Sir, - Muiris Mac Conghail's timely and provocative analysis of the dilemmas facing RTE (The Irish Times, June 1), sounded a healthy note of caution about the way in which public service broadcasting is being commercialised with scant regard for broader implications.
The healthy functioning of our democracy depends as much on the recognition of communicative rights as it does on the older, constitutionally protected civil rights. Effective citizenship can be exercised only on the basis of informed choices. Such choices, and the debate that form them, depend vitally on the availability of open discursive spaces, independent of governmental and commercial dominance.
Television, uniquely capable of transcending the boundaries of time and place with an immediacy unmatched by the older media, yet accessible to a degree that the Internet is not, has become the primary medium through which this process of mutual compromise and adjustment is negotiated in contemporary societies. As such it is more than an industry; it is a key element of civic society.
As old certainties break down and new identities emerge, as ethnic and cultural minorities rise from the margins of our society, the need for space in which difference can be negotiated becomes all the more pressing. On the eve of the digital revolution there is an urgent need for RTE, the largest cultural agent in the State, as Mr Mac Conghail reminds us, to rethink its programming conventions to encompass a range of voices. Only in this way can one ensure that the many different perspectives, interests and values which enrich the cultural life of our society - as opposed to those of the economically powerful - can be heard. This will not be achieved through commercialisation. On the contrary, experience to date suggests that commercialisation has been accompanied by a flowering of channels and a withering of choice, accompanied by a notable absence of that accessibility, accountability and transparency upon which Mr Mac Conghail so rightly insists. - Yours, etc.,
Noel Coghlan, Lucan, Co Dublin.