The concept of journalism, its metatheory and, in particular, public service journalism is regulated by feedback between political models (legal and normative framework), academic precepts and social practices. Scant attention has been paid to date to the impact that these models have on citizens' discourses, which is especially relevant at "critical junctures", i.e. periods in which the old institutions are collapsing and require renovation (McChesney, 2007). Hence, this paper addresses the issue in the Spanish context in order to explore the similarities and differences between the academic/legal/normative framework and audience discourses. The former has been studied using documents, reports and legislation, and the latter explored by means of discussion groups with viewers of the newscasts of Televisión Española (TVE).

This article uses 21 in-depth interviews with viewers of the British soap opera EastEnders to investigate the extent to which it can be described, in particular through its handling of social issues, as a site of cultural citizenship and, via the concept of public service, of resistance to the current neoliberal hegemony. The article’s analysis of viewers’ talk confirms previous claims that EastEnders mobilises a nostalgic sense of community with which viewers identify, and goes on to argue that this is in fact a cultural expression of a social-democratic worldview which has lost its once-hegemonic position. Following a comparison of the British and the highly commercialised Spanish media ecosystems and their corresponding popular public spheres, the article concludes that a commitment to public service ideals contributes to sustaining spaces which, like EastEnders, can work as counter-hegemonic sites to the cultural logic of late capitalism.

This work analyses the evolution of citizens’ discourses on public service broadcasting in Spain before and after the wave of social unrest occurring between 2011 and 2013. A shift from a demand for barely defined towards more specific content, relating to the very structure of public service broadcasting, was detected. On the basis of an analysis of 11 focus groups formed by viewers of Televisión Española (TVE) and performed in two stages (2008-2009 and 2014-2016), a paradigm definable as a ‘turn to practice’ is confirmed. It has been observed that the practices pertaining to that paradigm have advocated for convergence and collaboration in the fields of information, the arts, critical thinking and certain institutional policies, which are also present in the citizenry’s definition of public service broadcasting. This has led viewers to call for a greater say in public service broadcasting and to emphasise communitarian forms of relating to it.