BRITAIN'S media and creative industries, like those of most other comparable countries, are in the midst of technology-driven turmoil.
They inhabit a confusing world where more and more content is delivered free, or circulated illegally by millions of file sharers. Long-established business models are bust, as print circulations and broadcast ratings decline before the irresistible
rise of the internet.
This is a world where the once-solid line between professional and amateur in media production is disappearing, where social networking, interactivity and user participation are replacing the top-down model of mass communication which characterised the 20th century.
And if that isn't enough for media managers to handle, there's a global recession and advertising down-turn as well, turning long-term structural change into short-term financial crisis.
Digital Britain is the government's long-awaited attempt to address these challenges.
It leads on social inclusion, with a commitment to provide universal broadband to the entire UK population by 2012, at a speed of at least 2Mbps.
Some say that's not fast enough, given that 50 per cent of the population already has 50Mbps access.
It's an important symbolic goal, nonetheless, encouraged by a £300 million Home Access scheme for low income households. Broadband access is to be viewed as an essential utility, like electricity and water.
More will be done to protect intellectual and creative rights from illegal file sharing, although we're not going to see millions of children "banged up" for downloading pirate Harry Potter movies. The stress is to be on more education, moral persuasion, and affordability of content.
Of particular importance to Scotland and the other nation-regions of the UK is the commitment to fund independent local news consortia. The government and Ofcom have stressed the democratic function of diversity in local news provision. But how to guarantee it after 2012 when ITV's traditional source of funding – the value of its analogue broadcast licence – will have evaporated in the face of multichannel and online competition? Who will pay for Scotland Today? Digital Britain doesn't definitively answer that question, but suggests that a portion of the BBC's considerable income – perhaps that bit earmarked for digital switchover and not yet spent – is a prime target.
To the currently stressed local and regional press, Digital Britain has little to say. There is a commitment to 'clarify' the current ownership regime, and to take public interest into consideration in future merger rulings by the Office of Fair Trading. Competition barriers to merger might be trumped, in other words, by the recognised need for quality journalism at the local level.
Digital Britain is not, at first reading, a radical document. Most of its measures have been anticipated, and there is unlikely to be much protest. Times are tough, and these proposals are the least a responsible government can do to manage the transition to digital.
• Brian McNair is Professor of Journalism and Communication at the University of Strathclyde.
