In the politics of media and cultural policy, we should be asking how is policy constructed, who gets involved and why?

There seems to be a huge policy convergence in digital era, we should be asking where does communication stop?

Broadcasting policy still has some distinct features and structure to the debate. Cultural policy has faced displacement by the ‘creative economy’. The public role is being fulfilled by academic knowledge. But the changes in cultural forms have moved away from traditional means.

Public institutions, the market and the public are in complete flux.

Broadcasting is being called into question. Do we really need another regulatory field of communications considering the transformative impact of digitisation? The political drift and repositioning within the political field has meant a political trade-off with market interests.

Media and cultural policy is becoming the place where media and culture meet institutionalised politics. Culture becomes something that should be managed.

We need more intelligent people to step up to the challenge. Intellectuals can do more than just merely interpret the world. Intellectuals should be outsiders and critics of the current formation of media policy. There is also a real need for intellectuals to shape cultural policy.

This can be done by having access to more funding and autonomy, analysing media and celebrity recipes, hailing the creative classes, using the resources of the crowded intellectual field and creating a strong audit culture that leads to knowledge transfer.

The rise of celebrity media experts has relegated intellectuals to the sidelines in relation to accessing the public sphere. Management consultancies, inside research teams, specialist business journalism, and special advisors to the government have all changed the discourse and limited what academics have to say, along with real effect on media policy.

There are two models which could be used to sort out our current media policy crisis: We all need to become more pro-active and supply lead, increase media academics’ public role, reduce the amount of disinterested publications, and have unconstrained engagement.

Alternatively we could ensure that all research is necessity-driven and demand-led, which have clear performance indicators, that lead to impact/knowledge transfer, thus creating an audit-based legitimacy.

The policy needs to be based on how to make creativity profitable and must promote the creative economy with a renewed spirit. The media does not hold media studies highly which is part of the problem.

We need to create a space for individuals to present ideas to people who have no direct link to power. We should try to put together a space that would be funded by the public to allow engagement between future politicians and interested people.