What is the Ombudsman for? The competence of the public service broadcaster Ombudsman

Abstract

This paper aims to review and discuss the role and effectiveness of the ombudsmen of the public service broadcasting in Portugal, supported by a theoretical conceptualization that allows us to make a brief historical reconstruction of the emergence of the first ombudsmen in the Portuguese media landscape, trying to demonstrate the advantages and disadvantages of having a figure of mediation between the public audiovisual media service and the audiences, analysing the activity reports of the ombudsmen. We conclude that despite having debated with some initial obstacles and contingencies, there is a big difference on the acceptance and respect for the ombudsman of the public service of radio and television, since it emerged up to today, which represents an indication of a greater acceptance of criticism, both by journalists and mangement, to improve the quality of information, programming and the commitment with the audiences.