The government’s Watch This Space Green Paper asks an important question: how can the UK’s media continue to support democracy, social cohesion and a shared understanding of the world?
During a series of Community Media Practice Exchange discussions organised through Decentered Media and Better Media, practitioners considered that question from the ground up. They spoke from experience of community radio, small-scale broadcasting, neighbourhood publishing, local reporting and voluntary civic action.
These conversations did not produce a single, settled manifesto. They did, however, reveal a consistent concern:
Public debate about media reform is still dominated by large broadcasters, established publishers and global platforms. The people creating trusted, useful media in neighbourhoods and communities are too often treated as an afterthought.
The DCMS Green Paper contains welcome proposals. It recognises the democratic importance of trustworthy information, asks how national and local news can be made more discoverable, considers a wider range of public-service providers and proposes greater collaboration between media organisations and civil society. The opportunity now is to make those ambitions genuinely plural, participatory and local.
Freedom of speech requires the means to speak
Freedom of speech is often discussed as protection from censorship. That protection is fundamental, but it is only part of the picture. A person may be legally free to speak while having no practical way to reach an audience. A community may be free to publish while lacking access to affordable distribution, reliable technology, advertising income or public-information spending. A small station may hold an Ofcom licence yet remain almost impossible to find on a smart speaker or receive poorly on local DAB.
Freedom of expression therefore has both a legal and a material dimension. It requires a diverse range of organisations with the capacity to gather information, question authority, publish different perspectives and reach the communities they serve. The Green Paper recognises that Ofcom must balance audience protection with the fundamental right to freedom of expression. It also stresses due accuracy and impartiality in broadcast news. These principles should not be treated as opposites. Protecting open expression and maintaining reliable editorial standards are both necessary if people are to participate confidently in public life.
The danger is that a policy intended to promote “trustworthy” news could unintentionally privilege only the largest incumbent organisations. DCMS acknowledges that the criteria for trustworthy providers must be developed openly, transparently and with checks and balances that protect media freedom. It also recognises the importance of plurality and local voices. That process must include community, civic and independent media from the beginning.
Diversifying supply, not simply multiplying content
We do not suffer from a shortage of content. We suffer from an unequal distribution of attention, resources and power. Global platforms offer almost unlimited material, yet their systems commonly reward engagement, scale and advertising value. At the same time, national public-service broadcasters remain central to government thinking. Between these two levels lies a neglected “missing middle”: local newspapers, community broadcasters, independent audio services, civic newsletters, cooperative platforms and small commercial providers.
The Media Exchange discussions repeatedly returned to this gap. Participants described community media as part of a place’s civic infrastructure. A neighbourhood publication reporting on a library, local policing, public transport or environmental improvements may appear modest beside a national broadcaster, but it provides information people can use. A community reporter carrying a microphone can obtain a more considered response from a public authority than an isolated resident posting a complaint online.
Diversification must therefore mean more than commissioning programmes outside London or inviting successful online creators into established broadcasting. Those things have value, but a resilient system also needs more independently controlled sources of supply. The Green Paper itself considers opening public-service media to a greater or different range of providers. That is a significant opportunity. Public-service value should be recognised wherever it is created, provided that organisations can demonstrate editorial responsibility, transparency, public benefit and accountability.
Platform access has become a democratic issue
In the platform age, the right to publish does not guarantee the ability to be found. Participants described how major stations can be summoned easily through smart speakers while community and independent services are misunderstood or overlooked. Small-scale DAB operators face coverage restrictions, transmission costs and reception problems that can make services financially marginal. On social media, publishers are dependent on algorithms they cannot inspect or control.
The Green Paper proposes exploring a prominence regime for trustworthy news on social-media and video-sharing platforms. It says this could include national and local publishers and should preserve a plural range of voices. That principle should extend across the modern distribution environment.
Fair platform access should include:
- Transparent and non-discriminatory discoverability;
- Workable access for community and independent providers;
- Open technical standards;
- Fair terms for the use of publishers’ content;
- Meaningful control over attribution and audience relationships; and
- Safeguards against large providers capturing systems intended to support plurality.
