The author considers propositions that market and network governance are supplanting hierarchical governance in contemporary UK media and communications, Liberalisation of media and communication markets, adoption of new public management in publicly owned bodies, “outsourcing” of regulation from statutory to self-regulatory bodies and “fourth way” co-ordination of Internet institutions suggest that the importance of markets and networks as potentially “homeostatic” modes of governance is growing. However, hierarchical governance remains important, the Communications Act 2003 prescribes more than 260 duties for the statutory regulator, Ofcom, and the BBC makes a major intervention in broadcasting markets. All three forms of governance fail in distinctive ways and the author argues both that the potential for network governance failure is less well recognised than are market and hierarchy failures and that the complexity of established governance arrangements itself constitutes a distinctive form of failure of governance.
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