Public Media Important for Society, Google-Funded Study Reveals

According to a Google-funded report, the majority of people in approximately 80% of the surveyed countries believe that public service media is important for society. In over half of the countries, most respondents also consider public service media important for themselves. In 18 out of the 19 countries, a greater number of individuals express personal importance rather than insignificance (except in Japan, where the numbers are equal).

According to Google-funded researchers, “these findings have important strategic implications.” The study explains that if public service media, at least in part, bases its political legitimacy on the public’s experience of and belief in its importance, then the most important groups to convince are younger people, those with lower levels of formal education, and those on the political right, as well as the politically disengaged. Google financed an Oxford-based team of media experts from Reuters Institute, a research outfit, to conduct the survey.

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