We should also develop audience-measurement systems appropriate to small organisations. Media Exchange participants discussed the potential for cooperative, open measurement based on streaming information rather than prohibitively expensive commercial systems. Without credible evidence of reach, smaller services struggle to attract advertisers, demonstrate public value or negotiate fairly with platforms.
Media literacy should involve making media
The Green Paper proposes stronger media-literacy duties and asks how public-service media, civil society and the wider media sector can collaborate. This is welcome, but media literacy must not be reduced to teaching people how to identify somebody else’s misinformation. People learn about media most effectively when they participate in it.
A resident who interviews a councillor learns how public accountability works. A volunteer who checks a claim, edits an article or responds to a complaint develops a practical understanding of evidence. A community group producing a radio programme learns how representation, consent and editorial judgement operate. Participatory media literacy changes people from passive consumers into active citizens. It also brings voices into public discussion that professional institutions may fail to hear.
This requires patient investment in training, mentoring and organisational capacity. The Exchange discussions were candid about the challenges: volunteers need manageable roles, editors need succession plans, contributors need encouragement, and organisations need competent trustees, financial controls and suitable equipment.
Community participation cannot be sustained indefinitely by a handful of exhausted people. If government and public-service media want civil society to help deliver media literacy, they must support the infrastructure that makes participation possible.
Devolution needs a local information system
Political and economic devolution will remain incomplete unless it is accompanied by communicative devolution. Moving decisions closer to communities does not automatically enable people to understand, influence or scrutinise those decisions. Devolved institutions need locally rooted channels through which residents can obtain reliable information, question decision-makers and represent different experiences.
The Green Paper discusses production across the nations and regions, but regional commissioning is not the same as local democratic communication. A television production made in a regional hub may contribute jobs and investment without providing sustained scrutiny of neighbourhood services or local government.
Community and civic media can fill that space. They can connect everyday concerns to wider policy, support deliberation, and show people that participation can produce practical results. They should be recognised within devolution, local-growth, public-health, community-safety and social-cohesion strategies—not confined to a narrow cultural or broadcasting policy box.
Sustainability means more than grants
Participants strongly supported public investment where it produces public value, but they also wanted community and independent media to be able to trade.
Small providers need fair opportunities to earn advertising, sponsorship, commissioning and service income. Public-information campaigns should not automatically flow to large agencies and incumbent media groups. Local reporting schemes should be accessible to genuinely local organisations, rather than designed around thresholds that only established publishers can meet.
A mixed ecology is possible. Charitable, cooperative, community-interest and responsible commercial organisations can all contribute. What matters is whether the system provides a level playing field and whether benefits are matched by clear obligations.
This is the thinking behind Better Media’s Independent Media Fair Access Compact: fair distribution, audience visibility and choice, commercial freedom, and open, accountable regulation.
From consultation to continuing participation
The most encouraging part of the Green Paper may be its questions about collaboration. It asks whether public-service media, civil society and the wider sector should work together and whether this should involve a structured forum with agreed objectives and reporting. That should not become another invitation-only conversation dominated by the organisations that already possess the greatest access. It should include community broadcasters, independent publishers, cooperative media, civic organisations, audience groups and practitioners from across the nations and regions.
Its work should be transparent. Disagreement should be recorded rather than smoothed away. Participants should help set priorities, and the process should lead to demonstrable action on discoverability, sustainability, media literacy, local participation and regulatory fairness. The Media Exchange discussions show that there is no shortage of experience, ideas or commitment. What is missing is a route through which that knowledge can consistently influence policy.
Decentered Media and Better Media want to help build that route. We invite community-media practitioners, independent publishers, researchers, civic organisations and responsible small-scale commercial providers to join the conversation. The future of media should not be decided solely by those who currently dominate it. A healthier information environment will be built when more communities possess the practical power to speak, publish, question, listen—and be heard.