To those that live in a centralised state: how centralised is your media and government service

[u/kiwigoguy1]

Here in New Zealand it is a centralised state: often you read or watch media content and everyone gets the same content whether you are in Wellington, Auckland, or Westport. It can sometimes get ridiculous as in all the media is talking about a local news such as road closures in Auckland even in the South Island

When it comes to government services, parks, libraries, local roads and water matters (water for the time being) are run by the local councils. But everything else is the central government’s matters. It matters less these days if you want to reach the central government: you access them online directly, but in the old days the individual central government agencies like Ministry of Social Development, Education, Inland Revenue Department, have local offices around and you go and make an appointment to see them directly. We don’t have a local representative of the local government that you go see and sort things out.

Is it similar in your country?

[u/wosmo]

I don't know if there's really a solution to this. I grew up in the north-west of England. After the national news, it'd go to the "local" news - our nightly news was dominated by things in Manchester and Liverpool, nothing that remotely affected us.

Unless you're like BFE Idaho, most definitions of region will include somewhere that's more populous/valuable/interesting than the rest of the region, and the rest of the region will feel it. It'll "feel" solved if you're the largest entity in your region, but the rest of the region would disagree.

[u/Vaxtez → u/wosmo]

Where I am, my town is lumped in with the news from Birmingham/West Midlands, so that dominates the stories, which is annoying as it means that no news from my county ever shows up, as that gets chucked onto West Country news.

I really wish the channels would rework their borders for news regions some days, as it feels illogical for a place to get the news for events 40 miles away, yet the far closer urban areas never get any attention as news for those areas are for a different news area

[u/wosmo → u/Vaxtez]

I haven't lived there since Y2K so this isn't going to out myself too much - I spent my teens in Barrow-in-Furness. It's a weird place. It's on the southern tip of Cumbria, but is culturally more kin to Lancashire (and historically was, still has a LA postcode, etc).

The second-largest town in Cumbria, but doesn't feel like Cumbria. We used to joke that the A590 was the country's longest cul-de-sac.

So anything that treated us as part of Cumbria, felt like it excluded us. But anything that treat us as "the north-west", also excluded us - because there was much, much bigger fish in that pond.

This is what I mean when I say "local" is a very nebulous concept, unless you're the primacy of the locale. Everyone wants a region that's big enough to matter, but small enough that they're the biggest fish in the pond. If you're not the biggest fish in the pond, the size/shape of the pond doesn't matter.

[u/FingalForever]

Apologies but annoyed at your use of ‘ridiculous’, given what is importantly to one person can be wholly irrelevant to another person - be that news national, regional, or ‘local’ (given we all have different definitions of how local is local).

Ireland would appear to directly analogous to New Zealand - yes I hear about road closures in Galway (200+km away) but I shrug as anything more than 1 or or 2 km away from me is not relevant.

Apologies, the way you wrote your comment is grating.

[u/kiwigoguy1 → u/FingalForever]

I live in Christchurch and here people get angry at reading about local news from Auckland, because it has nothing to do with them (plus there is a big beef between the greater Canterbury region that includes Christchurch, and Auckland). So it is real and us one-eyed Cantabrians make no apologies for this.

[u/FingalForever → u/kiwigoguy1]

I hear you but disagree. The national government in any country must support a national broadcaster to achieve national aims. It then deals with local news appropriately. If the country is large enough, it will have local bureaus or stations such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or the British Broadcasting Corporation.

For the likes of small population countries like us, our broadcasters do the best they can.

We have local media that provides us, if we want, with very local news.

[u/MilkTiny6723 → u/kiwigoguy1]

I mean nowdays people dont buy newspapers and such. This means that there are a global decline of journalists. I mean what should they live on? It is true, in most countries the amount of journalists go down year by year in an incredible past.

Journalists then get centralized to bigger cities, and cover bigger areas. That's ofcource why it would be less local. Government agencies, ofcource, also decline in more "local" areas, due to internet and think in synergic effects. Most journalists follow reddit and other social media plattforms more than they blend among local society as a result. That also make the governments sometime forget about local issues. They dont know. No journalists.

This is gooing on globaly. In New Zealand, however, I feelt that they keept things more "local" then they do in many EU-contries. Take the EU, even if they have more centralized countries such as France (maybe the most centralized in all EU), the Scandinavian countries or the Neatherlans, for instance. In the EU most political matters are decided in "Brussels" or Luxembourg.

The EU has a goal that we all should feel more EU than national, which makes some things very not local. Otherwise such as more local government things is the same as you experience. In some ways it would also be that less is run by the public sector and more by private companies, as the EU has principles that are built on competition and free market, which makes it imposible for governments to run things as, for instance (work the same for many things) they would sometimes wish. It is rational however since a thing like Germany closing nuclear powerplants would effect countries such as France and Sweden due to the prices on the free market. If Italian coast guard doesnt do there thing countries like Germany or Denmark get flooded by refugee. When Germany need electricity prices go up in all the other countries. The local or even national governments would be charged in the EU court if they tried to change it. This make "local" be dissorted, and the things that effect me localy, in Scandinavia, may very well effect people in Rome, Warsaw and Dublin in the same way. Thats why lots of European knows a whole lot about what is going on in the other countries. We get localy very effected.

