To understand the influence and impact of the state and public media, distinguishing between the worst (state-controlled outlets) and the best (independent public service media) is not sufficient. In fact, using this reductive dichotomy to judge state media can be counterproductive because it fails to capture nuances related to how state media perform editorially and how that performance is influenced by different geographical contexts, or political and economic situations in various periods of time.
In other words, between the state-controlled media model, consisting of media outfits built and used as propaganda channels, and the independent public service media model, consisting of media outlets created to operate independently and serve the public interest, there are more variants that have to be studied in order to fathom the impact that state and public media have on the media sector and on the society in general.
To identify these variants, we created the State Media Matrix, a typology of state and public media that allows their classification according to three sets of factors that affect the independence of these media: funding, ownership/governance, and editorial autonomy.
See more details about the State Media Matrix on the project’s page.
On the same website, you can read Regional comparative overviews and search our Global List of State and Public Media.