Introduction: Media Systems in the Age of (Anti) Neoliberal Politics

Media policy is a contentious and highly political issue worldwide. In established democracies, the most heated debates nowadays revolve around the pertinence to more effectively regulate media when their perceived power is abused, the contemporary challenges yet continuing relevance of public broadcasting systems, or the threats that media concentration and marketization pose to press freedom, pluralism and ultimately to democracy (Iosifidis, 2011; Mansell and Raboy, 2011). Advocates of media reform often highlight the negative effects of commercialism and market forces in the weakening of media’s societal role and the importance of public broadcasting services in providing a forum of plural expression and debate and thus in the strengthening of democracies (Curran, 2002, 2011; Curran and Seaton, 2003; Gunther and Mughan, 2000; Keane, 1991; Matos, 2012; McChesney and Schiller, 2003; Raboy, 1996; Street, 2011).