I am however okej with that. To think local ends up in things like we see in Ukraine and effect our personal economies etc.

But still, as I remember New Zeeland I think it is good that many things are still local. I feelt so good when people spoke about things of local nature as it was the center of the universe. Kind of naive and very cute. Thats why a lot of Europeans actually do fall in love with New Zeeland when they go there (even if at least most things on the Souht Island, naturewise, could be found very similar in the Nordic countries. It is local and small scale. But yes, news and local governance is taking a hit in many places, all over the world.

[u/thatnetguy666 → u/kiwigoguy1]

Why is this by the way? In Wellington, we don't really like Auckland but that's mostly because they belive their city is better then ours.

[u/kiwigoguy1 → u/thatnetguy666]

I used to live in Auckland before Canterbury. It seemed people here hold a grudge against Auckland that Auckland doesn’t produce things that earn foreign exchange (only education, and as an urban economy much of the tertiary service in Auckland isn’t visible to Canterbury).

[u/thatnetguy666 → u/kiwigoguy1]

"Auckland doesn’t produce things that earn foreign exchange"

As in Exports?

[u/kiwigoguy1 → u/thatnetguy666]

Yep, in most people’s popular imagination they are thinking about things like dairy, meat, wool, timber. Canterbury is a major producer for at least 3 of them, and Auckland none.

[u/pannenkoek0923 → u/kiwigoguy1]

But it is still good to know what's going on in your country no?

[u/SaraHHHBK]

Well a lot. Anytime that something happens it's always measured based on how far away from Madrid it is. You'll hear about Madrid's local government all day everyday.

Roads and trains are centralised in Madrid.

[u/martinbaines → u/SaraHHHBK]

In the larger Autonomous Communities roads are devolved more than elsewhere. In Andalusia only a couple of through routes are managed by the central state. Even in smaller communities most roads apart from cross country routes are managed at the provincial level (if they have provinces), or municipal level.

Virtually all services you interact with most are done at Community level too (like health, car registration, property taxes, building permissions). In fact many of those are done at the town hall. That's good and bad - where I live you can usually find a real person to talk to about things (good), but online interaction is often pretty poor.

[u/crucible]

UK - the level of centralisation varies.

There are national news and separate regional / local news shows on our two main TV networks (BBC and ITV). That said even then things vary - Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are treated as their own regions while England is split up into smaller areas.

BBC radio is organised similarly - many local regions for England, then Wales, Scotland and NI with their own national stations. Commercial radio is becoming massively centralised, older local brands are disappearing and they only broadcast the occasional local news and traffic updates every few hours.

If you’re interacting with things like our tax authorities, driver and vehicle licensing authority, or looking up foreign travel advice, that’s done at a national level (likely on GOV.UK).

Health, education, environmental matters are often devolved to the top-level divisions of the UK, so England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

So, yes, there’s a “National Health Service” but it’s split into separate services - NHS England, NHS Wales, NHS Scotland, and then Health and Social Care in NI. They’re all organised slightly differently internally. There are also a few cross-border arrangements with England for some things in parts of Wales, too.

Education is far more devolved in Scotland, they sit different exams to the rest of the UK. England, Wales and NI were broadly similar, but England have gone ‘their own way’ on a lot of things recently, too. They grade exams differently and organise the running and management of a lot of schools differently.

More ‘local’ matters like your bin collection, recycling, potholes on the road near your house - they’re down to our local councils, just like you have.

[u/Malthesse]

Sweden is also a very centralized country, with the royal court, parliament, government, government institutions and agencies, national media and national cultural and sporting institutions all mainly centered in Stockholm.

Still, public service television does have local news broadcasts as well, and these have gotten a lot better and more local over the years. Public service radio also has quite extensive and really good regional broadcasts.

Sweden’s 21 regions have also gotten quite some more autonomy over the years, and are now responsible for handling for example public healthcare, public transportation, natural protection, regional culture, regional tourism, and maintenance of hiking areas and hiking trails. Sweden’s 290 municipalities are for their part responsible for managing schools, elderly care, some social services and some local infrastructure and development planning. I personally think that the regions and municipalities ought to take over even more responsibilities from the national government, since it would move power closer to the people, and since needs, wants and conditions vary a lot across the country. This would also have the benefit of moving more focus and investment away from Stockholm and distribute it more evenly.

