Jannick Kirk SøRensen

Web 2.0 media personalisation services pose new challenges to an old institution: North-European Public Service Broadcasting Corporations.

Now people, formerly known as the ‘mass media audience’‚ have become individualised users of onDemand media and expect the Public Service Media (PSM) content delivered to fit their personal highly segmented preferences. Still, however, PSM is bound by a remit to serve the whole nation, and to promote social cohesion and democracy. As a consequence, PSMs may loose editorial power to web 2.0 content aggregator services like Netvibes, Google News or Wikio, and to Personal Video Recorders and IP-TV that are better enabled to deliver personalised content to users.

How do the PSMs react on media personalisation? How should they react? Is the purpose of Public Service Media gone? What about the cohesion of society, learning, citizenship? The debate about the role of Public Service Media is not new, but is intensified in the new personalised media landscape. Many strategic and editorial questions emerge: Should Public Service cooperate with commercial web 2.0 media or not? Should PSM implement automatic recommender services (like Amazon)? Should PSM use Customer Relation Management systems? Should PSM use targeted personalised marketing for their programs?

This course discusses the current challenges and dilemmas of PSM in the light of media personalisation. It scrutinises critically the idea of PSM and sheds light on the reality in which North-European Public Service Media stands. The course discuss some central questions which emerge when the relation between the concept of ‘personalisation’ and the concept of ‘Public Service Media’.