The government’s new media Green Paper, Watch This Space: A New Strategic Direction For UK Media, should be welcomed as an important opportunity to think again about the future of media in the UK. It opens questions that go beyond television, broadcasting and the public service media institutions that have traditionally shaped national debate. It asks how people will find trusted news, how public service content will remain visible, how media literacy should be supported, and how regulation can adapt as audiences move between broadcast channels, streaming services, social media platforms, podcasts, video-sharing sites and other online spaces.
These are not narrow industry questions. They are civic questions. They affect how people find reliable information, how communities see themselves represented, how local concerns are shared, and how public discussion is sustained in a media environment that is increasingly fragmented, platform-shaped and commercially pressured.
Better Media welcomes the consultation because it creates an opening for a wider conversation about what kind of media system the UK needs. That conversation must include public service broadcasters, regulators, platforms and established publishers. It must also include community media, civic media, independent media, cooperatives, community groups, civil society groups and other foundational media providers who work closer to everyday experience.
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Community Media Is Wider Than One Platform
Community media should not be understood only as community radio, although community radio remains one of its most important and resilient forms. Nor should it be limited to local newspapers, newsletters, podcasts, video channels, blogs, social media feeds, online forums, printed bulletins, community reporting projects, local photography groups, neighbourhood archives or informal storytelling networks.
In practice, community media is pragmatic. It takes the form that people can use, sustain and make meaningful in their own circumstances. It may be broadcast, printed, recorded, streamed, posted, shared in a forum, produced through a workshop, gathered at a community event, or circulated through a cooperative network. Its value often lies not only in the finished content, but in the process of making, discussing, checking, sharing and reflecting together.
This matters because the Green Paper is concerned with trust, accuracy, access and public value. These are not delivered by technology alone. They depend on relationships, local knowledge, editorial judgement, accountability and the practical capacity of people to participate in communication rather than simply consume it.
Trusted Content Needs Trusted Practice
The consultation rightly recognises the importance of trusted news and public-interest content. It asks how reliable news can be made easier to find on social media and video-sharing platforms, especially when algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence increasingly shape what people see. This is a serious and necessary question.
However, trust should not be defined only by scale, legacy status or institutional recognition. Large organisations have an important role, but smaller civic and community media providers also produce trusted information, often in places and among groups that larger media organisations do not reach consistently.
A stronger approach would define trusted content through trusted practice. That means clear editorial responsibility, accuracy checks, correction processes, transparent funding, visible complaints routes, separation of news and opinion, respect for privacy, and accountability to the communities being served. These standards should be proportionate. They should not impose the same administrative burden on a volunteer-led community publisher as on a national broadcaster. But they should be visible, practical and capable of being improved over time.
Media Literacy Should Include Making Media
The Green Paper also raises media literacy as a central concern. This is welcome. People need confidence to assess sources, recognise misleading information, understand how platforms shape visibility, and distinguish between reporting, opinion, campaigning, advertising and manipulated content.
Community media can make a distinctive contribution here because it does not treat media literacy only as a classroom topic or public information campaign. It can make media literacy practical. People learn about accuracy by checking a story. They learn about fairness by interviewing someone with care. They learn about public interest by deciding what should be published and why. They learn about accountability when they correct a mistake or respond to a complaint.
This practical knowledge is already present in many community groups, local media projects, cooperatives, civic forums and voluntary organisations. The consultation process should draw from that experience rather than assume that media literacy must be delivered only from large institutions downwards.
The Public Service Media Debate Should Be Broader
The Green Paper asks whether the public service media system should move away from a model tied mainly to broadcast licences. It also considers whether public service media might in future be organised around institutions, services, content, or a combination of these models.
This is a useful opening. If public service media is about public value, then it should not be limited to a small number of national institutions. Public value is also created through local storytelling, community reporting, civic discussion, intercultural exchange, practical information sharing, media training, cooperative publishing and the patient work of building trust between people.
That does not mean every community blog, podcast or radio programme should be treated as public service media in a formal regulatory sense. It does mean that the future system should recognise a wider ecology of public value media. Community, civic and independent providers should have routes into partnership, support, recognition and, where appropriate, prominence. They should not be treated merely as informal distribution channels for messages produced elsewhere.
Foundational Media and Civic Life
Better Media’s response to the consultation will be shaped by the idea that media is part of civic infrastructure. This is what can be described as foundational media: the everyday systems, relationships, skills and platforms that allow people to tell stories, share knowledge, scrutinise decisions, build trust and participate in public life.
Foundational media is not only about professional journalism, although journalism is essential. It is also about the conditions that make civic communication possible. These include access to tools, local editorial capability, training, cooperative ownership, trusted spaces for discussion, responsible moderation, community archives, practical media literacy and sustainable support for independent producers.
If the UK is to build a healthier information environment, it should not rely only on national public service broadcasters or commercial platforms. It should also strengthen the local and civic layers of media life where trust is often made face to face, through repeated practice and through accountable relationships.
Better Media Will Be Consulting
Better Media will be consulting on the Green Paper in order to support a response that reflects the practical experience of people and organisations working across community, civic and independent media. The aim is to ensure that community groups, civil society groups, cooperatives, independent producers, local publishers, community broadcasters, podcasters, forum hosts, media trainers and other foundational media providers are able to articulate what they know from practice.
That practical experience matters. It can help answer questions that policy processes often struggle to address. What does trust look like at local level? How do small media providers handle accuracy and correction? What support do voluntary and cooperative media projects need to be sustainable? How can public-interest standards be made proportionate? How can media literacy be rooted in participation rather than passive instruction? How can platform prominence include smaller providers without opening the door to poor-quality or harmful content?
These questions should not be left only to large institutions, commercial platforms or regulatory specialists. The people who make, support and rely on community media should have a voice in shaping the next stage of media policy.
A Welcome Consultation, But A Wider Conversation Is Needed
The Green Paper is a welcome opportunity. It recognises that the media system is changing and that public-interest content must remain accessible, trusted and relevant. It also recognises that people need stronger media literacy and that the current regulatory settlement may not be well suited to a media environment in which content moves across platforms, devices and formats.
The next step is to ensure that this conversation reaches beyond the established public service media system. Community media, civic media, independent media and foundational media providers should be recognised as part of the solution. They bring practical knowledge, local trust, flexible production methods and a commitment to public value that cannot easily be replicated by national institutions or global platforms.
Better Media will seek to help gather and articulate those perspectives. The consultation is an opportunity to ask not only how trusted content can be made more visible, but how a more democratic, accountable and community-rooted media ecology can be built for the long term.
Source Notes
[1] Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Watch This Space: A New Strategic Direction For UK Media, Green Paper and public consultation, published 23rd June 2026.
[2] Department for Culture, Media and Sport, press release, Plans For Prominence Of Trusted News Sources On Social Media Alongside Measures To Reform Public Service Media In The UK, published 23rd June 2026.
[3] Better Media, Be The Media, Know The Media, Change The Media.