Public Broadcasting
Public broadcasting in the United States is widely seen as an important component of the media culture of the nation (Carnegie Commission, 1979; Twentieth Century Fund, 1993). Its programming and the terms of public support for it are not without criticism; it has its detractors from both the right and the left, and it regularly is a subject of debate. On the whole, however, public broadcasting tends to be endorsed as a social good; American society is seen as being better off for having it because of its role in broadening the base of information, education, cultural experience, and political discourse.
However, U.S. public broadcasting is much different from its counterparts abroad. By comparison with other major systems of public-service broadcasting (e.g., in Great Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and most other advanced "information societies"), the U.S. enterprise is not seen to be as central and as important to the overall national media culture. It is largely an afterthought,heavily rooted in a formal educational rationale and in some eyes serving principally as a palliative to the perceived shortcomings of the dominant commercial broadcasting system upon which it has been grafted.
Overview
Broadcasting began in the 1920s, and by the middle of the century, it had developed its various basic institutional structures and social roles throughout the world.
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