UK newspapers are not bound by internal pluralism rules. Though they do practice a degree of internal pluralism, most have a distinct political, social and cultural orientation. The public service broadcasters are bound by regulation to provide internal pluralism, and all UK news broadcasters are bound by an impartiality rule.
Traditionally UK news media have operated in a top-down manner, but recent years have seen a considerable expansion of participatory developments and the Internet has had a major impact in this respect.
The effectiveness of self-regulation of the press has long been a matter of public controversy, notably with regard to the popular press’s excesses regarding accuracy of reporting and invasion of privacy. Self-regulation is widely seen as having functioned much better in the case of the quality press and the BBC (the commercial broadcasters are subject to external regulation).
The public service broadcasters have comprehensive ethical guidelines and there exists a code of ethics for the commercial press sector, which however is not backed up by strong enforcement powers.
There is no public body dedicated to news monitoring, but the operation of the UK news media is subject to the scrutiny of parliamentary committees.
The UK news media are reasonably affordable.
There is a wide range of alternative and minority media, though their needs are not so well catered for in mainstream media.
There is a healthy diversity of news media formats.
Local media markets are much less competitive than at the national level; local newspaper monopolies are the rule (not counting free papers). Ownership of the UK regional/local press is concentrated.
There is a quite diverse and highly competitive national news media market, with a range of competing news media. However, ownership is highly concentrated in both the newspaper and the television sector.
The Media for Democracy Monitor (MDM) is a research project from The Euromedia Research Group. This is a network of researchers that collects and exchanges information that help to describe and analyse developments in media structure and policy in Europe.
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