Public Service and Liberal Democracy

The debate on television’s "public service"obligations can only make full sense if integrated in the broader context of the debate on the best political model for society. In fact, the classic "public service"rationale is based in a normative conception of good and in a suspicious view of the average citizen that is largely tributary of a Platonic or Elitist approach to the political organization of society. The question is therefore to know if such a view is legitimate in a Liberal Democratic society. Our understanding is that it is fundamentally incompatible the classic definition of a Liberal Democracy. In a Liberal Democracy, the individual is highly praised and no specific conception of good is imposed to society, whereas in the Platonic Republic the philosopher king is in charge of defining such a normative view and of imposing it to the ignorant masses. The "Public service"doesn’t have a place in the Jeffersonian