For decades, public service broadcasting has played an important role in the provision of news and information in many European countries. Today, however, public service media (PSM) are confronted with numerous challenges, including the need to legitimise their role in an increasingly digital media environment. Against this background, this study examines the audience perspective on the topic with an international comparative approach. It analyses the population’s assessment of, and attitudes towards, the performance of PSM. The aim is to identify what relevance is attributed to PSM by the public in the digital age and how they see PSM’s role in comparison to other more recent (digital) media offerings. An online survey was conducted in three specifically selected countries: Germany, France, and the UK. Overall, the findings show that respondents attribute a clear role to PSM and distinguish it from other media offerings in the increasingly digital media environment. They rate the information quality offered by PSM as higher than that of most other media offerings. Respondents are more likely to value social media platforms for entertainment purposes than PSM. The findings also reveal differences in the evaluation of PSM depending on PSM news use, interest in news, political interest, as well as on demographic variables. On the other hand, differences between the individual countries overall were surprisingly small, pointing to the fact that PSM across the countries sampled are—with deviations—perceived to be performing better than (most) other media, despite being confronted with changes and challenges in their environment.

中文翻译：

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数字媒体环境中的公共服务媒体：受众视角的表现

几十年来，公共服务广播在许多欧洲国家中在提供新闻和信息方面发挥了重要作用。但是，今天，公共服务媒体（PSM）面临着众多挑战，包括需要使它们在日益数字化的媒体环境中的作用合法化。在此背景下，本研究采用国际比较方法研究了观众对该主题的看法。它分析了民众对PSM绩效的评估和态度。目的是确定数字时代公众将PSM归因于哪些，以及与其他较新的（数字）媒体产品相比，他们如何看待PSM的作用。在三个特定选择的国家/地区进行了在线调查：德国，法国和英国。总体，调查结果表明，在日益数字化的媒体环境中，受访者将PSM的角色明确赋予了角色，并将其与其他媒体产品区分开来。他们认为PSM提供的信息质量高于大多数其他媒体提供的信息质量。与PSM相比，受访者更可能出于娱乐目的而重视社交媒体平台。研究结果还揭示了对PSM评估的差异，具体取决于PSM新闻的使用，新闻的兴趣，政治兴趣以及人口统计变量。另一方面，各个国家之间的总体差异出乎意料地小，这表明以下事实：尽管面临着变革和挑战，但被抽样国家的PSM在（有偏差）方面被认为比（大多数）其他媒体表现更好。他们的环境。