Transmitting and Receiving Europe
Transmitting and Receiving Europe: The European broadcasting space as a legal regime
Contens
- Introduction
- Goals
- Methodological approach
- Chronological and geographical scope
- Contact
- Partners of cooperation
- Networks
Introduction
The individual project ‘The European broadcasting space as a legal regime’ is an integral part of a European network project within the Eurocores program ‚Inventing Europe: Technology and the Making of Europe, 1850 up to present’ entitled ‘Transmitting and Receiving Europe’ which aims at writing a history of Europe centred on the idea of broadcast communication being the most powerful and influential means for both national and transnational communication in the 20th century. Such a history of Europe emphasizes the role of broadcasting technology and broadcasting infrastructures in the invention and building of Europe as an integrated and/or fragmented political, cultural and economic entity. The overall intention of the ‘Transmitting and Receiving Europe’ research network is to bridge the gap between the transmission and reception of Europe. This will be done by describing and analyzing the transmission and reception side but also by scrutinizing their link, the radio frequencies which travel from the transmitting broadcaster to the receiving audience.
This project, which is sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation, DFG), contributes to the overall intention by focusing on the link between the transmission and the reception of Europe, namely the broadcasting frequencies which serve as a vehicle for broadcast communication. It analyzes in how far legal rules and commitments for the usage of broadcasting frequencies influenced the medial construction of European communication spaces in constantly changing political and cultural environments. The project makes use of property rights theory. By doing so it tries to explain the common goods problems inherent in transmitting and receiving broadcasting programmes in Europe.
The whole spectrum of radio frequencies, of which only a few are used for broadcast transmissions, can be considered as a common good (or common-pool resource) – a good which is rival but non-excludable. Over such a good no country or individual exercises ownership (Ostrom 2002). Or put in other words: The radio frequencies are by their very nature a property of mankind. If radio frequencies are to be used for broadcasting purposes coordination among all possible users is a necessity in order to avoid the ‘chaos in the ether’. Since the early days of frequency usage this coordination lies in the sphere of responsibility of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and it is carried out on different forms of ITU radio conferences (Codding, Rutkowski 1982; Tegge 1994). Looked upon from an economic-juridical perspective the regulation of broadcasting frequencies at the ITU radio conferences is an attempt to regulate a common European good by the distribution of property rights to transmit broadcasting programmes and to receive broadcasting programmes within the European broadcasting space. The ITU is placed at the centre of a legal regime for governing the European broadcasting space: It distributes and designs property rights in broadcasting frequency plans for the European broadcasting area and it controls their compliance. Throughout the 20th century new modes of broadcast transmission and the continuous development of existing techniques made the distribution and gradual re-distribution of property rights for transmitting and receiving programmes within the European broadcasting space a technical necessity. Neither new broadcasting technology could be invented nor standardization of equipment agreed upon without the definition or redefinition of property rights for frequency usage.
The full project application is available here
Goals
The general idea of the project is to analyze in how far legal rules and commitments for the usage of broadcasting frequencies influenced the medial construction of European communication spaces. To reach this goal the project will take a closer look at the decision-making-processes and the final agreements in the context of ITU’s European broadcasting conferences for LF, MF and VHF sound broadcasting and television between 1932 and 1984. Furthermore it takes into consideration the permanent work carried out by e.g. the ITU or the EBU in order to control the compliance of property rights for broadcasting purposes. Special case studies will take a deeper look at different kinds of breaches of European agreements
To put the general idea in more concrete terms the project sets itself a twofold aim: (1) It wants to compare the different juridical designs and the property rights structures as they were established at different European broadcasting radio conferences throughout the 20th century. What do property rights tell us about the European broadcasting space as an integrated or fragmented entity? Which factors caused new designs or the redefinition of property rights? How did the legal regime for the European broadcasting space function? What do property rights tell us about different conceptions of Europe? The last question gives rise to the second aim of the project: (2) In addition it wants to filter out different concepts of Europe according to which the European broadcasting space was integrated and fragmented. Which concepts did the actors, e.g. the ITU, the EBU, the OIRT, the IBU, the CEPT or on the national level the telecommunications administrations, the broadcasting corporations and the broadcasting industry, have in mind when negotiating on property rights? Questions of interest in this context are: Which countries were part of the receiving and/or transmitting Europe? Who was accepted as being a part of it and who was excluded from it? Have there been different concepts of Europe in connection with the different modes of broadcast transmission? The most fascinating aspect of the project is, of course, the combination of the two aims: In how far do concepts of Europe in the special case of the European broadcasting space influence the juridical regime and vice versa?
