Media supply side analysis to enhance participatory democracy: the case of Portuguese market

According to the Portuguese Constitution (Art.2), “deepening participatory democracy” is one of the core goals of the republic. Participatory democracy implies "an open information system to ensure informed decisions" (Held, 2006), thus giving the national media the task of mediating the debate, empowering people to speak out, and being included in the decision-making process. This paper examines Portugal's media market supply side to analyze the diversity of its public service, commercial and non-profit media offering, market transparency, plurality, and standards of journalism content production which affect the capacity of the media system to cater as a forum for public participation. A supply-side analysis that articulates the strengths and weaknesses of the national media market, contributes to further developing recommendations aimed to foster democratic participation through media. The research was conducted within the framework of the project Mapping Media for Future Democracies (Horizon Europe no. 101094984), the aim of which is to assess how national media in 9 European countries meet democratic criteria and challenges, as well as under which conditions they perform. The results are based on the analysis of secondary data, namely the country’s related legislative documents and institutional research (Obercom, Marktest), country-level data from international research projects (Digital News Report, Media Pluralism Monitor), and primary data coming from semi-structured interviews with national experts. This was supplemented in view of triangulation with the creation and analysis of the data set of national media offerings covering audiovisual, press, radio, and digital native media. Overall the sample considered 228 media outlets with news elements. Results show that Portugal is highly ranked in the World Press Freedom Index (RSF, 2023 — 9/180) and trust in media (Reuters Institute, 2023— 3/46), but branded a “flawed democracy” (EIU, 2023, p. 52). The peculiarity of the Portuguese media market can be considered a high level of transparency of ownership, a mandatory declaration by each media outlet of its goals and mission in a publicly available Editorial Statute, and the absence of widely spread media associated with political forces due to the existing legislation. The political orientation of most media outlets cannot be unambiguously labeled, which, in addition to the legislation, the expert attributes to the “catch-all” strategy of the small media market representatives aimed at reaching as wide an audience as possible for the outlet to have revenues. However, the legislative infrastructure faces the systematic problem noted by the experts — enforcement of rules, which leads to significant violations affecting the stability and development of the media industry. By providing an overview of the current media market offering in a Southern European Country, the study aims to highlight already suitable premises for democratic media operation and articulate the shortcomings to contribute to designing pathways to enhance political participation and civic engagement development in the contemporary European media landscape. The presentation will focus on results presentation and discussion along with initial comparative analysis at the European level and discussion of identified key variables and trends.