The members of parliament mentioned above questioned whether the current media law is out of touch with the changes in Dutch society and the broader media landscape. Although the law of 2000 is supposed to govern all printed and electronic forms of mass media, in fact there is different legislation for public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and the press. As far as the Internet is concerned, the question of whether this should be seen as a medium or an infrastructure has not yet been asked, nor do policymakers have any answers. It is precisely the language of media and infrastructures that has made it almost impossible to answer the question in a policy-oriented manner. We will return to this later on.

In the following part of this booklet, we give a short overview of the broader spectrum of Dutch media policies, while in the next section, we will focus on policies that relate to infrastructures. Both sections confirm the fragmented nature of policymaking. They add to the contrast between policymaking and the actual developments in the media landscape.

BROADCAST POLICY IN 2005

The national public broadcasting system gets the lion's share of attention in the legislation. That is precisely the reason we pay scant attention to it in this publication, which is specifically aimed at a non-Dutch public. This emphasis has to be explained by the relevant Dutch political history.

The current media law says that organisations which want to apply for access to the public broadcasting system should represent a particular sector in society, i.e. a significant religious, ideological, social or spiritual thread. Organisations need to prove they have at least 300,000 paying members in order to be granted airtime. Airtime for commercials on the public networks is restricted. There is a fund designed to stimulate highquality cultural productions. To summarise, the mission of Dutch public broadcasting is ‘made by everyone, for everyone’. That this is a goal more than a reality was shown by the visitation committee discussed in the previous section.

In the Council's report, some recommendations were made for the future of Dutch public broadcasting following the lines of the new approach (the functional approach). We will return to this in the final section of the booklet. Let us first say a few words about the other ‘media policies’.