antagonistic identities. PSM have long been identified as playing a key role in constructing and amplifying expressions of national identity. This is a nuanced task even in the context of relatively culturally homogenous national settings, but the challenge posed by the kind of consociational democracy envisaged in Ireland is significant (assuming it is possible at all). This article considers how any new PSM organisation would need to reflect an Ireland greatly changed in terms of economic development, ethnicity and social attitudes – while trying to operate within the norms of core PSM values.

The analysis explores six key areas: (i) the central purpose of PSM; (ii) conceiving PSM as an institution or as a network; (iii) the role of journalism and scripted/non-scripted content; (iv) governance, regulation and funding; (v) infrastructure, existing industries and staffing; (vi) digital products/services and relationships with third-party social media and streaming platforms.

The article considers how media in Ireland – as elsewhere – face a radically altered screen media market, characterised by intense commercial competition and where a plethora of distribution technologies have transformed the conditions in which audiences approach and use PSM content. A newly reunified Ireland would likely face severe pressure to move to a market-failure system: but here, we set out funding options for a new PSM, arguing for the implementation of a Finnish-style model. In so doing, we seek to project forward to the middle of the 21st century, to consider the likely nature of the relationship between technology, screen media markets, culture and identity in a society constituted by historically opposed communities.

Paper presented by Dawn Wheatley

Period	8 Sept 2026 → 11 Sept 2026
Event title	Ecrea 2026: Paths, Connections, and futures
Event type	Conference
Location	Brno, Czech RepublicShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International