How to Create and Measure Public Value for Public Service Media

Overview

This course aims to provide PSM organizations with a set of insights, new approaches, and useful frameworks that will help them define, measure, and demonstrate their value and impact. The course will cover three areas:

1) Defining public value;

2) Assessing and measuring value to demonstrate impact;

3) Developing suitable frameworks and narratives.

These are the three key steps to develop a suitable definition and related measurement framework of PSM’s value that can be used internally and externally to demonstrate the positive impact that each organization brings at an individual, industry, and societal level.

This is part of EBU Academy’s PSM Compass Bootcamp, a portfolio of courses and learning activities supporting those working in advocacy and communications. This is in support of the EBU’s PSM Compass, an online toolkit helping Members take on existential threats. Take 3 or more events in the Bootcamp series and you will be awarded a special diploma from EBU Academy.

Who it is for:

• Executives responsible for designing social impact strategies.
• Researchers responsible for assessing the social impact of media content.
• Journalists and content makers interested in creating stories that inspire societal change.

Schedule:

• 12 Oct, 9.00-11.00 am CET
• 15 Oct, 9.00-11.00 am CET
• 22 Oct, 9.00-11.00 am CET

Programme outline

Module 1: Defining value: developing a shared understanding of public value.

Public service media organisations have always had an imperative – and obligation – to demonstrate their value to the audiences, communities and nations they have been established to serve.

Public value may be best understood by developing a clear understanding of who benefits, and how they benefit, from public media. A range of ways of understanding this value have often been cited: from building engaged citizenship; to offering choice; to empowering communities through trusted information.

In this module, we will explore a range of models of value, including both cultural value and social impact, and how they can be understood as serving different publics in different ways. Participants will be guided through exercises to reflect on the explicit and implicit forms of value that have currency in their organisations, and to consider how these narratives might evolve as community needs shift and the media landscape continues to change.  

Module 2: Demonstrating value: evolving measurement techniques

Narratives and policy frameworks around public value require a robust evidence base. Different stakeholders tend to value and respond to different forms of evidence. A range of methods can be used to measure engagement, attitudes and the impact of public media content and channels. These include everything from traditional focus groups to contingent valuation studies, digital ethnographies, social listening and AI-enabled analysis of large data sets.

In this module, we will canvas a range of research methods and invite participants to draw on their experience as we explore their utility and limitations.

Module 3: Pulling it all together: building impact frameworks

Key to demonstrating value is clear purpose and strategy aligned with fit-for-purpose measurement and evidence. Impact frameworks, including theories of change, can help deliver this alignment and can motivate critical stakeholders to work collaboratively to draw these elements together – both delivering and demonstrating value.

Audiences should be central in this work, and media impact frameworks should be informed by the needs and drivers of target audiences and communities, set in the context of their wider experience.

In this, final module, we will discuss how impact frameworks can be developed and applied in a range of operating contexts. Using case studies, participants will explore how course learnings can help strengthen their own organisations’ approaches to value and impact.