1. Media and the Public Interest: Genre & Format Diversity and Socially Useful Content Cross-national comparative analysis Zrinjka Peruško Centre for Media and Communication Research (CIM), Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb COST A 30 “East of West: Setting a New Central and Eastern European Media Research Agenda” Zagreb, 30 & 31/1/2009

2. Main research question(s)  What is the role of media in contemporary society?  Is the public interest being served by their performance?  How is the competition level of the media system an issue in this?  Media policy defines the public interest and performance standards

3. Questions on research design  How do we operationally define the public interest in regard to media performance/content? (definitions will vary, where will we look for them?)  How do we operationally define socially useful content? type of program? only genres or?  The sample & and media - only TV, with multimedia, or? duration (1 week, 2 weeks, composite week?)  Description of the competition level  (How) Can we ensure comparability?

4. Expected results  Types of media programs of the socially useful and socially “useless” kind (new and old genres and formats) and their shares in total offer  How are they used by audiences  How this fits with the public interest in media performance  Comparisons between the countries and their different/similar conceptualizations of public interest in media performance and their fulfillment in media programs  Main research question(s) Main research question(s)