Methodological approach
Analytically the project takes up theoretical reflections on common goods which are a special type of public-goods-theory. Out of the broad theoretical supply of public-goods-theory (Snidal 1979) a special focus will, of course, be put on property rights theory (Minasian 1975; Benkler 2002). As already explained the distribution and design of property rights to transmit and receive broadcasting programmes within the European broadcasting space and the control of their compliance is seen as an attempt to regulate a common European good. The key idea of property rights theory is that each good, e.g. a broadcasting frequency, is composed of a bundle of rights, which include (a) the right to use a good, (b) the right to exclude others and (c) the right to dispose of the property. The definition of property rights is conceptually broad and emphasizes the legal aspect of property rights as well as the social conventions that govern behaviour, such as corporate culture and reputation (Kreps 1990). Conceptualizing property rights to have multiple dimensions has the important (economic) implication of many different people – e.g. broadcasters – being able to hold partitions of rights to particular facets of a single resource and to exercise shared ownership. Of the various aspects of property rights theory it is of interest here that the theory suggests concepts of shared ownership and multi-dimensional definitions of property rights which can improve the explanation of common goods problems. It also provides an evolutionary perspective (Libecap 1989; North 1990) of the processes through which institutional choices are made, where the vested economic, political or cultural interests of contracting parties and potential distributional conflicts are taken into account. Last but not least it helps to explain why inefficient property rights regimes can persist. To sum up, important insights of property rights theory are (a) that different specifications of property rights arise in response to the economic, political and cultural problems of allocating a scarce resource like broadcasting frequencies, and (b) that the prevailing specification of property rights affects the behaviour and (economic) outcomes (Coase 1960) – that means the transmission and reception of broadcasting programmes within the European broadcasting space. Indeed, property rights theory is at the interface of law, economics and organization theory (Williamson 1996).
Chronological and geographical scope
The chronological scope of the project covers the period from the first ITU broadcasting conference in 1932 until the 1984 conference for VHF sound broadcasting and television in Geneva. This temporal enclosure has been chosen for two reasons. On the one hand in this period the organisation of broadcasting in Europe was merely under stable public control. On the other hand due to the waiting periods for archival research of 20-30 years extended archival research is not possible for the period after 1984.
The geographical scope in principle the whole of Europe. Nevertheless it is impossible to cover all these states in a detailed way. Therefore a selection of a few European states has to be made concerning which archival research has to be done. This selection comprises Germany (East and West), Great Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. Germany is of major interest because coordination of broadcasting frequency usage is most urgent here. On the one hand this is the result of Germany’s geographical position in the middle of the continent and on the other hand – at least for the period between 1945 and 1989 – because of the iron curtain running straight through the country. German archives therefore offer two perspectives on the European broadcasting space, the Eastern European and the Western European. Great Britain is of importance because of its isolated geographical position resulting in specific perspectives on Europe as a broadcasting landscape and because of its political weight. The Netherlands are focused as the breaches of international rules and commitments (e.g. pirate radio stations) were most problematic here. Finally Sweden is considered because of its political neutrality and the central roles individual Swedish actors played for broadcasting frequency distribution in Europe. The Swedish archives offer rich material on the Eastern (Socialist) European perspectives on the problems under consideration. Furthermore the Swedish telecommunication administration hosted two of the most important broadcasting conferences (1952 and 1961).
Partners of cooperation
- Dr. Alexander Badenoch (Utrecht University, NL).
- Prof. Dr. Karin Bijsterveld (Maastricht University, NL).
- Dr. Christoph Classen (Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung Potsdam, D).
- Dr. Andreas Fickers (Utrecht University, NL).
- Trever Hagen (University of Exeter, UK).
- Prof. Dr. Fritz Hausjell (Vienna University, AU).
- Suzanne Lommers (Eindhoven University, NL).
- Dana Mustata (University of Utrecht, NL).
- Andy O’Dwyer (BBC Written Archives Centre, UK).
- Rimantas Pleikys (Radio Baltic Waves, LT).
- Prof. Dr. James Schwoch, (Northwestern University, UK).
- Dr. Jennifer Spohrer (Bryn Mawr College, USA).
- Dr. Nina Wormbs (Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm, S).
Networks
- Tensions of Europe (ToE)-project
- European Television History Network (ETHN)
- Inventing Europe