Government Subsidies to News Media in Austria: Theories and Practices

Paul Clemens Murschetz ()
Additional contact information
Paul Clemens Murschetz: mmc - murschetz media consulting

A chapter in Handbook of Media and Communication Economics, 2024, pp 1343-1362 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Government support for news media and journalism is an important instrument of public media policy. Typically, it comes as direct grants for one-off projects or is allocated indirectly as tax breaks for publishers and journalists. These grants are handed out by government agencies which believe in the value of public interest news journalism to safeguard democratic infrastructure in a liberal Western democracy. Support to news media is mainly targeted at traditional newspapers, magazines, and periodicals and also encompasses financial help to noncommercial radio and public service television broadcasting. Books, film, games, and online media services may also receive state handouts. This paper argues that government support for public interest news media and quality journalism is a democratic duty of liberal democracies as this policy tool potentially strengthens media and opinion diversity in a country, stimulates the production of high-quality offerings, and supports their consumption. However, the debates on media subsidies are controversial. The subsidy schemes offered are widely perceived as being both ineffective, inefficient, and unfair. This study delivers a synoptic overview to key issues of government subsidies to news media, both theoretically and practically. It finds that state media funding can plausibly be justified theoretically while revealing key deficits in its practicality. Current funding instruments and policies need to be improved to come to full effect.

Keywords: Austria; Funding theory and practice; Media subsidies; State media policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-658-39909-2_71

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783658399092

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-39909-2_71

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().