[u/MilkTiny6723 → u/Malthesse]

I am also Swedish. The thing with the regions is however ansoutly a result of the EU. It was and is a strategic decition that came about due to the EU "arcitetects" wanted to go less national and more EU centric. To break the citizens of the EU from their more national identity towards more European identity. By forcing all EU countries to hand out some national matters to regions and also direct EU contribition direct to the regions, they thought we would get more directed towards "Brussels". They have managed in some ways. However most things in Sweden got way less local too. The thing with the less Stockholm centric things are then both from the political fact, that Stockholm doesnt get to decide even nearly as much as people tend to think. Also due to internet. Many things do not need geographical location. The regions get a big portion of their money from Brussels and not Stockholm. And one of the bigger things. Stockholm does not have a great power net. Industries, like Northvolt (and Västerås) that wanted to locate their research departement to Stockholm could not due to an unstable electricity net. And Stickholm does not have mines, which is not a political decition.

And media. You do have to admit, especially if you are old enough to have seen, is way less local nowdays.

[u/milly_nz]

This is a weird post.

As an NZer I can tell you NZ does NOT have a centralised state press. It has several newspapers that distribute nationwide. As well as many that are local to the province.

Like a lot of countries it has a state funded TV and radio broadcaster that is responsible for ensuring a certain amount of NZ-specific content.

It’s no different to the UK’s BBC in that respect.

NZ’s media is not a “centralised” state by any means.

And the administration of state services in NZ isn’t any different to other first world nations.

OP is ignorant.

[u/Savings_Draw_6561]

I am in France and we have national but also regional media as well as local newspapers... in the national we have international news and the major affairs of the country and regional it is really centered on the region and the same for the departmental and local ones which are mainly newspapers which only talk exclusively about what is happening in them but it is often projects which are presented there and local actives no information as we understand it

[u/ErebusXVII]

Czechia is extremely centralized country. There's a well-used term for it - Pragocentrism. It started after WW1 and it keeps getting worse and worse. E.g. czech highways do not serve to interconnect regions. They serve to connect Prague with regions.

When it comes to government and media, it's even worse. All czech government institutions are in Prague. All czech media HQ's are in Prague. Prague obviously receives more focus then the rest of the country. But much bigger issue is the political bias. Since everything resides in Prague, all the employees are from Prague. And Prague is voting in direct contrast to the rest of the republic.

Another Pragocentric symptom comes from the 90's. The new law about tax offices was prepared rather poorly, with the number of employees being calculated by the amount of inhabitants, not by the number of business. This led to Prague offices being overwhelmed with work, and chance of tax control falling to the minimum. After realizing this, companies from all around Czechia started moving their HQ's to Prague, often using "virtual HQ". And further increasing the problem. And as the result, Prague, is 4th richest region in the entire EU https://praguemorning.cz/prague-is-now-the-fourth-richest-region-in-the-european-union/

Which leads to wages in the Prague being way above the rest. Which leads to more people moving to the Prague. Which leads to prices of real estate skyrocketing and being (one of) the most expensive in EU. It's a vicious circle, which was began in 1920's. And it will never be broken, because the only solution would be breaking the Prague's monopoly on everything. But since Prague is in charge...

[u/thatnetguy666]

I feel like I can offer a better perspective, as I lived in Wellington for a little over a decade or so.

A large part is that there's just too much happening in any given town village or city for that model to work here. lots of things remain the same in most areas and it doesn't really matter if your from Northland or Dunedin there's a lot less to do and far fewer incidents and accidents happen as compared to most places in Europe. Theres so much happening on any given day (for better or for worse) in most countries in Eroupe that would be way too much news for anyone to report.

[u/Ecstatic-Method2369]

I am not sure it this is really centralisation. But the way you describe this, yes there is more of a focus on de Randstad area and specifically Amsterdam in the media. Like major talkshows often take place in Amsterdam and subjects discussed are often more focussed on this part of the country. There is often a debate about how differences between de Randstad and the other parts of the country.

[u/Baba_NO_Riley]

That actually was the way to in a sense unify the country, to propone the sense of central government/ the capital as a centre for all of the country. These tendencies are especially shown in younger nations.

From my personal life experience living in a highly diverse (geographicaly, historically and linguistically to some extent) , yet small country which happen also to be a young nation state, the pressure/ tendency of pushing importance of the central part of the state backfires into resentment and frustration from less represented parts.

Pre-internet era saw local radio news and local newspaper as being the outlet to get more local news, local topics, even "local taste" music , while TV was reserved for central government and policies. Also I think at times central governments fear that loosing grip and presence in more remote parts of a state creates the risk of getting a demand of high autonomy and even eventually a country separation demands.

[u/da_longe]

To show some other perspective: we have 10 different news reports in national TV. One is for the whole country, and there is one for each state.

So 'minor', local news only get into the state news at 19:00, and bigger events are in the news report at 19:30. Some people question whether it is necessary to have 10 studios in a relatively small country, but i honestly think it is not a bad thing.

[u/roden0]

Average news report in national TV is mostly based on things happening in the capital (Madrid).

[u/Matchbreakers]

Denmark did an interesting take on this, and in the 1980s launched a second state to channel, which is completely separate from the first in location, editorial line, funding model etc. to make sure there were at least two separate sources of regular news programmes. Neither has any state control of their editorial line, and both have uncovered government misuse in the past.