Ideal types in public service television: paternalists and bureaucrats, charismatics and avant-gardists

Abstract

Over time, the broadcast media develop conventions of self-presentation that are formulated more or less explicitly by academics and media professionals as ideal types. The article discusses four such ideal types of self-presentation in television: paternalists and bureaucrats, charismatics and avant-gardists. It demonstrates how they have been formulated and evaluated by researchers and media professionals. Following Raymond Williams’s notion of ‘dominant’, ‘residual’ and ‘emergent’ forms, the article also discusses the historical interactions and contests between them. Examples are drawn from Nordic and British public service broadcasting. A case is made for acknowledging the coexistence of several ideal types, rather than taking at face value notions of some general ‘slide’ from a paternalist past to a charismatic present. The article draws particular attention to the importance of bureaucratic modes of self-presentation for understanding early public service television, and of avant-gardist modes for understanding more recent developments.

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