According to a recent study by the European Broadcasting Union, a healthy democracy is partially dependent on its public service media. Research found that countries with well-funded and strong public service media have many signs of strong democracies.
Some of the elements that strong public service media revealed were a high degree of press freedom; higher voter turnout; lower levers of right-wing extremism; and a better control of corruption.
“A strong and well-funded public service media is not only about providing people with news, documentaries and entertainment �� it’s also about contributing to democracy,” said Roberto Suárez Candel, head of EBU Media Intelligence Service; he also conducted the research. “While we can’t say that strong public TV and radio directly leads to greater democracy and less corruption, we have been able to show, for the first time, how these factors are connected.”
EBU used data from across Europe for this study.
